In which Layla and Roz celebrate Roz's birthday energetically in San Francisco

Roz's birthday is the day before Independence Day in America, so with that day already a holiday, it would be churlish not to turn it into a birthday mini break. And thus on the eve of her birthday did we take to the skies. Destination: San Francisco. Roz had been there overnight for work, and I'd never been. But we'd both read so many books about it that it felt like we knew the city, and we were prepared to fall in love. We were told July is always cold and foggy, so armed with cardigans aplenty, we disembarked.

Our attempt to take public transport to our hotel was foiled by a strike, but a quick taxi later, we were at our hotel, checked in, and off out to a nice wine bar near Union Square for some wine flights... And bruschetta flights... And cheese flights... And chocolate flights. We went home feeling very pleased with our first hour or two in San Francisco.

Up early thanks to jet lag, it was time for Roz's birthday to commence, with the opening of 15 presents I'd brought with me, including a vibrant new handbag and a photo book of our adventures in the last year. Suitably inspired, we headed out for breakfast at the excellent and funky Blue Bottle cafe, where we had delicious poached eggs, and yoghurt, and Roz had fancy coffee - it's like a science lab for coffee! Afterwards, we caught a famous San Francisco streetcar to Levi Plaza (home to the HQ of Levi Strauss) where we met the tour guide we'd booked to take us on an 'urban hike' of the area featured in the book series Tales of the City - Telegraph Hill and Russian Hill, and the Marina. The first thing we learned was that Levi Strauss was the investor rather than the inventor of jeans - but got all the credit. Poor Jacob Davis got nothing (except, presumably, money). We saw an array of jeans dating back to the 1880s - they looked remarkably similar to current jeans. Then we set off in the blazing sunshine, up massive steep sets of stairs with quaint and charming little lanes coming off them, entirely inaccessible to cars. A strange sight in America! There were amazing flowers and plants and hummingbirds too - it was like being in the tropics! We wound round to Coit Tower, and to the crazily steep Lombard Street that has 8 hairpin bends in it so cars can drive round it, and to the Chinatown, and the Italian Quarter, and most excitingly of all, the real Barbary Lane (Macondray Lane), home to the characters in Tales of the City. The whole area was quirky and charming and pretty, and alarmingly hilly - in one place there are steps built into the pavement as it's so steep. And the many neighbourhoods parks are essentially vertical. 

We had a lovely time and afterwards had to dash home on the F cablecar to change out of our jeans in view of the scorching sun... And then had a quick lunch in Town's End restaurant, mainly because it was next to the kayak place. roz and I love kayaking in Washington, but San Francisco is another story - and not just because it was over three times the price (this is NOT a cheap city). It's on the bay so it's seawater and there are waves. We pottered down a little channel that passed by the baseball stadium and many houseboats, and under lots of bridges, and returning to the hotel afterwards by underground, we delighted in what an excellent time we'd had - even if we had an unfortunate level of sunburn! 

That night we headed out to two extremely cool reservations. The first was Wilson and Wilson, which is a speakeasy inside a speakeasy! We gave our password and were shown into the main speakeasy, then brought through a secret door to another. Wilson and Wilson pretends to pose as a private detective agency and the menus are disguised as case reports. All good fun, and some excellent cocktails, mixed very precisely by a pleasant bartender. 

Afterwards, we decided to walk the 40 minutes up a giant hill past cool little bars and lots of houses to Gary Danko. Gary Danko is San Francisco's best restaurant, and it is hard to get reservations. When Roz let it be known that she would like to dine there on her birthday I dedicated myself to trying to get a reservation, and the previous day, hooray! At last I had been successful. We entered with much excitement and had a 4 course tasting menu of deliciousness, culminating in a happy birthday cake for Roz and so much cheese that it actually, unbelievably defeated us. Jet lag kicking in, we sipped our last drops of wine and decided to head for home. Rather than a taxi, we waited for the cable car, which turned out to be much different than the one from earlier - old fashioned and beautiful, we sat on a little outdoor bench as it trundled up and down impossibly steep hills and we giggled and shrieked and deemed it the perfect end to a birthday.