I have been wandering the streets of Frisco for 2 days now and my calves are killing me. Holland so does not train you for hills like these. They're worse than in the Alps cos they go straight up and go on for EVER. But it's good fun!!

Yesterday I met up with Joris and was thrilled to see him! Yaaay!!! So nice to chat and joke and laugh with him after having not seen him for half a year! Was so chuffed! We basically wandered the San Fran streets, through Chinatown and up Lombard Street, the twistiest street in the world. We wandered down to Fisherman's Wharf and watched the workers manually turn around the famous Frisco cable cars on an old fashioned wooden turntable. It was cool. We then climbed Coit Tower by sunset and enjoyed watching the sun setting over the city. I fell in love with San Fran up there.

Joris and I were planning on going to Alcatraz today but they are fully booked until the 3rd of Jan!! THE THIRD OF JAN!!!!!! Can you believe that???? It can't be THAT special.. So we bought ourselves some Ben&Jerry's ice-cream shakes and sat on some steps on the boulevard down by the piers watching the passers by in the glorious sunshine. It's a weird christmas, believe you me. Even Tammy and Jeanine said we were really lucky not to be stuck in mist all day!

Instead of going to Alcatraz we went to Union Square where Joris went off to buy a shirt and I tried to find some blue jeans in the 50% off sale at Levi's but I have decided that jeans shopping is like searching for a hay-coloured needle in a haystack. There are just too many types! Skinny, skinny boot, boot, straight, straight skinny, bold curve, demi curve, slim curve, tight curve, boyfriend curve(??), boyfriend normal, modern cut, vintage, etc etc. Oh and there's navy blue or summer blue or grey-blue or worn-blue or patchy or non-patchy etc etc. And the hundreds of sizes. And none are just for tall thin people! Either tall fat people or small thin people or small fat people but none for tall thin people! Arggh. Why are Americans so small or if they're tall, they're twice my width? I just want a simple, comfortable jeans that will survive travelling. Nope. Not possible. Grr. Will find some somewhere but gave up in Levi's. Too complicated.

As a nice Alcatraz replacement Joris and I made use of a tip of Tammy's and wandered confidently into the St Francis hotel on Union Square where we acted as if we owned the place in our hoodies and backpacks and wandered to the lift which we took to the 31st floor. Why? Because the lifts are OUTSIDE THE BUILDING. They are sooooo cool!! They're these glass cabins on the outside of the building and they're really fast so we enjoyed zooming up and down in them and taking photos of the city from high up in the air :) It's a great free tourist attraction! Then we went out to dinner in a Vietnamese restaurant called Crustacean where we had..... beef :p and salmon carpaccio… :p It was really nice and quite cheap so we were happy! :) And then we went to the MoMA but it was closed so we had special tea in a teahouse instead. It was a good day!

Tomorrow I'm going to hang around San Rafael walking the dog and Jeanine and I are going to walk the Muir woods trail in the afternoon!!! :D I didn't stay a night in the city at all but it's so nice with Tammy and Jeanine that I'm quite happy here :) I booked a Greyhound bus down to LA cos flights were 150 dollars and the bus 50 dollars so I kind of decided that 4 hours longer in the bus is worth saving the 100 dollars even though greyhound is annoying.. Still. I can do a lot with 100 dollars :p It's called budget travelling :p