Our last day was spent revisiting places we didn’t spend enough time in earlier. We made a quick tour of Japantown, where I ate a crèpe. Went into every Japanese grocery store within a 4-block radius, passing up fresh octopus for delicious but hard-to-open fruit drops. Also picked up a pair of handy collapsible chopsticks.Headed back to the Lumiere to watch the animated shorts, followed by a very satisfying dinner at one of the city’s best Thai restaurants. After that, we repacked our things and went to catch a bus to the airport. Instead, the bus breezed right past us despite shouting and waving. We were grouchy the whole taxi ride to the airport.

Most of day four was spent on a couch at our hostel, getting some design work done. I escaped just in time to see clouds covering up the sun and realize that the Asian Art Museum was free the previous Sunday instead of Tuesday. Whoops. We trudged back to the hostel and discovered that the Oscar-nominated shorts were playing just a short walk away at the Lumiere Theatre. After watching the live-action shorts, we took the bus to Ghirardelli Square, bought a large back of assorted chocolate squares to split, and then finished the day at our favorite Indian restaurant.

On day three we followed a painted truck into Japantown, visited every thrift store in Haight-Ashbury, ate surprising pasta, and made it back downtown in time to see something very San Francisco: a protest.

Took the tram to The Castro, explored, ate our traditional lunch at Orphan Andy’s, climbed the hill in Buena Vista Park, endured very windy weather, and watched a bizarre hilltop ceremony.

We started off the day with bagels at our hostel on the edge of the Tenderloin. Wandered into Chinatown for the New Year street festival, then ended up at Ghirardelli for ice cream and free chocolate. Watched the sunset over the bay and played in the sand.

Imagine a town with bookshops on every corner. And in between every corner. And, well, everywhere. Guess what? That town exists, and it’s in Wales! Hay-on-Wye, often called “the town of books”, is the kind of place I want to go when I die. Everywhere you turn, books! New, used, antique, fiction, nonfiction, prints, maps… everything you could ever want! There are around 30 separate bookshops in Hay-on-Wye, so start planning your trip now.

Spent a few nights in Herefordshire, visiting my great-aunt and uncle. If you have never thought of “sinister” as a description of cows, you have not met my new bovine friends. One by one, they wandered up until there were about twenty cows standing a few inches away, just looking at me. I think we all know what the next big creature flick should be.

I spent my final day in Cornwall in one of my favorite towns: Zennor. Home to the famous mermaid chair, Zennor is a cute little village near St Ives that boasts dramatic cliffs, ocean views, a beautiful old church, and (of course) a great pub. Usually, we hike the four miles to Zennor from St Ives via the coastal footpath, which is gorgeous. There are always raspberries and blackberries to pick along the way, and once I even encountered a couple of curious seals after wandering out on some seaside rocks. This time, though, we drove to Zennor and arrived (alas!) too late for our usual shepherd’s pie and lemonade at The Tinner’s Arms. Instead, I explored the church and graveyard, then hiked along the coastal path far enough to find a good spot to read my book.

To be honest, nothing much happened on day five. It rained all day, and we were supposed to take in an evening performance of La Traviata at the Minack Theatre, but that rained out. So I’m cheating a bit and including some leftover day four photographs. At the end of the day (after Kynance Cove) we stopped by Roskilly’s Farm to see if they had food/ice cream for us. But as it was a weekday, they had closed already. So instead we took a little walk, gushing over adorable baby ducks and marveling at giant rhubarb plants.

We spent the sunniest day of the week outdoors, on the Lizard. Mid-morning, the high tide was crashing into Mullion Cove, where I climbed a hill and made friends with a pretty bug. After that, we hit up the Lizard Pasty Shop for “Ann’s famous Cornish pasties” and ate them overlooking the ocean. We arrived at Kynance Cove just in time for low tide. All of the cliffs at Kynance are made of beautiful green and red serpentine (lizardite). I geeked out a little over this, and got strange looks from my fellow beach-goers as I leaned close to the rock walls to examine green serpentine veins. It amazed me that people were running around and climbing on these rocks without even noticing how gorgeous they were.