Day 5. Friday!

Today we got up and had breakfast with everyone at a nearby cafe. Our hotel is on a street called El Camino Road and it is the longest most annoying road in all of the city. The cafe is on the same street so of course we thought "easy!" But we stopped at every lights on every block and then couldn't park. But we made it.

Then we went to Fry's with Sam. Fry's is an electronics superstore. The big ones are themed and this one was old western. It had statues of cowboys and horses and had honky tonk piano music going on. Weird. Charles and Sam both got things they needed and Christina found that DVDs are cheaper at home.

Then the three of us went to Macy's to get Charles a tie to match the bridesmaids dresses. Navy blue. We found a nice one! Then we got san and Erin a wedding present upstairs: a soda stream! Fizzy good make feel nice! Christina also looked at china.

Then we went back to Maureen's and Kerry's for a snack before heading up the mountain for the wedding rehearsal at the venue. The venue is a beautiful winery with a breathtaking view of south San Francisco through to San Jose and out to the other side of the bay (when it's not foggy).

Christina took photos because she is not in the wedding. Looks like it will be a little warmer tomorrow for the big day which will be lovely.

Then we popped home for a rest before heading out to the rehearsal dinner. They invited out of town guests only to this event ... Which turned out to be 90% of the invited guests! There were around 80 people at the dinner. We talked with some other Australians and Sam's dad and sister. The food was fish and chips from a food van (!), drinks, salads, and cake. There was a slideshow of pictures of Sam and Erin as kids and during their courtship. Super lovely.

Then we came home! And we're missing the afl grand final! Go swans!

Day 4 in America - 27/09/12

Today (Wednesday) Charles went out to meet his friends from Stanford for a coffee while Christina slept in. She was having trouble with jet lag and needed the rest! She also packed up all of our stuff.

Later we drove into San Francisco city. It was lovely and sunny when we arrived at around 1pm. We parked underground at the Academy of Science, and then walked around the Golden Gate park for a bit. We paid our admission to the Academy and had lunch in the cafeteria before heading into the exhibitions.

First up we looked at some baby ostriches who were really cute! They grow up to be super huge. Then we spent at least two hours in the enormous and comprehensive aquarium. We loved the aquarium! We took lots of photos with our nice new camera. We saw jellyfish, sharks, eels, an anaconda, an alligator, and a fish as big as Charles. It was the best. We also touched some starfish ( it was encouraged).

Then we went into the 4 storey jungle room. They made a big rainforest environment with a high humidity and lots of butterflies and tropical birds. This was in a glass dome inside the building!

By that time it was 4:30 and we thought we'd look around the park some more but when we got outside the wind had picked up and we could see tendrils if fog rolling in from the sea. It was surreal.

We thought we would drive over the Golden Gate Bridge to have a look, but it became clear that we would never ever see it! We stopped at a viewing point right next to the bridge. The fog was so thick you literally could not see the bridge AT ALL. So we drove home! Below is a picture of our view of the Golden Gate Bridge.

We had dinner with everyone again at Kerry and Maureen's. it was lovely! Then we checked into our new hotel which is nice and simple, right in the middle of the suburbs.

America! Day 3: 26/09/12

Today, we took a long drive out to Gilroy Premium Outlets: some giant factory outlet shops in the middle of nowhere. Gilroy is famous for a peculiar reason - it is a big producer of garlic. This became clearer as the day wore on.

The premium outlets were in 4 blocks of buildings. We had lots of fun looking at all the stuff and we bought some cheap things we liked.

The best thing was when we visited In'N'Out burger. It's a burger place with only thee things on the menu: cheeseburger, hamburger, and chips. The ingredients are very fresh and each order is prepared on the spot - so it's fast food which is a lot better quality than McDonald's. it was also really yummy!!

Later in the evening, Sam and Erin arrived from Boston and all the Australians had dinner together to celebrate. It was really nice!

America! Day 1 and 2.

In exchange for Sam coming all the way to Canberra from Boston to be our best man at our wedding, we travelled to California to be in his wedding!

On monday the 24h of September, Charles and I flew all the way to San Francisco. The flight was bumpy but ok. We arrived around 7pm US time, which is noon in home time. We rented a car directly from the airport and drive for 45 minutes to Menlo Park, a suburb quite far south of SF.
Our destination was the parents of Sam's fiancée, Maureen and Kerry. We were not the first Australians in town though! They already had three Aussie guests, and we were given blow up mattresses in the lounge room.

The next morning after a sleep in we decided to explore the local shops. We drove out to Stanford shopping centre which is a lovely outdoors open plan mall. We visited Macy's, Sephora, and some other places before having some pizza for a late lunch and getting some food to take home.
After we got home we went for a little walk down the local park where people were having a dog meeting group. Very cute and barky.
After dinner another Australian arrived at the house and got the second lounge room.