The builders didn’t wake us, the maids in the halls didn’t wake us, what woke us, was the friggin AC/Heating unit.  Yes, the back-fire bang, had us up early.  However, I refused to get out of bed.  We got up around 10am, left the hotel around 11am.  True to form so far, Lucy, my un-trusty SatNav/GPS, took us the scenic route.

Ok, so for the most part it worked out nicely, on the way TO the hotel we got to go through some nice wee towns, and on the way FROM the hotel, today, we stumbled upon a little town called Sausilito.

Think Cornwall, think Brighton, think any little seaside town where you go for a fish and chips and ice cream.  That’s what Sausilito is!

It was quaint and ‘ye olde’ and it had some beautiful views of both San Francisco and the marina/bay.  We found a place called ‘Fish and chips’, unique and creative name, I know.  But we went with it.  The portion was European sized, which, considering we were eating deep fried fish and chips, was probably a good thing.

The chips were cut skinny – for the American market, but, had they been cut a bit thicker, they’d have been perfect. Ok, it was a little more expensive than I’d like to have paid for it, but, it was, by far the best fish and chips we’ve had in the States to date.

From there, it was over the Golden Gate bridge we went, the road split when we got o’er the bridge, with little warning, and we ended up, once again, on a merry voyage to get to Lombard Street.  It wasn’t a particularly scenic route, but man did it take a long time, we were stuck in traffic for almost an hour!!

Then we sat in Lombard Street traffic for another hour – and, for those of you who’ve ever done that before, holy crap it’s scary.  You’re sitting bolt upright, cars in front, cars behind, there are cars who don’t particularly deal with the uphill well that you can hear screeching up ahead and even the walkers heading up the hill are totally knackered, using trees to help them stand upright! LOL!

When we got to the top, we made our way down, it may be the most windy road around, but it wasn’t overly impressive.  The flower beds weren’t in bloom and, as far as I was concerned, it was two hours of me dying to go to the toilet, wasted, to drive down a windy hill!

Because I was so dying to go to the loo, and, what you’ll quickly grow to learn is, that San Francisco doesn’t DO public toilets, in fact, even cafe’s and coffee houses don’t DO toilets.  So, in order to go to the toilet, I had to go in to the skeeviest Burger King I’ve ever laid eyes on (while Col went to park the car), buy something, get a token off the manager, and wait in line for the toilet.  It was traumatic and the food was cold, disgusting and such a waste of money just to go to the toilet!!!

From there, we dandered over through the Fisherman’s Wharf to Pier 39.  Blackpool, Chicago, Brighton many cities on both sides of the Atlantic have a pier and, truth be told, I’ve always thought if you’ve seen one, you’ve seem ’em all.

However, each one I go to, I am made more and more aware that they all have something individual to offer.

We started our dander down this Pier, with a wee trip to the bath salt making station.  Seriously, they had HUGE kegs filled with various coloured bath salt  You picked a bottle (buy 2 get 1 free) you walked around the kegs picking your scents/colours and filled your bottle.

This place was packed, adults and kids alike loved it.  I was also suckered in, I had lots of fun picking my flavours and trying to make my bottles look pretty (and filling them up as much as I could at the same time).

Bottle 1 – pomegranite, lemon, apple, mango.

Bottle 2 – rosemary, vanilla, dragons blood, citrus basil

Bottle 3 – melon, oatmeal, lemon, vanilla, china rain

I think Col enjoyed watching me having fun, moreso than him actually enjoying himself.  But it smelled nice, the company was run by two lone British guys and it was cleaning up, the kids thought it was a great novelty!

We went back through the Fishermans Wharf, which was filled with street entertainers (I wish I’d taken some pictures) and walked up to Ghirardelli Square – where many of the spots had closed for the day, so it was a bit of a disappointment.  The queue for the chocolate/ice cream place was way too huge and we were to hungry to hang around.  Chalking it up to experience , we headed back down towards the Piers, where we’d picked a bakery to have our anniversary dinner in.

This was originally the whole point of the trip, well, one of them.  Firstly we needed something to celebrate and mark our two year wedding anniversary that happened in October.  We decided on a trip.

Secondly, I needed 3090 miles, to make the leap from Silver Elite status with Continental, to Gold Elite Status for 2012.  What that means is, in short, instead of the two bags at 50lbs that you get at Silver, you then get three bags at 70lbs a piece.  For those of you who don’t fly a lot, it may sound a little on the crazy side, but when we’re heading home next year for the first time in two years, an extra bag makes all the difference!

Plus, when an upgrade opportunity comes along, at Silver, it’s just the solo traveller who gets upgraded, whereas with Gold, it’s the traveller and your companion.  There are other benefits, but these are the top-ones that interest us! LOL!  So, hopefully, it’ll work out to be of great benefit to us in 2012 as we tend to travel quite a lot.

Anyway, I know, the bakery doesn’t exactly sound like the best place to have dinner, however, this bakery rocked! With floor to ceiling windows, even walking past, you got to see the bakers at work (and some of their creations lined along the windows).  While you waited for a table (about 25 minutes) you got to walk around a mini-museum, telling you about the bakery, the founder, etc.

They even had a little quiz, ‘What kind of bread are you?’ – Col and I both came out the same LOL!

And a game, become a baker, stack the oven with bread loaves, let them cook and take them out – it’s a race against time.  My first go, I only got like 25%, but I became a pro quickly!

The food at Boudin’s was delicious.  We started with a mini breadbowl filled with clam chowder.  We’d never tried chowder before, but it’s something I’ve wanted to try for a while.  I think in one of the big seafood cities in the US, it’d be the best place to give it a shot – and, as it turned out, I was right.  It was delicious!!

Yes, perhaps I started to eat the bowl while there was still chowder in there, but they hadn’t brought us our bread basket and I just wanted something to dunk!

For my main, I ordered the pork chop, it came with blue cheese potato gratin and some string onions and a jus.  Col had the crab mac and cheese, we both loved our food, it was delicious.

We were way too stuffed to even contemplate dessert, so we walked back over towards the car, stopping at Starbucks, to pick up our customary tourist mug.

This Starbucks is worth noting, it was the worst Starbucks either of us had ever been to.  Firstly, the girl was in no way friendly, they had no San Francisco mugs, they had no sleeves to put your cup in, they didn’t validate parking and, as we were waiting for our drinks, one girl said to the other girl, ‘Oh, I forgot to order Gingerbread, ah well’.  Talk about loving your job!

En route back to the car, we stopped in Walgreens to pick up a few bottles of water for the hotel room (the place had me so dry, I was in dire need of some rehydration!) before we headed back to the Double Tree for the night.  Col paid for internet (just so he could check on work which had, as always around a trip for us, been problematic) while I passed out!