San Francisco

DAY 2 22nd AUG
After a sleep in (until nearly midday) and a small breakfast, I was sent over to see if Mike and Eddie were awake and ready to go. To my delight I was treated to some delicious bread-like sticks called "Senorita Bread". They are bread made with sweetened condensed milk instead of regular milk, rolled out then, rolled up like cigars and filled with custard. They are so delicious, after eating 1/3 of the box the rest of my family joined us as they were wondering were I was. We headed off to Mike and Eddie's friend's Amanda and Darren's house - which

is over the Golden Gate Bridge in the suburb of San Anselmo. They were having a party for their friend Rachael, who is moving to Germany for two years. Upon arriving we were given a warm welcome and we ended up staying there for a the rest of the day. Michelle and I went for a swim & the pool wasn't heated, but it was WARM. We were treated to an American BBQ - they use charcoal to cook their meat - and serve it in buns with salad on the side. Similar to our Aussie barbecue's with no where near as much meat. While there, we saw our first squirrels, who gave us a nature lesson I didn't really expect to witness, in the trees behind the pool. Later that night, after a warm send off, we headed back to our apartment via a lookout overlooking the Golden Gate Bridge from the Northern side. The views were quite spectacular, and it was only cold, not freeing like it often is.

DAY 3 23rd AUG
Today I woke up quite a lot earlier than yesterday, gaining consciousness at roughly 8 am. Everyone else started stirring a couple of hours later. As Mike and Eddie had a event they had to attend we headed off by ourselves. First stop was the Palace of Fine Art. We walked around for a hour or so and took lots of photos. This place is amazing. Next we attempted to visit Coit Tower, but it was extremely busy and there was nowhere to park, so we left and headed for our next destination - Costco. The problem was - we were inexperienced programming our new GPS, and it kept taking us back to the start of the programmed drive so, after driving around in a large circle multiple times and Mum and Dad were getting a bit frustrated. We then got a message from Mike and Eddie saying for us to

meet them at the Russian Bakery, and once again the GPS got us driving in circles until Mum cleared out the old destinations and entered in the location of the Starbucks across the road.
We met up with them and had lunch at the Russian Bakery. I demolished a meat and cheese Piroshki, Chocolate Royal cake and a Mishka cake - just :)
We then explored the area under and around the base of The Golden Gate Bridge (the Southern end) and then went on to Fisherman's Wharf. This reminded me of a miniature Royal Adelaide Show, but without the usual animals - and with Sea Lions instead. The only ride was a double decker carousel. There is an area at the end of the wharf were Sea Lions were sleeping, or fighting amongst themselves if one of them landed on the others when launching themselves out of the water and onto the platform.
We discovered an Antique Arcade Game gallery which was full of Antique games that were really old. We had dinner at Aliotos, a seafood restaurant on the wharf my parents went to 23 years ago on their last visit. I chose the fresh fish combo which was three different types of fish - Salmon, and two other types I don't recall, on a bed of mashed potato. After leaving, we went up Coit Tower to take pictures of the night time views. After taking pictures we went
to Mike and Eddies apartment for drinks and some nibbles (for the hungry people) plus to meet their 6 ft 7 in friend Jeff. For the first time in a while I was dwarfed by someone!

DAY 4 24th AUG
Today didn't run smoothly at all. After a sleep in we started preparing for the next plane trip. Dad had parked over

someones driveway and luckily Mike's neighbour notified us as we were about to be towed away, and we only received a fine. We then headed to Muir Woods for a look, but once there we found that the closest car park was 3 miles from the entry, so we gave up. Instead, we went for a drive through Mill Valley. I would't want to be in this area if a bush fire broke out. Very hilly, lots of narrow roads, gum trees and wooden houses. We headed back to Fisherman's Wharf to go to The Bay Aquarium. However, after having lunch at a nearby store, we decided we couldn't be bothered visiting the aquarium, so we went to around the local Costco store to see how it compared to the one back in Adelaide. Interestingly, the layout was extremely similar, so we could find our way around easily. We then proceeded home and I did some homework and then a bit of preparing for the next flight and waited for Mike to finish work so we could go out to dinner. This was at a REALLY nice pizza restaurant called Patxi's which made the best Chicago style pizzas around. We ordered two large deep dish meat lover (Michelle and I we picked our own ingredients) pizzas and a smaller Vegetarian deep dish pizza for Uncle Michael. Most people had two or three slices, however I had four and a bit. After everyone finished we stumbled out the door with full bellies and headed home via the lookout at Twin Peaks. We dropped in to Mike and Eddie's apartment and had a chat before we headed back to our apartment. We did a bit more packing in preparation of our early start, and went to bed.