Well here I am in San Francisco! I flew in to Los Angeles on Sunday afternoon and got a conecting flight straight up to San Francisco to meet Natalie's sister Abby and her friend Lucy. We stayed in a hotel called The Stratford that the girls had found online and it turned out to be a absolute bargain at a great location at the bottom of Union Square. We've had a great few days - on Monday we went out to Alcatraz on the ferry and did the tour - quite spooky in places but very good! Learnt all about the famous residents, Al Capone and Machine Gun Kelly as well as the bird man of alcatraz Robert Stroud (although it turns out he never actually kept birds on the rock - that was at another prison before hand! After Alcatraz we went over to pier 39 and had lunch overlooking the sea-lions. THey all swim into the harbour and hang out on a load of pontoons - sometimes theres so many of them that the pontoons are sinking on one side but they don't seem to care! That afternoon Abby and I went up to CAstro (the gay district) and then Haight Ashbury (the HIppy district) for a look around and to hunt down a top that she wanted to buy.

On Tuesday we had a lazy morning in the hotel and then headed out over to the Golden Gate bridge as it was a sunny day. We'd bought three day travel passes that enabled us to jump on and off buses and Muni buses and the cable cars so getting around or getting lost wasn't a problem! San Fran is one of the few places that uses cable cars that roll along the floor (they are connected to cables under the ground that you can't see) and not up in the air. Theres a main building where all the winches operate the cables all daylong and all the men have to do on them is operate these big breaks in the center of the cars. Sometimes it gets so busy that you have to stand outside on the edge of the car and hang off the edge with only a pole to hang onto. Im a bit clumsy at the best of times so was a bit worried about falling off but no injuries so far!!

After the Golden Gate Bridge and popping back to the hotel we went down to fishermans wharf in the evening for dinner. I had the infamous Clam Chowder served in a sour dough bread loaf! It was very good and cost about two quid - so I'm going to repeat the experience today!! That was Abby and Lucy's last night so the next morning we jumped on the cable cars for a ride up to Lombard Street which is the most crooked street in the world - think zig-zag! Then the girls got the shuttle bus back to the airport at 2.30pm and I came over to
Broadway to the Green Tortoise which has now been my home for two nights!

The green tortoise is great - I arrived on Wednesday which was one of their free food nights, they
needed helpers to make it (it was mexican night) and so I ended up in the kitchen making
new friends and drinking free beer! We also got to be first in the queue for food so it turns
out theres a lot of perks to being a kitchen helper! Its Shepards Pie night tonight so I reckong I'll end up back in there come 5.30! Yesterday I got the BART (underground) up to the airport as I needed to book some internal flights (can't do it online as I have an english credit
card and billing address which sucks!) and then went for lunch with Freya who I first met
in New Zealand - she was randomly on the same traffic lights as me and I didn't even know she was up in San Fran! I also splashed out on a lonely planet guide to the states as I am terrible at the geography.

So on Monday I'm off to Denver to see the Rocky Mountains for a few days, its going to be lovely and hot again too (although the weather here is actualla all blue sky anyway!) so I may bare my mosquito bitten legs and get back my tan! Then on Friday next week I fly to Nashville in Tennessee where I can do the music hall of fame and see the Johnny Cash memorial. Then i bus it down to Memphis to check out Gracelands (only just found out that Elvis is actually buried there!) so that should be excellent! I fly back to Denver on April 9th and on to Las Vegas to meet Lewis and Lizzie on the 10th!! Apart from that I have no plans from then on as I dont think its too good to be too tied down! This afternoon I'm heading out for clam chowder and to the Museum of Modern Art for a bit of culture! xxx