Today we checked out of our hotel, after a stressful morning of packing. It probably wouldn't have been too bad but Stu realised at the last minute that he had packed the trousers he wanted to wear right at the bottom of his backpack. This involved unpacking then repacking a lot of his backpack with just minutes to go until we had to get the shuttle to the airport. Thankfully, we made it just in time.

Our flight left on time, but was unfortunately quite bumpy with turbulence a lot of the first half of the journey. When there is a lot of turbulence it does make me a little nervous, although I think I got used to it after a while, and it helped to be distracted by a mindless game on the iPad.

The flight took around four and a half hours. There was no food included in the flight, so we had bought some sandwiches in the airport to eat. The only thing complimentary was the soft drinks.

Upon arrival in San Francisco we noticed the colder weather as we stepped off the plane - something we haven't experienced for a little while. We grabbed a taxi to take us to our hotel - The Castle Inn located in the Russian Hill area of the city. The guy behind reception was really helpful. He gave us various maps and leaflets, and marked on the map what places are good to visit, good to eat, where to get the bus etc. He also told us which areas to avoid - always worth knowing (although we had looked this up before we arrived). He even gave us a bus timetable and told us a bit about the city tours you can do.

Our room seems quite nice, it's very spacious and clean and seems fairly quiet, so ticks all the main boxes so far.

We felt s bit peckish, as we hadn't really had any dinner. Fortunately there was a menu in our room for a local Italian restaurant that delivers - which made things really easy. We ordered a pizza to share and made the most of the free wifi and cable tv for the rest of the evening.