Challenge answered, part three: Sunday am

Now, $45 isn't a lot of money, but it really is too much. I was determined not to spend any more frivolous money on Sunday. There was no need for museums when all the best things so far had been free, a lesson I have learnt many times before, but there is frivolousness in my bones and I barely managed this.

So, packed lunch made, we set off for another day's adventure. Our limbs had seized up from the amount of walking we had done, plus the night on an air bed, so we also decided to get more buses and not do so much walking. I won't pretend, and I will go ahead and ruin the surprise, we didn't manage to achieve this goal in any way.

First stop was a ride on a cable car. The lines for cable cars whenever I have seen them have been ridiculously long, as 2 of the 3 cable car routes go to Fisherman's Wharf, but there is one route which goes east to west across the city, along California Street, which was going in moreorless the way we were going. Not to be put off by this directional detail, we boarded (although after this, I lost custody of the map). It was fun. My leg went to sleep because it was so uncomfortable, we almost broke down at the lights; going up hill was good, downhill was better, and best of all, the conductor didn't seem to want to take my extra dollar so I paid nothing, hurrah! I wanted to go again the minute we got off.

So, now we were somewhere in the city, heading for somewhere else, which basically meant another long walk. Ho hum. Our first goal was Alamo Square, home of the painted ladies, rows of Victorian houses in all different colours in a very nice part of town. So nice in fact that there was a pile of shiny things outside one of the houses and a sign which said 'free - help yourselves'; so we helped ourselves to a silver milk jug, because you never know, the Queen may fly out to visit us and we would have previously been embarrassed by our lack of silverware, but not now. Now the Queen can visit whenever she likes and we will be ready.

A quick photo opportunity, lots more hills and we arrived at Haight Street, home of the hippies. Haight seems like a lovely neighbourhood and full of quirky shops, but the tour became whistle stop as my bladder dictated the order of the day. A wee - stop at the ever popular tourist hot spot, the Moffit Hospital, then lunch in the UCSF students union where our packed lunch was looked at with horror, scorn and derision. Yes, we are English. All we were missing was a tartan picnic blanket and a flask of tea. As the people there scoffed down their strong coffee and food which proudly claims it contains MSG, I think we won that little battle, don't you?

Methinks, I am giving you too much information. I will nip that in the bud for the final part of the challenge.