I finally have some time to write about the first days of our trip. Tuesday morning we left Flemingsberg very early and took the train to Arlanda airport. Our first flight was to Frankfurt, Germany, where we had to go through at least five different security controls before they finally decided it wouldn't be too dangerous to let us onboard the flight to San Francisco. The flight was 11 hours and 18 minutes which was loooong but okay. When we finally arrived to San Francisco airport, the immigration officer also asked us a lot of questions about why we were coming to the states, what we were gonna do, what we did for a living, who we would visit etc etc. Much more complicated than before, when all they asked was "Business or pleasure?".

My third cousin Kevin met us at the airport and took us home to his apartment, where he lives with his girlfriend Erin. They have the most wonderful view over the city, from Twin Peaks where their apartment is. After eating some pepperonipizza we fell asleep and it was really good to lay down after all the hours we had been awake. ¨

Wednesday morning we began the day with a long walk. We walked from the apartment down to Ashbury Haights, and from there to Golden Gate Park where we looked around in the east end. The park was so much bigger than we had expected. We saw some really beautiful flowers outside the "Conservatory of flowers", but the conservatory itself was closed for renovations. After that we walked to Alamo Square and took some photos of the famous "Painted Ladies", and then we walked down to the City Hall, where we took a streetcar to Powell Street and got some Caramel Frappucino at Starbucks. Then we took the bus to Fishermans Wharf and looked around there and at Pier 39 where we also had lunch, clam chowder, at Dante's. In the afternoon we did some shopping at Old Navy and Disneystore before we took a taxi back to Kevin's and Erin's apartment. In the evening we went to Cliffhouse, a very nice restaurant overlooking to ocean and the beach.

Yesterday we went to Starbucks together with Kevin, and got some breakfast and after that we started driving up north, to Santa Rosa where my second cousin Linda met us together with her husband Tony. We had lunch at Applebee's and did some shopping in Santa Rosa Plaza. The two hour long drive to Gualala was beautiful as always, and the weather was perfect too.When we came home to Lois, where we are going to stay for one week now, she had dinner ready for us, and after that we fell asleep very early because of the jetlag and time difference.