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Published: March 10th 2008
After having to wait all day to catch our flight from Fiji at 10.50pm, we're ready to get to America. I'm excited as I haven't seen an American city before and my only experience of the USA is from Florida which is completely different. Joe hasn't seen America at all so it'll be fun to see his impressions too.
Everything is going fine until we wake up on the plane and hear the pilot say 'The date in LA is the 10th Feb'.- The 10th Feb?! We are certain we left Fiji on the 10th and should have been arriving on the 11th... What's going on? Although Joe's mum had mentioned it in passing, we'd both failed to ask her what she meant when she told us we'd go over the 'date line'- whoops! Apparently when you cross over it, the date completely changes so the important thing to learn was- it was actually the 10th! We were worried as we'd booked our hostel from the 11th so hoped we'd have somewhere to sleep that night...
LA looked really boring from the air and definitely a car city as some people had told us. And airports are notoriously unfriendly
but LA seemed to be experts in this. We queued for ages and even the queues were stupidly disorganised, you'd think with so many people coming through they might sort it out. There was also a very patronising video going on throughout telling us they were just being paranoid for our safety: don't worry if we make you unpack your whole bag, it's for YOUR safety. Don't worry if we think you look like a terrorist, it's for YOUR safety. Don't worry if we make you miss your connecting flight to San Francisco, it's for YOUR safety.
Thankfully we did make our connecting flight but we were worried for a while.
Arriving in San Francisco, the airport seemed nice and easy. This easy vibe gave us out first sniff of the SF vibe which we later decided was chilled out (much like Melbourne). Finding a shuttle to our hostel, we enjoyed a drive through the nastiest part of town, lovingly named 'Tender Knob'. When we arrived at the hostel, the man on reception scratched it out on the map and told us to avoid it if we can.
Thankfully we got a room for the night and
even better, it stayed empty for the night so we enjoy the peace. It was only a 4 bed dorm which wasn't too bad. We got a nice French guy called Michael who stayed the whole time we do and an English guy called David who was also nice. Everyone learned to give each other space and were respectful to each other. A good dorm really.
The hostel was good in most ways too. There was a TV room, internet, decent bathrooms, an old style lift, good info about tours and the area and the rooms were kitted out with heaters/lockers and a sink. The heaters were definitely needed! This is the coldest place we've been to since we left the UK. We used all our available clothes and enjoyed our heater very much. Brrr....
One of the best things about the hostel were the all-you-can-make pancakes. Most mornings we headed downstairs and made ourselves some lovely pancakes, filling up as much as we could for the day. Strangely watching people making pancakes was quite amusing as most of them are far too impatient and proud so they always ended up with sludge or a lovely burnt one.
It also brought people together a bit, sometimes just in jealousy but still...
On our first night we just went for a thai nearby. The next day we set out to explore the city. We walked for ages with no direction and really had our first taste of the SF hills. They were quite big and steep at points, providing good look outs over the city and giving us a good bit of exercise. Not satisfied with all the walking we did in our own time, we signed up for the walking tour provided by the hostel the next day. It was free so we figured we couldn't go far wrong!
The walking tour was actually really interesting. Our guide Diana was a little strange but also very knowledgable. She walked us past Lombard St (the twistiest and one of the steepest hills in SF), past houses where bands used to hang out, down to pier 39 (where we enjoyed another show from the man who hides behind bushes and scares people, I think Joe told you about that. It was GREAT!), through Little Italy, Chinatown and back to the hostel.
In Chinatown we saw pidgeons and
loads of other birds in tiny cages, which pretty much has put me off chinese for a long time. Chinatown in SF was massive and full of strange sights and cheap buys. One lucky member of our group won a t-shirt for winning a race up some tiring stairs, and this t-shirt cost about $2.50- lucky him.
Being a prepared fan, Joe found us a SF Aresenal supporters group ran by a man named Mark. He suggested a good pub for us to go and watch one of the Arsenal games. There were lots of fans in there, especially for the middle of the day. Don't these people have jobs?? They also seemed to have a couple of pints then return to work. Couldn't you get fired for that in the UK? None of the locals seemed bothered though. They were a VERY friendly bunch, especially a couple of young guys who were sitting next to us. Thankfully Arsenal won and we all had a great time!
The Arsenal v. Man U game was apparently pay-per-view so wasn't available hardly anywhere. Luckily the founder of the supporters club, Mark invited us round his house! He and his wife
Loryn were amazing hosts- they made us breakfast and made us feel so welcome. There were about 8 or 10 of us altogether! We all sat around having 'Mamosas' (which we learnt was our 'bucks fizz'). The Americans found it fun to learn our term too. Apart from the terrible match, a good time was had by all. The SF gooners then invited us to several things they were doing the night after the match and we managed to appear at almost all of them.
The invites from some of the locals were good as we got to see parts of SF that felt more 'local'. Firstly we went to a barley wine festival. Joe and I of course have no idea what barley wine was but after a taste, we realised it was called wine but it tasted very much like beer! Although I would say probably worse. I did manage to drink about half of it but Joe had to be polite and finish the rest for us- poor him! After this we made our way across the city and stopped off at a large record shop. After purchasing a few CD's, we continued on and caught
the 2nd half of an American 'soccer' game. It was the SF Earthquakes against some other team (at least that's all I can remember, I might be wrong). The park like ground we were watching in was pretty and a nice place. It was amazingly cold however and all I wanted was a hot choc. The teams were trying but the quality wasn't great and the game was back and forth with little real action. You could see why a whole group of Americans have turned to English football.
After finding a place to get a good hot drink we decided to join Mark and Loryn for a drink they had invited us to earlier. We all had a good chat and all was well until there was a disagreement nearby over who won on the pool and shouting and thumping around ensued. Time to leave we thought and caught a taxi home together. Extremely lovely people who everyone should go and see if they're in SF!
One of the other best things about SF was the cheesecake factory! We had been told by a few people to go there and so when we saw one in the
local Macys, we decided to take our opportunity. Being incredibly foolish, Joe and I decided we could handle both a main course and some cheesecake. Stupid British idiots... Did we not remember we were in the country of excessive portions? Were we so stupid to believe that we could handle both courses? Why why why? When my burrito arrives, I am cursing myself- it's about 15 inches long and 5 wide! But I manage to eat most of it, feeling like I've just gulped down a baby elephant. Joe has a similar experience with his chicken and mash (actually about 4-6 pieces of chicken and a mountain of mash). Nonetheless, we still get the cheesecake. I enjoy about half of a lovely vanilla caramel something or other and it's so rich and so worth feeling like a big tubby for! We also get takeaway cheesecake another day, no main meal this time, but Joe still struggles with the richness!
One of the other interesting things we did was venture over to Alcatraz island. It was incredibly cold and although the view was amazing back across to SF, I wanted to stay in the jail most of the time! I
do imagine that as an inmate with the windows facing towards such a great city, you probably would've been kicking yourself. The tour was an audio one and it was quite interesting, especially when we were told about a siege and a couple of escape attempts. Of course there was an actual escape, much like the one in Shawshank Redemption, but after feeling the temperature of the water around the island, I doubt those three escapees made it far. Shame for them, they did put a lot of work into the escape after all! (Fake heads to put on their pillows, digging around their vents with cutlery and climbing through the pipes onto the roof and building a raft somehow...) Anyway, it was an interesting place. It's a strange idea really, deciding to put loads of prisoners on a handy island and having prison officers and their families live in peace on the other side!
I think I've written quite a bit now but I just really enjoyed SF! This is the last bit I promise... We went on a driving tour with a local who showed us and told us a lot about the city. He took us
to see the view from twin peaks where we could see the whole of the city. It's an interesting place because every space is taken up and it can't expand anymore as if they did, they'd fall into the water! There's really only one big road in SF and you could see it from the look out. The local guide also told us about how expensive it is to live there and how a lot of people who haven't had kids yet live there as people just can't afford to settle there. I guess that makes it a bit of a strange city as most cities have a big variety of ages, especially even in London, despite the expense!
Our driving tour also took us over the Golden Gate Bridge which I think it a lot nicer than most bridges really. The colour is cool, which apparently was chosen to make it stand out. It's always interesting seeing a landmark like that and it does look good. We had some fun posing with it too. Then after this we moved onto Muir Woods. I didn't know much about it but when we got there I saw how amazingly tall
Joe in Muir Woods
These were some TALL trees!the trees were and couldn't help but be impressed! They seemed to stretch on forever and it was just a beautiful setting. Really enjoyed the tour and we got a free bottle of wine each- not bad!
I would say if anyone has the chance, definitely check out San Francisco. The people and the whole place is chilled out and friendly, in general. Even the homeless people will sing you a song! There are so many different districts: the gay area, the mexican area, little Italy, Chinatown, the tenderknob, the shopping district- the list would go on if I could remember then all! And all these areas merge into each other, one street and you can be somewhere completely different (sometimes not in a good way). The guides we had on our tours told us all these districts live in 'harmony' and although a bit strong, it did seem to work, despite all the differences. Meeting some friendly Arsenal fans was also a highlight and joining in with some of the local haunts was also a different experience. SF is a great place, could've stayed for longer!
Next is the famous and infamous New York. Our last stop
(sob sob), the place where everyone sings about and talks about... What will it be like? Is it true that the New York City cops ain't so smart???
Thanks for reading. Join me for the last stop soon...
Nikki x
ps: I can't believe I haven't mentioned it earlier but we also went to a great poetry shop! Although they didn't have all the books I wanted, they had a whole room of poetry to browse in! I could've stayed there all day but I thought that might be a bit rude... I wish there were more places in London that had that much poetry!
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