Round the World

Suzie and I are in the midst of our second round the world holiday. Not much to say today (or at all) but I did finally map our travel path.

Tomorrow we're taking the train up to Perth, Scotland to stay with a friend of Suz.

SB was asking where all the photos are. As I haven't found (or made) the time to do regular blog updates, I thought I'd post a link to the photo gallery. It has some photos in there that haven't made it in to the blog.

In the gallery, be sure to click the 'L' link to view the photos at their best. You can also subscribe or use feeds to get the latest photos. I think you can use the feeds in iPhoto and others.

The Profile Page also provides another good summary view of stuff.

Tomorrow we drive from Santa Cruz back to San Francisco. We'll be in SF for another 3 nights before we fly out to Hawaii.

That's how the song goes!

We finally checked out of San Francisco (for now). The hire car was booked for midday AND believe it or not I was there on time pick it up! We waited (and waited) for the car to be ready and eventually got out of the city about 2pm.

The drive south to Santa Cruz really isn't that far (it's much like driving from Melbourne to Philip Island). We stopped in Half Moon Bay for lunch, had some great mexican food. Moving on, we made it to Santa Cruz by dusk.

After checking in, we went for a drive around the city. Silly idea! We didn't have a map. We drove around for about 2 hours, somehow getting more and more lost. Eventually had to stop at 7-11 and buy a town map. We found our way back to the hotel and decided it would be better to discover this city in the day light.

Today we woke up late and maybe just a little hungover after seeing Razorlight at Slims the night before.

We got away from the hotel about midday and took two cable cars to Valejo Street. We followed a walking tour from the trusty Lonely Planet guide. Wow, there's like 1000's of stairs to climb. Something about the angle of these stairs is wrong! They seem to increase the effect of gravity on your body.
The walk climaxes when we finally get some down hill action - walking down the famous Lombard Street. Yay a crooked street.

Instead of getting back on a cable car we continued down the hill ending up at a place (Columbus Ave) where we'd been a few nights earlier. We walked more until we stumbled across what must have been San Francisco's 'Little Italy'. It's not that different to Lygon Street Melbourne. Had an okay lunch there at Calzones Restaurant (a bit expensive and not that good).

Hitting the uphill again we walked to Telegraph Hill and Coit Tower. A nice view of the city, but the place we went to the day before was better. Heading east from Coit Tower the street is a pedestrian only path that winds and drops away quickly, later it's boardwalk and wooden steps with cool semi-tropical gardens - I would definitely recommend this route, if I could only remember the name of the street...

We make it back to sea level and we're a block from the wharves (again!). We walk back in to the city and find another cable car to get back to our end of town. The sun was setting as the cable car slowly followed it up the hill.

Tonight we didn't leave the hotel, I have a cold and we had plenty of stuff to work out. Several hours later now, we have almost have a plan. For the next week we'll be hiring a car and going south of San Francisco to Santa Cruz, Big Sur and beyond.

The days are going way too quickly. Day 27 Already!?!?
Well actually it's day 30 now... but I'm writing about getting here... which was a couple of days ago.. hmm... too much detail?

We changed some of the dates of our trip. We didn't think we would get much from London in only a few days. Besides spending the pound for much longer could sap us dry. Our tickets are semi-flexible, we can change the dates and times. But are not allowed to change the route. We took a cheap flight from Manchester to Heathrow. (It was about a quarter of the price of the train, btw)

We stayed at the McDonalds of hotels 'Premier Travel Inn Heathrow' (enough said - I could rant about the terrible food, the red flashing lights on the smoke alarm that was apparently 'normal operation' or even how bookings.com doesn't advertise the true prices that they 'discount', but I wont).

So we leave the Hotel about 8am, then freak out for a while as our flight is delayed. Eventually we fly to Munich at midday, transferring planes with enough time to stock up on large quantities of duty free cigarettes and Daim Bars, check my gmail on my 3G phone (as any nerd would) and then get straight on the plane to San Francisco (12hr flight!).

Side note: I have a mate who runs GlobalFreeLoaders.com (a network of people who can crash at other peoples places all over the world for free)
Funny coincidence: Just as I was leaving Munich I received a GlobalFreeLoaders request from a person in Munich wanting to stay with us in Australia. (We won't be there so it ain't going to happen, haha)
Stupidity: we've been all over the place and haven't yet considered trying this service for our selves.

We arrived in San Francisco and were delighted to be picked up at the airport by Josh and Kerry. Previously we had only known them as JMan and MrsJMan from the Gomez Forums. Having never met us before it's a very nice thing to have done for us. They brought us some maps, umbrella and a pre-paid local cell phone to borrow. How cool is that! What an excellent introduction to SF.

Although only 8pm in us the US, our body clocks said it was about 3am. Josh and Kerry could probably see our eyes rolling back in our heads. They graciously dropped us at our hotel and we were 'home'! Almost 24 hours spent just getting from A to B... and very glad to have made it to the place where sleep happens