Nice to be back on Trilogy again, John after 10 months and me after 16 months. And even nicer to have my sister Karen, her husband Toine and their dear friends Grant and Michele on board.

The trip over was smooth, and San Francisco lived up to its reputation of being an attractive city. We saw the sea lions at Pier 39, Golden Gate bridge, Haight Ashbury, and visited the de Young Gallery which was built in 2005 and reminded us of the NGA, with its tree ferns in the atrium and its Turrell Skyscape outside (though it is not as impressive a one as ours). It has an amazing and large Oceania collection (from New Guinea in particular) which they started collecting in 1895.

Our hotel was very nice - the Mark Hopkins, on Nob Hill. It was where the Robber Baron, unsurprisingly called Mark Hopkins, used to live, surrounded by other rich robber barons who made their money on, inter alia, building the railroads. It meant we took the cable cars everywhere and went for more than one drink to the 19th floor bar, called Top of the Mark. It has a 360 degree view of SF and it was where US servicemen used to go, before leaving for WW2 Pacific theatres, for their last drink in the US.

St Thomas is pretty, the scenery reminding me of Keppel Bay and islands. We have had lovely tropical weather, with a cool breeze and showers every night. We went to the Amalie, an excellent Spanish restaurant in Charlotte Amalie, the capital, named after a Danish queen born in 1650, who was married to Christian V. Emancipation Square is surrounded by attractive Danish buildings and a fort named after Christian V and built in 1673. There is a statue to Christian IX, a few Christians obviously going by in the 245 years that the Danes owned the islands before selling them to the US in 1917. The people are very friendly and handsome, with a lovely accent and some of the most amazing hairstyles I have seen. The blog photo is of the pride and joy of one of the locals. He was thrilled I took the VW's photo.

Off to St. John tomorrow, another previously Danish island, of which 60% is now a national park.