We had an interesting start to today with Fiona frightening the life out of some poor wee Indian dude she walked in on in the toilet, to be fair I think she got the biggest scare, the whole floor was woken up by their united screaming, I was laughing to myself in bed, she came running back into the room with her arms waving, you had to see it...... The story goes that she just walked into the open toilet and the light was off, this wee chap jumped up from the pan waving his arms about, Fiona stood there screaming waving her arms about too. I wished I'd seen it...... It was battering down with rain all day, we done some washing in the morning then went for breakfast, I got chatting to some Aussie ... read more

As they say here, we were up early for breakfast and out by 9am, it was glorious day, about 20 degrees, we had planned to do loads today and first on the agenda was Lombard Street, "The crookedest street in USA" as it markets itself, you've seen in on the telly, a windy street of right angles that cars que up to drive down. The walk up to it is mental, we felt like we were going to fall backwards it was that steep. The street itself is small, and didn't look as impresive as I remember on TV, there were no plants or that on it with it being winter so I didn't look as big as I though it would, crowds of cars waiting to drive down it though, just one one of those ... read more

After a decent but brief sleep we were awake at 5am on Wednesday, the hostels free breakfast opens at 7am so we were first in the que for that. The meals are in a big ballroom with a kitchen on the side, bizarre set up but works well. Plenty of juice, tea/coffee, bagels, fruit and that, filled up then headed out for our first day on the Bay. We took a walk down through North Beach to Fishermans' Wharf, went through Telegraph Hill, a really nice area of San Francisco, loads of trendy houses and those mental streets you see on the films, zero danger I'm going cycling here. Fishermans' Wharf is the touristy part of the city, where Alcatraz is on the one side and the Golden Gate Bridge on the other, both are impressive ... read more