Blogs from North Beach, San Francisco, California, United States, North America - page 10

San Francisco, 19-11-2002. The only other occupant in my dormitory of the hostel is a pleasant enough phillipino bloke who works as a male nurse at some hospital near the airport. Not that I see much of him, he works during the nights and sleeps during the day. He told me he does five twelve hours shifts a week and then has two days off which he spends with relatives in Nevada. Basically I pretty much have the dorm to myself though last night lying on my bed and reading a book while making serious work of a big caguama mexicam beer, this mad aussie storms into my room - time close to 21.30 h. - long and wild dishevelled blond hair falling down his boying looking face, wearing a T-shirt full with dirty looking stains ... read more

San Francisco, 17-11-2002. Through the early morning fog I see the justly famous Golden Gate Bridge. This world famous bridge I first heard about when I was a mere kid, a boy going to school in the south of Holland. What was here name...ah yes, Miss Guus, who was an enormously fat woman who never got married and therefore focused all her motherly love on the kids she was in charge off at the primary school she worked at. And you can believe me, she had way too much of that mother instinct to lavish on us. It even dwarved that massive fat female body of hers. Yeah, it was this grand dame who first got me interested in travelling. When she was talking about the wonders of the world I would go into my private ... read more

San Francisco, 14-11-2002. My free camping place last night was under a massive cycamore tree whose branches were hanging all the way to the ground. I could have even survived a hurricane under that enormous wonder of creation. It's not far anymore to San Francisco but despite the city's close proximity I cycle through a remarkably desolate country, an undeveloped coastal stretch of rocks and the occasional beach. Beaches with a wild and unpredictable surf rolling in. Some of these beaches are inhabited by seal while other are the property of sun tanned surfers, mostly young people who muscular bodies show off a healthy life style. Blond girls that could have walked right out of Baywatch discussing among themselves the surfing prowess of their boy-friends who are out at sea riding the waves. Every so often ... read more

Georgia was in her element because she saw plenty of squirrels, chipmunks and deer, we didn't see any bears which would have been nice at a distance. After two nights at Yosemite we drove to Monterey, it was beautiful next to the see, we saw sea lions on all of the rocks around the jetty and a sea otter swimming around fishermans wharf when we were waiting for dinner, we ate at Bubba Gumps ( the big dude from the Forrest Gump movie who started his own shrimping business!) and we received our first parking ticket. I will pay this after I get off from here. The next day we drove to San Francisco, wow these streets are certainly straight up and down, we returned the car to the rental people, with no dents no scratches ... read more

Today we went to Muir woods, one of the last places where the giant redwoods can be seen. They were wonderful and the place was peaceful and the trees majestic. The highest is over 250ft tall. You can see scars where the trees survived a fire over 100 years ago. Then on to Sausalito. A very expensive yachting port where the houses are over 2 million dollars and upwards. We then went on a harbour cruise. As we approached the golden gate bridge, the fog cleared and we had wonderful views of the bridge and back towards Alctraz.... read more