Made it to San Francisco in one piece

Despite a late start and a truly awful week or so leading up to my departure, I'm here!  The less said about my "Qantas" Air Tahiti Nui flight from Sydney to LAX the better.  Suffice to say we were delayed 40 minutes + because of a catering issue and things didn't really pick up from there.  There was simply no comparison between this and my previous 2 Singapore Air long haul flights.

NB Daniel - I'm sure Qantas are normally excellent, and every encounter I have had so far with actual Qantas staff has been excellent... but I'll be certain to see if there's anything I can do to avoid any such switch in future.

Didn't get to catch James at LAX since my flight was so late that I barely managed to clear all the security checks in time to get on to my next flight instead of having a 2.5 hour stopover.  The American Airways flight to San Francisco made up time and had me arriving about 20 minutes early, and sure enough, there was James waiting near the luggage carousel.

Managed to get onto the shuttle I'd booked with a particularly grumpy driver and made our was into the hotel (http://www.metrohotelsf.com/).  There are two types of hotels in old buildings - the old and depressing, and the old and cozy.  This is definitely the latter.  It's a lovely old building, beautifully maintained with quirky rooms, all the basics, and a lovely little garden area (which you will be pleased to know, Mum, is still very usable in the lovely, cool but sunny weather).

Wandered out right after arriving to get a stomach-confusing meal.  Had breakfast at 2:30pm-ish, which is not all that late for a late brunch anyway, but my stomach thought it was more like 9:30am, my head said it was more like 5pm.  Hopefully if I spend a day or two trying to set a routine I'll soon settle in.

So, it's nearly 7:20pm now.  Will probably go get something light for dinner soon and then crash, presumably until I decide at 3 or 4 in the morning that it should be daylight :)  No idea what I'm up to tomorrow.  Probably just a fairly quiet one I think.  Maybe wander out and look at the shops or something simple.  Once I'm feeling more adventurous there are a few parks and museums I wouldn't mind checking out.