I had a busy last few days in San Francisco. Wednesday started off slowly with a good sleep in and a lounge around for most of the daytime hours. Amelia and I then headed off to a traditional Japanese spa / communal baths for the afternoon and met one of her friends there. We spent about 2 hours in the spa area which was wonderful and I think I may have fallen asleep whilst lounging at some stage. Amelia, her boyfriend, Calvin and I then went to a sushi restaurant. We arrived there at 9pm and didn't get a seat until after 10pm (I was cursing that this had better be the best damn sushi place ever by that stage) and food arrived shortly before 11pm. Fortunately, it pretty much was the best damn sushi place ever and I tried a few different things including some of the raw fish dishes which I usually steer clear of. We then spent a hilarious hour or so loading Amelia's bike into Calvin's very small car and spent the night at a very swish house that Calvin was house-sitting.

Thursday, once again, started slowly (I seemed to have adjusted to holiday mode - sleeping for most daylight hours and doing things at ridiculous hours) before embarking on a 9 hour biking tour of San Francisco. We covered the trendy shopping district of Haight, where I was very well restrained and Golden Gate Park then caught a bus down to the bridge, rode over the bridge and back then headed for Pier 39. On the way we encountered three globes of the world with environmental messages. I took great pleasure in finding and photographing all the Australias on the globes. We walked around a corner, however, and discovered that there were about another 90 of them so I decided not to photograph all the rest (NB: photos will uploaded at some stage this week when I can be bothered). We had an excellent dinner at a seafood pizza & pasta place at Pier 39, excellent service as well so we tipped over 20% (I'm getting the hang of this tipping thing). We then rode over to see the sea lions who were awake and loud so we watched them for a good half hour or so until we got cold. Californian summer is definitely not what I was expecting but when I mention that people say 'Oh but you're in San Francisco' which apparently makes sense to them. San Francisco is some micro-climate of its own which makes it more like a Melbourne autumn than a Californian summer. Anyway, we part rode and part bussed back to the house, finishing our bike ride around midnight, only to discover that we were continuing it by car. We proceeded to drive around San Francisco for about 4 more hours and I got to go over the OTHER bridge in SF, which had a nice view, and check out Berkeley University, which was rather spectacular. We got home around 4am.

Friday was the Outside Lands Music Festival in Golden Gate park. The festival went over the whole weekend so Friday started late at 5pm. I saw Radiohead and Beck and few other bands that I hadn't heard of before including Manu Chao, a punk-reggae-latin-political singer who I thoroughly enjoyed. I also checked out all the stalls (Erin - there was an amazing poster of Jim Morrison which I nearly bought for you but didn't want to carry around, the artist also said he was doing Dave Grohl next) and had my first American hot dog and a chocolate peanut butter brownie (have I mentioned how much I love peanut butter and chocolate together? Americans do it to everything). I got lost from Amelia very early in the piece but managed to reunite after the show for Thai dinner at around midnight. I then went out for a few drinks with one of Amelia's friends, where I discovered that, in California, bars close at 2am (!).

Saturday was mostly written off by getting to the airport and dealing with entirely rude American Airlines staff. See apparently, even though my ticket said American Airlines all over it and I stood in the massive American Airlines cue allll the way to the check in, I was actually flying with Alaska Airlines whose check in was, handily, at the opposite end of the airport. American Airlines had a self-check in and I had to say "Excuse me" about 8 times before someone would help me and then all he told me was that I was at the wrong terminal. Thank you. Anyway, the Alaska Airlines staff were much nicer and I managed to make it to Seattle. Nick and I had dinner and then ice cream (many crazy choices in ice cream flavour, chocolate and peanut butter again came out the winner).

Today was pretty quiet, which I appreciated. I feel a bit like noone has let me sit down for the past few months. Nick and I went to the Science Fiction museum which I enjoyed greatly and the Experience Music Project (once again Erin - this place was buit for you, music snobbery at its finest). EMP was also fun but I didn't have enough time to see all of it so I'll go back later in the week. I have spent the rest of the day lounging and watching movies. Hoping for a few days of rest while I'm in Seattle. Weather here sucks. Like old school Melbourne rain BD (that's before drought). I'm slightly miffed that I escaped Melbourne winter only to find myself in other grey and rainy climates (mental note, next time think Hawaii).

Nick's gerbils are currently frantically running round and round in a wheel. Evidently, Amelia also subscribes to the theory that every good house needs a rodent or two. She has rats. I'll have to live without rodents when I get to NY next week.

Love and hugs to Neptune and Bunni. Love to Sammy.