Hey y'all from America!

Well, we made it to our final country after a long flight from Fiji. Here we are in sunny san francisco, we've been here a week and there's so much to do! We have done all of the typical touristy things-been to chinatown, union square where shops like tiffany, gucci and macys are (sadly backpackers budget won't stretch that far!), levis plaza and climbed the many steps to coit tower.

On tuesday we walked to the golden gate bridge, underestimated quite how far away it was but we got there eventually! It was huuge and we could see amazing views of Alcatraz and the city from it. well worth going to-it looked just like it does on the postcards! We also went to Alcatraz island and prison. It was absolutely amazing and as we arrived it looked rather haunting with a layer of thick fog over the prison. When we got there we had a tour guide who gave us a talk about the attempted (and successful) escapes of the prison. We then got given personal headsets and could tour the prison and cells as we liked, while listening to an audio tour given by previous cellmates and guards. The prison was really creepy and strangely resembled The Shawshank Redemption prison!

We have sampled the delights of San Francisco while watching the street acts-there is a cheescake factory here on the top floor of Macy's! There were over 50 flavours to choose from..oh my goodness we are both going to return home the size of barn doors!! We have also been to a typical retro, 50's style american diner which was funny! Fisherman's wharf, an area a bit like an upper class Blackpool, was a fun experience as there is "the bushman" there. He's basically an old tramp who makes a living from hiding on the pavement holding a bush infront of him and then makes people jump! Very funny to watch!

Today we've joined the locals (25 thousand people to be exact) to do a 10km charity walk for Aids. It was a great atmosphere with everyone walking together, cheering each other on in typical US style - you go girlfriend etc! There was entertainment and loads of free food/energy bars for everyone, you would think we were all doing a marathon the amount of drinks etc that were given out!! All in all, over 4.5million was raised!

We head off to the Big Apple tomorrow-our last destination before going back to sunny England! see you very soon, looking forward to it

lots of love x mush and megs x x x x x x x x x :)