So after a lovely farewell meal (and more beers at the pub - George!) with the family and some last minute packing, we were both ready and excited but sad to go. Amazingly, we managed to get some sleep and (Jo Hervey won't believe this) actually got up, ready and arrived at the airport with an hour to spare! We even had time for a little photo shoot as we left. Dad drove us to Heathrow and mum came along to say goodbye. There were a few tears but we all pretty much held it together (unlike myself and the girls after a few too many drinks on Friday night!). We waited around and updated facebook as check in wasn't open yet! The only way we could describe how we were feeling was 'strange', a mixture of excitement, sadness and nerves.

Eventually we were able to check in and get our journey started. We looked around the shops n had breakfast then made our way to the gate where we then did some more waiting.

The flight was fun! Free drinks, lots of films and the food wasn't so bad. After I'd managed to swap seats with someone, me n George sat together and watched Iron Man 3 and a film called the Incredible Burt Wonderstone- very funny, would definitely recommend. We then got practising for Vegas n played some cards. The 11-hour flight quite literally flew by ;)

When we arrived at the airport we then needed to figure out how to get to the hotel. After getting lost a few times (shock!) We found a shared taxi service that took us right to the door. Our first impressions weren't great. We're at a hotel in downtown San Francisco and on the way we saw homeless people, pimps in purple suits and some other dodgy looking characters. The hotel is BASIC! It's called Hotel Mithilla, Sutter street. We booked the cheapest room which is on the 4th floor and has a shared bathroom which is on the 2nd floor on the opposite side of the hotel. The room is small but at least it has a tv! The bed sheets are questionable! We're overly pleased that we invested in a travellers sleep sheet.

It was 4pm local time so we dumped our bags and went to explore, insuring we took a map from the hotel so we could find our way back! We walked through Union Square then around China town. It was huge and there were hundreds of shops all selling the same things; waving cats, Buddha figurines, insence sticks etc. We started to get peckish so we found a little Chinese canteen where we were the only English people but it was busy so we figured that was a good sign. We sat down and they brought us some Chinese tea then we ordered a set menu with a few different dishes to try. While we waited we studied the city map to gain our bearings. The food arrived in massive portions so we ended up putting some in take away boxes for lunch for the following day (we're so resourceful nowadays). It was now 8pm in San Francisco but 4am in England and having been up since 5 the previous day we were struggling to keep our eyes open. So we headed back to the hotel and fell straight to sleep!