San Francisco Day 200

A beautiful day today, blue skies and only a touch of fog, but absolutely freezing cold - again... A lovely day for taking a bike ride - along the water front and up and over the Golden Gate Bridge. A fabulous experience if I hadn't been so concerned that Maxi parked up behind Martin on a child's seat was slowly turning to a block of ice, albeit that he was wearing four layers of clothing plus a fleece plus a jacket. We came back the quick way - on the ferry - faster, more relaxing but equally cold.

San Francisco - land of cable cars, seals and clam chowder. We had some reservations about visiting the good old US of A but have been pleasantly surprised - lovely old houses, friendly people and a satisfying number of "Bush is a loser" bumper stickers. The journey to here from Trinidad could have been harrowing: 6am breakfast at Piarco, Trinidad, lunch in Puerto Rico, dinner in Charlotte, North Carolina and bed at 2am in San Francisco - we all arrived in good shape considering. The fact that the airline had specially selected us (they make it sound as if we should be pleased - like we had won something...) for an indepth search was a minor glitch but Maxi soon saw them off with a loud and glorious screaming fit as he didn't want a strange man swishing a metal detector all over him and voiced his opinion loudly.

Five nights here have passed remarkably quickly, I am amazed how we have fitted into motel life so easily, the evenings are usually spent with Zac glued to the TV and Martin to his computer, Maxi making zoos with his now enormous collection of small plastic animals and me pottering around doing very little quite successfully. Tomorrow we zoom off the Mexico City, so I had better brush up on my Spanish.


We are reeling a little from leaving Trinidad which was quite a wrench for all of us, however in many ways we were ready to leave and we all know that we will return again at some time in the future. Conversations about New Zealand are frequent with the children as we all turn our thoughts to home whilst still trying to live in the present and enjoy each experience to the full (interspersed with Maxi asking on a daily basis whether it is his birthday today or not!).