After saying the good-byes to out families at the airport, we - M&M (also known as Miriam & Mike) - boarded a domestic flight to Auckland in order to catch the onwards flight to san Francisco. The domestic flight was delayed a few minutes - at the time we thought nothing of it. We arrived at Auckland airport realising that the 'final call' was showing on the international departures board for our flight to San Francisco. Now I'm a laid back person, but when 'final call' was showing and we had to get to the international terminal (10mins down the road), go through immigration, and then get to our gate, my laid back nature suddenly sat up a bit. We caught the free bus to international, filled out the embarkment cards, went through immigration, and ran to our gate. Luckily our flight to San Fran was delayed and we had time to reflect on the situation - actually I went to the loo.
Now I'm not going to go through every detail of the flight across the pacific, like the plot of a 70's thriller movie. All I can say is that it was a pleasant flight on Air New Zealand, however I never slept (I find it hard to on any flight) and ended up watching or listening to the huge selection of entertainment available. So I was a little tired on arrival.
San Francisco. We arrived around lunchtime & went through immigration and customs without a hassle - no fingerprinting! Our hotel was closer to the airport than downtown San Fran but it was nice. I had no idea about how much to tip anyone and tipped the driver of our shuttle a little more than what was the norm - I realised this when he smiled (almost laughed) and thanked me 'very much' for the generous tip.We rested a bit and then went to 'Leann's diner' cross from the hotel. This was a classic looking stereotypical American diner. The menu consisted of burgers, pancakes, ribs, chicken sandwiches etc and all came with a small salad and large portion of fries. It ended up being one of the fattest meals I had had in a while, leaving me feeling more tired than when I arrived. [I'm sorry to say, but this ended up being a common theme throughout the places we visited in the States - the food portions were always huge; fries came with everything; everything had corn syrup in it making the foods sweet as (literally); and the coffee was either filtered and disgusting or just disgusting. I'm not saying that all of the US is like this, only the places we ended up at]. Anyway, we were at the diner and I said to Miriam (along the lines of) 'we are in a stereotypical American diner, all we need now are stereotypical cops with mo's asking for donuts'. 
And then low-and-behold a group of cops walk in (one with a mo) and sit down beside us. However, they didn't order donuts and that was because 'Leann's' didn't have them on the menu. I said to Miriam, 'I gotta get a photo with these cops'. Great guys - they were egotistically proud when asked to be in a photo - the one with the mo brushed it back ready for the snap. We left Leann's, thanked the staff and laughed about what just took place.
And then low-and-behold a group of cops walk in (one with a mo) and sit down beside us. However, they didn't order donuts and that was because 'Leann's' didn't have them on the menu. I said to Miriam, 'I gotta get a photo with these cops'. Great guys - they were egotistically proud when asked to be in a photo - the one with the mo brushed it back ready for the snap. We left Leann's, thanked the staff and laughed about what just took place.
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