San Francisco

On the first morning, still all over the place with jet lag, we woke up at a very un-us 6 a.m., had a bite to eat, and made straight for the Golden Gate – San Francisco’s best-known landmark.
How do you know a landmark’s really famous? It gets clobbered by a meteor / washed away by a tsunami / blown to smithereens by aliens in a disaster flick.

As if to drive the point home, in the first three minutes a flotilla of boats with black sails slid under the bridge, followed by a squadron of enormous pelicans, and then – also under the bridge – a helicopter for good measure.