of Alameda, where we were booked into the Marina Village Inn. On exiting the airport we realised how difficult it must have been finding the place. There were no signposts to give you any idea of what general direction you were heading! In fact American signposts are particularly bad, they are either at the exact point your supposed to exit the road or freeway (if your going to call it by its American name!) or they just don’t bother! It is very hit and miss as to whether you’re going in the right direction much to Rob’s annoyance!

After a brief glimpse of San Francisco we found ourselves whizzing over the Bay Bridge, which is the biggest bridge I have ever seen in my life! It makes the Golden Gate look like a baby! It is an enormous structure, it has an island half way across it and has in total 10 lanes, 5 on each deck of it and is 8 miles long! Wow its no wonder Americans do things

big! It is crazy to think that they are building another one right next to it, as this one is too small for the volume of traffic!! Hmmmm, ever heard of global warming America? The volume of traffic is frightening and coming from countries such as Australia where they take the environment seriously it is truly shocking to see so many cars. To be fair to California we have seen signs of an attempt at recycling and the raising of the publics awareness on global warming, but it’s not really in full swing yet! Although I do also think that it has a great deal to do with the current US president, the monkey that is Mr George W Bush. It also has to be said that it warmed our hearts at the amount of people we have met who utterly dislike their leader and think he is a complete embarrassment!

After the shock of the volume of traffic we found ourselves pulling up (yeah in our car!!!) outside the Marina