San Francisco

At the end of our coastal journey we arrived at San Francisco. I was fairly sceptical about staying here. The guide book (Lonely Planet California) wasn't very inspiring and I'm not a bit fan of big cities. G had booked us into the Hotel Des Arts which was fairly chilled out and quite interesting. They're still in the process of adding the art so things changed in the foyer every day. Some of the guests were trying really hard to achieve that starving artist look, but the $200 trainers give it away every time. This hotel wins the prize for best shower of the entire trip (tall building = high pressure water supply). This was our room in the hotel. I'm not sure I'd want this on our wall at home but it made a change from the chain hotel chintz.

We didn't try to fit in all the touristy things, but just wondered a bit and did what took our fancy. We went in the Musee Mecanique which has loads of old slot mechines. My favourite was a football (soccer) game where all the metal men had little crochet jumpers on.

We also went round the historic boats in the harbour and on the trolley/cable car etc. We tried to go to the Museum of Modern Art but ended up at the Cartoon Art Museum (excellent Keith Knight exhibition) and Textile Museum instead. We cycled out to see the Golden Gate Bridge one afternoon. The rental place urge you to cycle over the bridge and back, but since I am so rubbish at cycling we didn't make it there in time to return the bikes so we just looked from one end.

On the way we stopped to see the Wave Organ, which is on the end of a pier. There's loads of pipes going out into the sea. The tides and waves cause notes to be played. Surreal.

We also went to the Stinking Rose garlic restaurant, which was amazing. How I love garlic.