Hi! Since our last blog we have been very busy, as we have spent the past four days in San Francisco and have been commuting there from the U.S. Hartleys' apartment just outisde of the city, where each evening we have, invariably, got drunk in one way or another.
Monday; we explored the cheesy touristy area known as fishermans wharf or pier 39. It is horrible, literally just a tourist trap with nothing really to see or do other than spend money. The sea lions that come and bask by the pier are entertaining for a while but other than that it isnt great. Chinatown, however was pretty cool, bigger and better than NYC's chinatown (the one in SF is the largest outisde of China itself) with lots of nice little side streets to explore. The main purpose of mondays exploring was ultimately for Kate to spend 2 hours trying on every single pair of Levi's in thier 4 storey flagship store, then realise she is actually a lot smaller in US sizes than at home. We got a pair though. eventually. In the evening we went out to one of the many Japanese restaurants in San Mateo (near to Ian and Sunny's apartment) with Ian, Sunny and their housemate John. We let Ian do the ordering and so successfully sampled many different tasty varieties of sushi, athough he was far more interested in seeing who could eat the strongest cocktail of wasabi (the strangest spice - it gives you an extreme rush of pain to the tip of your nose for about 3 seconds then immediately fades away) and on providing everybody with Saki-bombs (shots of warm saki dropped into half a pint of ice cold beer; actually pretty good). It was a fun evening and by the end we were all fairly merry, and ended the night pushing each other along the street in a shopping troller - it seems that although we are a long way away, yobbish drunken behaviour prevails irrespective of where you are :)
Tuesday; we were intending to go to Alcatraz but stupidly didnt buy tickets beforehand, so bought a couple for thursday and then were at a bit of a loose end, so we decided to explore the hippy distrct known as Haight-Ashbury. This is the area where the flower power movement started in the sixties, where the Grateful Dead called home and basically where crusty beardy types live, and where you can find endless streets of vintage stores, smoking paraphenalia, and jimmi hendrix tshirts. This was fun until we tied to explore the park nearby and met literally a wall of tramps ('bums' as they are known here), it felt a lot like the scene in Shaun of the Dead..... "change, chaaaange, change", so we swiftly doubled back. As a token of our appreciation for a free place to sleep we cooked dinner for everybody, which went well until I poured boiling water straight from the kettle onto Kates hand. She has survived, albeit temporarily scarred, and despite my best efforts with the first aid kit (not needed - dont worry parents) i have yet to live down the guilt. 
Wednesday; as I have been to San Francisco before the one thing i wanted to do most was cycle the Golden Gate Bridge, which we did and it was even better than i remember. The weather was perfect, really warm although very windy on the bridge itels, but usually this area of the city is almost permanently covered in fog and cloud so it was great to cross it in perfect sunshine. Its about 8 miles (according to our dodgy not-to-scale tourist map) to get from San Francisco, over the bridge and into Sausilito so we had a bit of a rest and chilled there for a while looking out onto the views of San Francisco, then started up again with the long uphill climb back onto the Bridge. Continuing on our quest to do everything all-american we went bowling in the evening with Ian, John, Sunny and her cousin Sharona and friend Stephanie. I suggested we play drink-bowling, which was greeted with great enthusiasm by Ian and John, not so much b the others, so a three way game of gutter ball = half pint, strike = half pint for other players ensued. I seemed to come off the best, as the pictures indicate John came off the worst, fell over many many times, took his shirt off, groped Sunny and Sharona, required carrying out by me and Ian and then wet himself in the car home. Ian took revenge by shaving off Johns eyebrow, beard and half of his hair. We now all live in fear of revenge.
Thursday; with sore heads and sides aching from laughter we agreed it was a great night, although im not sure if any stronger words were passed between Ian and John later on! Kate and I travelled into the city for our last day of sightseeing there, had some fantastic thai food for about 3 pounds for lunch, then made our way to pier 33 to catch the ferry to Alcatraz - the now defunct US maximum security prison that used to be home to the likes of Al Capone between 1920 and 1963. The ticket price included an audio tour which was absolutely brilliant, as it was narrated by the ex-head guard and had stories from ex-inmates. The prison is pretty eerie but really worth the visit. Last night we chilled out in the apartment with an american attempt at indian food - not as bad as we were expecting but certainly not up to Rusholme standards!
This morning we have been attempting to slimline our backpacks (we brought too much stuff with us and have bought a fair bit too so getting our backpacks on now involves a lot of grunting and heaving) and work out what we can leave at my Uncle's house to get sent home, and have been preparing for our next adventure - tonight we are going with Ian, Sunny, John, a few of their friends and my other cousin Stu to Lake Tahoe up in the Sierra Nevada mountains where we will be staying in Stephanie's lakeside cabin until monday :)