I added a stopover in San Francisco, California, to my Monuments and Parks tour in 2011 and went there after visiting Las Vegas.

San Francisco.

Strangely, just a day before taking off for this holiday, a cousin contacted me through the Ancestry family tree website. I never knew I had any family in America until she contacted me and we quickly arranged to meet up when I got to San Francisco at the end of my trip.

We arrived in San Francisco on our flight from Las Vegas and were transferred to our hotel on the edge of China Town. After checking in I had a walk around the immediate area around our hotel before going back to the hotel for a shower. Two of the people I had been on the tour with invited me to go for a meal with them in Chinatown that evening, and after a walk around, we went into a Chinese restaurant. We had a lovely meal, but when I went to pick up the bill to see how much my share was, they insisted on paying for it. They told me that they had enjoyed my company on the holiday and had wanted to take me out for a meal. They then told me that it was their wedding anniversary as well and they were celebrating. After leaving the restaurant we stopped off at a small local bar opposite the hotel for a nightcap before returning to the hotel to retire for the night.

Segway Tour.

The following day, I got up and went down to Fishermans Wharf near Pier 39. I had always wanted to take a ride on a segway so I booked up to take a segway tour around San Francisco. After a short lesson on how to use the segway, we were soon on a thorough tour of San Francisco, which took in nearly all of the tourist sites, including;

• The Golden Gate Bridge.
• Golden Gate National Park.
• Pier 39.
• Fishermans Wharf.
• Lombard Street.
• China Town.

At one point, we were all on the main road, at traffic lights opposite the dock area, when a convertible car pulled up next to us. It was one of those cars with hydraulic suspensions that could make the car higher or lower with the touch of a button or even shake its bodywork. The guy driving had some rap music blaring out of the giant speakers in the car and he made a point of making the car dance at the set of traffic lights. He was directly next to me and was looking straight at me, obviously trying to see if it impressed me. I casually turned to look at him and told him it was impressive, but could he do this? I then made my segway spin on the spot and went backwards and forwards without touching the handlebars. He did see the funny side and burst out laughing. He was still laughing when the lights changed to green. He was laughing so much that he stalled the car, and I was able to burn away from him at the lights. He saw the funny side and waved to me as he caught us up and went past our train of segways further down the road.