Ken was a hero and drove us the 420 miles from Barstow to San Francisco, after an early start. We dropped the hire car off with 13 minutes left on our rental agreement, and felt bereft at losing our method of transportation! 1415 miles after we'd picked the car up, we were in San Francisco airport with little idea of how to get into the city centre. We navigated our way onto the AirTrain, and then onto a bus. It was only about 18km into the centre but took an hour and a half. When we reached the end of the line, we had no idea how to get to our hostel. Plus it was cold, and we hadn’t eaten all day, so we opted to take a taxi. This was less than straightforward, and we had to ask someone to call us a cab as there were none passing by the bus station or in the taxi rank. One expensive taxi ride later, we were at our latest hostel.

We had a vague plan to go to San Francisco and get married in City Hall . Well, vague plans do not make a wedding ceremony. We spent a couple of frustrating days trying to organise something that was unorganisable. Whilst there were marriage ceremony slots available at City Hall, there were no marriage license slots available, which meant we couldn't get married. San Francisco was really expensive and proving not much fun, which was a real shame because we’d heard such great things about the place. Plus we were planning on being there for nearly two weeks. Feeling fed up, we opted to leave San Francisco and fly to New York instead, on something of a whim. In the meantime, we did accomplish some fun things. We took a bay harbour cruise for an hour, circumnavigating Alcatraz, the infamous prison, and taking in the two famous bridges – the Oakland Bay Bridge and the Golden Gate Bridge – and lovely views of San Francisco city. We went to Pier 39 and watched the sea lions making ruckus, which was surprisingly entertaining. We strolled around the city, visited Union Square and the outside of City Hall . We hired a tandem bike and cycled around the bay, and across the Golden Gate Bridge, and back again. We ate some great food in some dedicated vegetarian restaurants.

However, it wasn’t all fun. The hostel was fine, but shared bathrooms are just not that desirable, and it was very expensive. On our last day, we overheard another couple complaining about cockroaches in their room. Alcatraz, like everything else, had to be booked in advance and we were just not that organised - so we couldn’t go to Alcatraz. The information point was closed when we went and we never did figure out the bus system around the city. We didn’t take a cable car up a hill because when we went to do so, the line was ridiculously long. City Hall was closed when we went so we couldn’t take a look around. The level of customer service was, like other places in the USA, pretty terrible. And the cycling, whilst fun, was from a company which charged by the hour - the hour including the 25 minutes of signing paperwork and having to watch a ridiculous video before getting the bike.

So on Tuesday 25th, we checked out, and made our way back to San Francisco airport for our flights to New York!