Caught shuttle bus to airport, big queue for security. Seems a bit over the top having to take my shoes off before getting the big full body X-ray thing but oh well. Found a really nice Mexican restaurant to have lunch and a couple of Margaritas while waiting for flight to San Francisco. By the time I headed to the departure gate I was feeling quite merry.

Of course in true United Airline style we did not leave on time. Not too long a delay this time, 10 minutes. Shortly after the plane took off I fell asleep and woke up about 10 minutes out of San Francisco.

Caught a shuttle bus to the hotel which collected one other passenger but we got stuck on the motorway. I guess it is Friday night here in the city by the bay. Just found out one of the hold ups on the way to the hotel was caused by Mrs Obama (the President’s wife), she’s in town to raise money for a charity – so that explains all those motorbike cops and important looking car.

Set out for a walk in the hope of capturing the bridge before dark and before the clouds (fog) made it too hard to photograph. Wow – what a sight. I made it and I could see Alcatraz too. From there I walked along the waterfront to Fishermans Wharf, on the way hundreds of cyclists went past in a huge pack and some of them were naked!!!

Dinner in a fabulous Italian restaurant above the water.

After dinner I was a tad worried about walking back to my hotel (well I wouldn’t call it a hotel, more like a DIVE) as the place I’m staying in is in a pretty bad area from what I could see, so I asked a “tuk tuk” dude how to get a taxi from around here, he said he could take me he only works for tips. I felt a bit silly sitting in his trailer being towed around the dodgy streets of San Francisco by bicycle – poor guy really had to pedal hard to get up some of the streets, which made me feel even sillier as I wanted to get out and help push the bloody thing, but at least I felt safe!

Once back at my room I questioned reception if they had put me in the correct room, coz that ain’t what I would call a “suite” – it was the darkest, most depressing and smallest room I’ve ever been in. I paid extra for a suite. He said I was in the wrong room actually but my room was actually bigger than the so called “King Suite” I had booked, I could change if I wanted to, but that sounded worse. Ten minutes later I was asking for instructions on how to turn on the air con, the coffee machine and the lights – turns out many of these things didn’t actually work and that’s why I was having trouble. Half an hour later I was back at reception complaining about the noise coming through the wall. The hotel backed onto what sounded like a very popular bar and there was so much noise I knew I would not be able to sleep, I had tried to turn on the TV to drown out the noise, but couldn’t find the remote control or operate the TV manually, I tried to have a bath but there was no plug!!

The nice guy at reception moved me to their quietest room, right on the ground floor by the car park!!!!! I didn’t feel at all safe and couldn’t go out for a drink because I would have to take all my belongings with me – not a good look in a bar. So I watched TV and went to sleep after all the drunk loud people returning to their rooms stopped fighting in the car park!