A day in San Francisco

Sea lions basking in San Francisco harbour.

I spent the last night of this holiday in San Jose, which is about 50 miles south of San Francisco. I had to return the van to Fisherman's Wharf by 10 am, and it took nearly three hours in the traffic to get there. No comment!

Once I had dropped off the van, I took a 90-minute cruise on the harbour. We went under the Golden Gate Bridge and then a couple of times around Alcatraz Island before passing more than a hundred barking sea lions on our way back in.

One of the many Exploratorium exhibits

I then went to see the Exploratorium science museum. The museum has moved to a large warehouse building on Pier 15. It only took me about 30 minutes to walk around because there was little of interest inside that I hadn't seen before. Apparently the California Academy of Sciences is now the place to go for science in this city, but I didn't have time to check it out.

At the airport, United Airlines were offering all passengers a US$400 travel voucher to go on their flight the following day because they had over-booked. They kept increasing the offer to get more passengers to change. By the time we started to board, it had gone up to US$600 with a late check-out at the airport hotel and free meal vouchers all day. They sounded desperate, so I told them I would do it if they booked me in to first class, but they declined!