Day 2b: A better travel day lol - SFO

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Another crazy day... but the travel went a lot better this time at least. I was so tired from the ordeal getting out of LAX to my hostel yesterday that I fell asleep around 8:30pm. That worked in my favour for my early bus out to San Fran lol.

So I head off to North Hollywood to catch... sigh... a Greyhound. I know last time I was like NEVER AGAIN, but I guess the caveat is if a bus starts at the given location (like the route started in LA, not some weird line that went like Miami-LA-Seattle or whatever), then I'm ok to take it. The bus ride itself was totally fine and surprisingly uneventful. We drove through a huge chunk of the state that was crazy hazy with the various fires burning - that was eerie and unnerving. And in Fresno we had a 30min stop, so we all went over to the nearby 7-11 for food - I guess they're used to Greyhound clientele lol - security guard at the door having everyone leave their bags with him. Oh. But the best were the toilets at Bakersfield... no locks, literally shit all over the walls in one stall, 3 of 5 stalls completely overflowed with TP. Quality.

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It's really sad that I wasn't even surprised by the toilet or the 7-11 because that's Greyhound for you.

Anyway. The main story around my Greyhound experience was before I actually got on the bus - 5:55 I get to the remote little station in the middle of nowhere North Hollywood - and when I say remote, there is NOTHING open for blocks. And there is Frank. Oh Frank. He was in the middle of packing up his box (like flat and laid out, to sleep on) when we both saw each other. He asked if I was waiting for a bus and then wished me godspeed because he just got off one from Alabama lol. (Why on earth they run cross country busses is unknown to me because they are always a disaster.)

So, Frank starts telling me his life story because what else is there to do at 6am in the middle of nowhere urban city. Long story short, he's moving back here from Alabama because "his girl's family didn't see eye to eye with him" (ok), but he doesn't get along with any of his family, so he's going to sleep on the streets for a few weeks to save money for rent. I heard all about his siblings, all about the past fights, all about the last time he stayed on the street, about how seedy LA is (lol no kidding!), he bartered with another passing homeless guy and called another one over to go find him a shopping cart. It was all very fascinating and certainly made my 30min late a lot more interesting than had I simply put my earplugs in.

Once I got to San Fran, I went to check in at my hostel and as I walked in I realized I've stayed here before lol. Nice surprise - I remember it was comfortable. As I finished checkin like... 25-30 teens showed up and I'm like omg thank you earplugs. Even more so once I got upstairs and heard them go into the rooms beside mine. When I went to leave the teachers saw me and were super apologetic. (It's a group of kids doing college visits) we had a nice little chat - told them I'm a teacher too, I feel them lol no worries. I wandered down around the hostel for a bit - saw some lady get into a yelling match with a tree for touching her luggage and saw security forcibly remove 2 of those 'religion preacher' booth things that setup in the train stations. Like... proper forcibly. Yeesh.

So, I'd been warned the stadium in Oakland was a pit. A pit where you also froze. I mean, I thought that meant wear a light sweater but no... it's proper legit cold as anything if the wind is at all blowing. Their gift-shops must make a fortune selling the blankets they have because I saw at least 10 people leave to get them lol. I didn't find it as much of a pit as I'd been led to believe - there are a few things to look at if you're there early and the food selection is amaaaaaazing compared to Toronto. I opted for a cheesesteak - tomorrow will likely be a legit BBQ sandwich. Only thing I didn't super love (other than freezing) is their security is next level compared to Toronto, but I guess that isn't overly surprising. Staff was all friendly, but they super enforced you sitting in the correct seat (even though the stadium was more than half empty)

I watched some BP (Tulo was there??! I didn't see him bat, but I saw him), Buck Martinez walked by and people like lost their minds lol, and the game itself was garbage lol. Like I said, I'll be happy to see them win one game between here and Seattle. Speaking of which, it seems quite a few people are doing the same as me - I met so many people who flew here for the Oakland series and then are flying up to Seattle too. Our section was a solid 60-70% Jays fans, but that's probably because we were right beside the dugout. There were a couple super obnoxious A's fans though which made for a fun time in terms of listening to the banter go back and forth. Also, because the crowd was so sparse, at the beginning someone in the outfield literally yelled out "HEY EVERYONE HOW'S IT GOING?" A few people yelled back and then he yelled again, "HOW ARE THE CHICKEN TENDERS??" lol what even Oakland.

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