Please sir, may I have some more?

Friday has been our most relaxed day yet, though it very nearly ended with me vomiting meat and wine everywhere.

The day consisted of visiting different wineries and partaking in wine tasting sessions. As much as I do enjoy wine, I can only nod when we're told a wine is oaky, soft, or crispy. Those words for me don't describe wine, and I'd have preferred 'fizzier', or 'nicer'.

Still, I was very grateful to be given the opportunity and half the joy is in seeing these beautiful places.

Look at all that wine! Red is now my favourite.

Once this was done we retired back to our apartment and began our poolside barbeque. Starting at about eight o'clock, and finishing eating at about midnight. I could have gone longer, but I feared I would explode. Kate's dad is a master cook, and we enjoyed piles of meat, and some veg, including portabello mushrooms, cheese and bread, cheese and eggplant (auburgine), steak (with Boursin on bread! A new favourite) sausages, scallops wrapped in bacon, and giant racks of ribs. There were six of us, but it was still mountains of food.









And today (Saturday) me and Kate are off to explore San Francisco!

Fainting goats, funny signs and teasing geysers

Todays visit to Calistoga was one I've been excited about for some time, due to my beloved fainting goats that live there. These goats, as the name implies, faint. It's a form of hilarious narcolepsy that is triggered when they're excited. What's better is that they don't collapse but go rigid, falling to the floor like some kind of hairy table. Search for them on YouTube and tell me you don't find it funny.

The venue that houses these goats also has Old Faithful, an apparantly famous geyser that erupts every 10-20 minutes. Now, in a perfect world, the geysers eruptions would render the goats excited, and they'd do their funny fit and collapse, and the situation would repeat itself indefinitely. This didn't happen, and instead we were left with a moderately tame geyser and some rather indifferent goats.



















The goats didn't even respond to my claps or shouts either, and so none fainted. I was slightly disappointed until we found a brilliant sign that made the whole journey worth it. It's always the unexpected little things that save the day.








After this rather brief visit we travelled to Rubicon Wine Estate, owned by none other than Francis Ford Coppola who directed the Godfather films.



























There we took part in a wine taste, sampling five wines made on the estate. Here I felt rather guilty as I'm not exactly a conisseur and my definitions ranged from 'nice' to 'tasty' to 'very nice', which I felt was quite a disservice to bottles of wine that cost 150 dollars. Still, it was quite an experience.

Again, a fantastic day made better again by the small details. I'll let this picture highlight how easy I am to please.

Bridges and Wine make a very good time!

Our second day is almost over and we're settled in our apartment now in Napa Valley.
Today has been full of highlights, from crossing over Golden Gate bridge, visiting a wine garden, staring at crabs and lobster in a fish tank before being boiled, trying to fell slanted trees at Half Moon Bay, and to Kate catching the maid using our toilet, it's all been rather interesting.

The weather has been very nice, with just the right amount of sun to ensure my ginger skin stays warm without my body succumbing to sun stroke. The day has mostly been filled with driving, and stopping in places to pick up food or taste the local wines. The Golden Gate bridge was an amazing site, and Alcatraz was in viewing distance too. The sense of scale of the bridge is immense, and all I can say is that it as really, really big.

And red. Not golden at all.

There's better pictures on facebook, and Flickr soon when I set that up.

The apartment that we're in now is the one we'll stay in for the rest of the week, and it's gorgeous. There's a massive walk in shower, a jacuzzi bath, a balcony and just a huge living room area and kitchen. The pictures don't do it justice, and again there's more on facebook.









For obviously sad reasons though, I seem
to feel most excited about the free WiFi service that's available.

My second day here has been much more exciting. The long drives have shown me the amazing Californian cities and countryside, if you can call it that, and coastline. The food here is amazing and worthy of the holiday itself, and the people are really nice. Despite all my preconceptions about Americans being loud and obnoxious I've found them to be very polite, even if they can't grasp the concept of queues.