My family treated Ian and me to a trip to Alcatraz on our last say in San Francisco before setting off on our two hour drive to Sebastopol to re-unite with the American side of our family- The Leonards.

We didn't spend very much time in Sebastopol but it seems like a very liberal area with lots of quirky shope. My mother had booked a four bedroom house via airbnb near a vineyard just outside Sebastopol so we could host Christmas. it was the most peculiar house I've ever been to, see for yourself: https://www.airbnb.co.uk/rooms/6400978.

The house was split into two. The one building was perfectly normal, very spacious and homely. However, when we opened one of the doors in one of the bedrooms, it opened into an underground tunnel connecting to what I can only describe as a sex dungeon..!
 

Everything was red and black with Harley Davidson bikes and art all over the walls. There was a hole in the ceiling where a pole used to be and a small prison with a sink and fake toilet with the sign 'you piss, you die' in the back. Unfortunately, Ian and I drew the short straw and got the second floor of this building as our bedroom.

The weirdness of the sex dungeon bedroom never lessened, our family friend Claire (who I stayed with in LA) drew the second-most short straw and stayed in the bedroom which connected to our via the tunnel. She said she could always tell when it was Ian coming to get into the main building as he sprinted along the underground tunnel!

We had a wonderful time at Christmas with the Leonard's, Howe's, Dates and MacLean's- all 15 of us! and drank far too much (as expected).

My uncle Scott showed us around his very funky office for his ethical clothing company called Indigenous Designs which was good fun, made even better fun when we had a spontaneous wine tasting session half way through.

We were only in the ex-sex dungeon for a few days before moving on to Lake Tahoe for some skiing and snowboarding!