last travel journal post

Wednesday 19th:
Homemade waffles for breakfast :) They were great! In the morning we made our way to Como Zoo. It was really good for a 'small' zoo and lots of things I hadn't seen before. We saw gorillas, penguins, tigers, lions, spider monkeys, tamarins, bison, sea lions, puffins, zebras, giraffes and more. Had a quick look at the conservatory they have there (saw some NZ ferns) then went home for lunch.

We visited some Minnesota/crafty/gift shops which were kind of like black holes... could have stayed in there forever!

In the afternoon we got carried away playing quizzes on the internet - turns out Matt and Jacinda love quizzes too! Then after homemade bean burritos and salsa (yum!) went out to a minor league baseball game - St Paul Saints (imaginative, I know) vs. Lincoln Saltdogs (from somewhere in Nebraska). It was more fun than I had expected - gorgeous night, though a little chilly, and there was a 'Super-Fan' who provided great crowd entertainment with singing and dancing and more. Saints lost, but I learnt rather a lot about baseball! Plus, we got 4 free tickets, and as you can see, they were good seats too!

video of Super-Fan is here http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DiMxfJNlkbw

When we got home we played some fun games that Adrian and I hadn't played before. We all got the giggles pretty bad a couple of times, all four of us clutching our sides and crying. It was great :) Had quite a late night!

Thursday 20th:
Our last full day on holiday :( After breakfast we googled for mini golf and found one in Coon Rapids, which was kind of in the suburbs. It was fun, and really sunny and warm. The course was a good interesting one with 18 holes.

We had lunch at "Cupcake" which was back in the city and then visited shops again. In the evening we went to a short and very hard quiz at "Brits Pub" in the city. We came last! Haha. Then we sought another at the Green Mill which was much better - longer and more reasonable questions we could actually answer, though Matt got most of our points! Had some nice nibbles and margaritas there.

Friday 21st:
After breakfast headed to Mall of America in Minneapolis which is the biggest mall in the US and has a theme park inside it!

So we did most of the 'big' rides, which were pretty impressive for a small park. I got SOAKED on the log flume... it appears 4 adults in one log is perhaps a little too much. It wasn't just splashes, like you get on most log flumes... it was actually a wall of water which came up and over me and drenched me. My back was kind of dry... but everything else wasn't.

We had lunch at "Famous Dave's" - lots of meat! And ice cream for dessert from Coldstone.

At about 2.15pm it was time to head to the airport; our flight was scheduled for 4.30 to San Francisco. It was sad saying goodbye :(

AND when we checked in, when Matt and Jacinda had already left, we found out our flight was delayed due to bad weather and wouldn't leave until 7.30ish! That completely mucked up our connecting Air NZ flight from SF to Auckland, so Adrian had some fun calling Air NZ and our travel insurers to try and figure out what to do. Our flight was further delayed until about 9.l5pm. Of course we missed our NZ flight so we've had to book a night in SF and rebook the same time flight to NZ tomorrow night. So we have a day in SF but a day less at twork. So I'm not sure we'll do much in SF but might get a bus/train to the city and look around.

Saturday 22nd:
Stayed last night in Holiday Inn near the airport. It was quite a nice hotel, and relatively cheap. Shame we don't have more time ;) We had a bit of a sleep in this morning then had breakfast (and very good it was) at the hotel and made our way to the city on the bus. We rode the F line cable car to get from the bus depot to Pier 39 where it seems quite a bit was happening.
Adrian on the F line (it was pretty packed!):

We walked around for a bit and had lunch at Wipeout which was pretty nice. Saw the famous SF sealions on the dock - they were pretty cute.
Sea lion video is here http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9vnpjwrxW-0

Then we got on an hour city tour; that's about all we had time for. The weather was nice and sunny, but cold - about 11 degC. Apparently SF gets cold winds because of the ocean currents that come down from Alaska.
Alcatraz:

Golden Gate Bridge (not from the air, this time!):

It was relatively entertaining, we saw lots of steep streets and Lombard street, the crooked one.

After that we had to make our way back to the hotel to pick up our suitcases and went back to the airport for our 9pm flight back to NZ.

*sigh*

Another holiday over. But it really was rather an excellent one.

xxx