It's time again for my annual series of year-in-review top-five lists. As always, I'm starting with my top five leaps of the year, which, I find, is a good way of looking back on some of my travels and other adventures. 2015 hasn't been a particularly strong year for leaps: for various reasons (mainly weather-related), I didn't manage to take any on my European trips to Brussels, Lisbon, Copenhagen and Cannes. Here are a few favourites from some of my other adventures:

I would have liked to have spent a couple of days in San Francisco after my conference finished — long-term readers will know that I spent a fair amount of time in Fog City in the noughties but it's been over six years since my last visit. Sadly, though, I had to make do with six hours. However, it's hard to complain too much when it was such an unseasonably warm, sunny day and the city was as beautiful as I remembered.

I'm off on my travels again, this time on a work trip that will take me Washington, DC, for a few days before crossing the country to San Jose, California, for a conference.

I first came across Annie Clark, AKA St Vincent, over four years ago at a random gig on a crazy trip to San Francisco. I really enjoyed her voice and her lyrics but although someone gave me a copy of her debut album, I had sort of forgotten about her. As for The National, I discovered them via Radio Paradise, although assorted people, ranging from The Bro to my boss seem amazed that I have heard of them. Fake Empire and Slow Show are well within my top 100 most played iTunes songs and, unusually for me, I often listen to both Boxer and High Violet as albums (I prefer the latter overall but the former has more stand-out songs).

It is 8 am and the sun is barely up. It was dark when I went running and very surreal to see witches, mad hatters and demons roaming the streets of SOMA. The rain that descended mid-run only made the makeup of those in Joker costumes more authentic.

Witches - 3

Jokers - 2

Mad Hatters - 1

Sarah Palins - 4

Tina Fey as Sarah Palin - 1 

People claim it was raining today in San Francisco for the first time since I've been here. Of course, I wasn't near enough a window for long enough during daylight hours to confirm this but from the amount of concerned/relieved chatter about the annoyance/joys of the rain coming, I assume it was true. Also, the streets were wet as I left work, although because of the vast numbers of homeless people, drunks and tourists, there is usually at least one person cleaning the street along the route of my morning running outings so it's conceivable that this "rain" was all just a big hoax.

I had no food in my kitchen tonight (other than pesto and bagels) and I was too tired to face Whole Foods (let alone Safeway), which meant I was forced to eat out. There was a Gridskipper post a couple of weeks ago on the best pizza in San Francisco and to my surprise, one was a pizzeria just down the block from the apartment: Pazzia. I had been meaning to check it out at some point but it always seemed too busy and the queue outside on Saturday night was pretty darn long. 

Finally, a gorgeous day and I could wear shorts and flipflops and soak up some of the sunshine. After my visit to the Academy, I hopped on a bus (using a probably expired transfer ticket) for six blocks north but it was still quite a long walk east along Clement Street to get to Cow Hollow. 

As there has been such media hype over the long-awaited re-opening of the California Academy of Sciences, I thought I ought to pay a visit, even if I did baulk at the admission charge of $24.95 ($16.95 if you came via "alternative transport" and have an (ah-hem) valid student ID). Coming from London where you can get into the Natural History Museum, the Science Museum and many others for free (or for a genuinely optional "suggested admission"), this is pretty pricey. Even the American Museum of Natural History in New York is only $15 for adults. 

One of my favourite SF-based jewellery makers (The Weekend Store, from whom I got my 'B' typewriter key necklace) was exhibiting at the Capsule Design Festival so I decided to go along. To me, "design festival" reeks of the kind of place where recent arts school graduates exhibit their really kewl alternative designs for tables or mugs or, I don't know, matches. It's actually just Amerispeak (or, at least, Bay Arean) for "craft fair." Does craft fair just make it sound as though it's going to be a bunch of old ladies selling their knitted oven gloves or home-made flapjacks, or something?

Every time I come to the US, I like to have at least one decent burger (not usually very difficult to achieve) and one brunch of pancakes with bacon and maple syrup. The latter can be tracked down in the UK but the bacon is rarely crispy enough and the pancakes are usually only mediocre. 

It's Fleet Week at the moment and so San Francisco is even more sailor-filled than usual. It almost feels as though I've stumbled into a Thomas Pynchon novel. This also means that it's impossible, as a woman, to walk around without receiving some 'complimentary remarks' from said able-bodied seamen or being accused of being anti-patriotic when declining to go to a bar with them (the clue's in the accent, guys — ditto to the dudes who were demanding that I voted Obama. If only I could..). Still, Pynchon primed me to expect them to burst into song or a bawdy limerick every few minutes or so and thus far, I've been pretty disappointed.

It's typical that, having been marooned in the wilderness that is Nowheresville for years on end, three cities then come along all at once. My body ought to be confused--a week in hot, wet NYC, 5 hours behind the UK, a week in wintry, rainy London, and now an Indian Summer in California. I'm glad I brought my bikini (or not--it would have been an excuse to buy another).

All in all, a good recipe for a great night even if I did feel somewhat guilty leaving work at (shock, horror) 5 p.m. though technically this was acceptable as I started answering emails at about 6.30 a.m. I'm definitely enjoying the San Fran lifestyle and it's always good to meet some new people, hang out in some different bars (I mean, take The Maypole: gotta love it but I've been there at least once a week for five years now!) and see some new scenery.

Viz. the baseball record: some dude broke the record for most home runs in a career at a match at the Giants' stadium in San Fran tonight. Woot.

Local time: 10.45 p.m.

I'm feeling slightly more coherent than I was when I woke up this morning, having stayed awake for 26 hours and then slept for 6. Today has only served to strengthen my like for San Francisco, even though I was mostly just wondering, wandering and shopping.

Yesterday was quite a day. To get to the airport for a 2.15 pm flight I had to leave my house at about 7.45 am and so was already quite tired before I was even on the plane. The annoying self-check-in counter reduced chances of an upgrade to somewhere close to zero, although I did at least have lots of legroom as I was in an exit row.