Days 24 & 25 - Travel to, and Exploration of, San Francisco.

---

We didn't update the blog yesterday due to the fact that the almost all daylight hours were spent couped up on a bus (10 hours+ in total!), so we're merging yesterday and today's blog to make it a little more interesting.

As stated, yesterday was our big travel day from Santa Barbara to San Francisco via Greyhound bus. It was booked for about 9:00am, so we were up bright and early to make sure we didn't miss it. Since we knew there wouldn't be time for breakfast, we ate a couple of the cereal bars we had bought the previous day, before getting washed and dressed, then popped into reception to check out.

We had done a little research into which bus would take us to the Greyhound station, and knew that we could catch either the number 6 or 11 bus from pretty much just outside the hotel. We waited literally about 2-3 minutes before the number 6 arrived, we got on board with our cases and sat down near the front. Within seconds of actually sitting down, what we assume to be an Autistic kid of around 15 years old introduced himself to us. He then proceeded to ask us our life story - our names, where we are from, where we were going, where we were studying, what we were doing in the U.S etc. He then decided it was his turn to share, and as if by magic, produced a wad of photos of him and his family/friends (which he forced upon Craig, who politely skimmed them). He also thought it necessary to whip out his phone and show us his recent vacation photos - apparently they were on a train, because for about 3 minutes straight he was repeating the word "train" whilst skimming past pictures we couldn't even see! After enduring this for around 15 minutes, it was thankfully time to get off the bus.

We arrived around the corner from the Greyhound, so walked round to the front, only to find it wasn't open. We were slightly early as it was about 7:45am but the station didn't open until 8:00am (a bit weird, considering our bus was due at 8:55am and it tells you to be a full hour early...). We waited outside for a little while, before the manager let us in, tagged our bags and told us to take a seat. The bus ended up being over 30 minutes late, but we did finally get on board at about 9:30am. We weren't the first stop for the bus - people were already on it - so we found some empty seats, set up camp, and were pleasantly surprised to find that it was fully equipped with electrical outlets and wifi!

(LMAO, literally as we typed that last sentence, some staff from the hostel paraded around the hallway with a guitar and megaphone, singing the 'FREE BEER' song to announce that the free beer at the club downstairs was now available. Bloody hilarious. It's quite catchy actually!)

Anyway, we got settled on the bus ready to endure the supposed 8.5 hour journey. The reason we didn't update yesterday, was for that exact reason... We didn't actually do anything! The bus travelled through various areas, from farmlands to cities and forrests to deserts, making a few stops along the way to let people off and pick up new passengers. The journey was made a lot more bearable by the onboard wifi, however due to the coach being late initially, we were concerned about the transfer we were due to make as we got close to San Francisco. We raised the issue with our driver, who said he was going to San Francisco anyway, and that if we missed our transfer we could stay on board. It turns out we did miss the transfer, so stayed on our current bus which appeared to go the LONG way around (as opposed to the bus we were due to be on at that point), as the total journey time shot up from 8.5 hours to 10+ hours!! 😞

As we came into San Francisco the sun was just about setting, which gave us some really nice views of the Skyline as we crossed over the Bay Bridge. We finally arrived at the Greyhound station, got our cases, and were about to head out onto the street before it dawned on us that we didn't know exactly where to go! We had researched it a little on the coach, and knew that we had to catch a light-rail train, but got disorientated by all the high-rise buildings (it makes it impossible to see anything further than a few blocks away!).

Emma took an educated guess, and decided that we should walk left out of the station back towards the coast. It turns out it was a pretty good guess, and as we got closer, we caught sight of one of the trains going by. We weren't sure exactly how to get a ticket for the train, but a very polite Irish man informed us that we could pay on-board. The 'N' train arrived shortly after, which we got on and rode for about 3 stops, getting off at 'Powell St. Station' which we knew wasn't too far from our hostel. Sure enough, we dragged our cases just around the corner and spotted the 'San Francisco International Hostel' sign a little further up the street.

We checked into the hostel, got given our room key for the top floor, put our cases away and pretty much immediatel popped back out to grab something to eat. As we had initially walked to the hostel, we saw a Carls Jr. restaurant which we decided to walk back to for tea. They do an offer, where you can get 2 Western Cheeseburgers for $5 so we got that and split some fries/a drink. After finishing, we came back to the hostel/room to take a better look around. We walked around the lower 2 floors, which consist of a kitchen, laundry room, lounge area, bar/entertainment area and some sort of club in the basement (though we didn't actually go down there). After getting familiarised with the amenities, we got the elevator back to our room to firstly actually see what it was like, and secondly to see if the wifi from downstairs would reach.

The room is very basic (there's no other way to put it), consisting of four walls, a window, a sink, a wardrobe and two beds. There are a couple of shared bathrooms on each floor that are available to everybody, since none of the rooms have ensuites. At first, we were horrified that we could not see any electrical outlets in our room, however, after deciding to push the two beds together to make a double, we uncovered two on the wall near the window - phew! We spent the next few minutes just getting settled in (just putting our bags/cases out of the way, etc.), then got the netbook out to check the internet, which seemed to work ok, although it was a bit patchy.

At this point, since it had been a hell of a long day (and we were both feeling pretty drained - mentally more than anything!), we got ready for bed and went to sleep at about 10:30/11:00pm, ready for some sightseeing the following day.

Today, we woke up at around 9am. We got washed and dressed, and had decided that we should make use of the laundry facilities today, as we needed to do some washing. We had enough change at the time to do one load, so we stuck in our darks/colours, with the machine telling us that it would take about 40 minutes for the wash to complete.

Since we were both a little hungry, we decided that rather than watch the machine spin around, we should go and get some breakfast while we waited, and in the process, get some change to wash our whites and use the dryer. We had previously checked online and knew that there was a '7-Eleven' fairly close, where Emma picked up a croissant. Craig noticed a 'Del Taco' right next door, which from previous experience, we knew have a full breakfast menu available. He picked out a sausage breakfast biscuit combo (essentially a round sausage and a small omelette packed onto what Americans call a 'biscuit', but is more like a crumbly, savoury pastry, along with some hash browns and a drink) for $3.50, which was pretty good value for money!

After eating, we came back to the hostel to check on our washing, which had just finished it's cycle. We unloaded the machine, and loaded the wet clothes into the dryer, but didn't actually start it up, as we figured that we could wait for our whites to be washed so that we could dry everything in one machine (and saving us $1.25 in the process!). We put our whites into the washing machine, then went and sat in the lobby with the netbook. Unfortunately, the wifi decided that it didn't want to work today, so we were unable to access the internet. Instead, we entertained ourselves with some of the standard windows games on the netbook (such as Freecell and Solitaire), as well as Emma's DS.

After about 40 minutes, our washing had finished, so we loaded the whites in with the colours into the dryer and started it up. Another 60 minutes of game-playing followed as we waited for the dryer to dry our clothes, and finally, we took out our nice clean laundry, took it back to the room and set out to explore San Francisco at around 12:30pm.

We had a voucher to pick up a CityPass each, which would grant us entry into various attractions, as well as offer unlimited bus, cable car and rail travel for the remainder of our stay. The nearest place to exchange our voucher for a ticket was the Museum of Modern Art, which was around a 15 minute walk from the hostel. Once there, we received our CityPasses and decided that since it was free with our pass, we should have a quick look around.

It turns out that Modern Art is not quite what we would class as 'real' art, having looked around for a while. Some of the 'art installations' were questionable, such as a table and chair set (which appeared to have come straight from an IKEA showroom), a toilet, a pile of newspapers, a lamp, some boxes, loads of scribble and a white wall with a little blue streak painted across it. The only decent thing we saw was a portrait of a man made of small coloured squares and circles. Even though the building was 5 storeys high (and we visit all of these), we were in and out in less than 20 minutes, leaving us wandering why everybody else in there would pay for entry.

Once out, we checked on a map that we had picked up from the hostel, to find out how to get down to 'Fisherman's Wharf', which is a popular area of San Francisco, consisting of several piers and lots of shops/restaurants (particularly seafood such as crab and shrimp). We noticed that the 'F' line went down to Pier 39 (probably the most popular pier) and we walked over to the stop, noticing that the 'F' line was actually one of the old cabled streetcars that you see in old black and white films and pictures! Once it arrived, we squeezed ourselves on (it was rather busy, mainly due it being a Saturday), and chuckled at the driver's comments on the way (e.g. "hold on guys, I've only just learned to drive", "I love you all but I can't fit anymore on", etc.) - clearly, he enjoys his job!

We reached Pier 39 after about 20 minutes and exited the car. We walked along the piers, taking in the sights, such as Alcatraz - which lies just off the coast, the marina and a very distant, misty view of the Golden Gate bridge. We crossed over the road and walked along some of the shops opposite the piers, and stopped off at 'In-N-Out Burger' to grab a bite to eat. Emma went for a double cheeseburger, whilst Craig decided to omit the cheese and settled on a regular hamburger. Once finished, we carried on walking along the coast, reaching a small bay/beach area, where we sat to rest for about half an hour. We noticed a man jogging in the shallow water with a swimming cap on (by the way, it was NOT warm today - this guy must have been crazy), and shortly after, noticed a couple of little black heads pop out of the water. At first, we were a little confused, but soon realised that they were, in fact, a couple of local sealions! They submerged back under the water, and as we watched, we realised that there were several others swimming in the vicinity (we later found out that the bay is home to quite a few sealions on a permanent basis). We also noticed quite a few people in swimming caps actually swimming in the (what appeared to be) freezing cold water - crazy fools!

We continued our journey, eventually reaching an area called 'Fort Mason', which was an old military outpost in the war. We walked up a fairly steep hill, reaching an open, grassy area, where a group of people seemed to be taking part in frisbee/ball throwing competitions, along with quite a lot of dog walkers, near a strategically-placed fake fire hydrant to encourage their dogs to 'go'! We had checked the map and knew that there was a stop for the number 28 bus somewhere near, that would take us up to the Golden Gate Bridge. After a little navigation, we reached the stop and waited for the bus, which arrived a few minutes later. We got on, waving our CityPasses to the driver, and set off towards the bridge. As we got closer, we realised that the mist surrounding it was pretty much completely covering it, so you barely see any of it (and looked very cold!), so rather than get off the bus to look at the very bottom section of the bridge, we decided to leave it for another day, and that we would stay onboard the bus and treat it like a sightseeing tour!

The bus continued to Golden Gate Park, which is a large national reserve full of woodland areas and wildlife. We checked our trusty map and noticed that we could catch the 'N' train back to Powell Street station (the one by the hostel) literally right by one of the number 28 bus stops. When the time came, we hopped off, took the short walk across to the rail stop (I wouldn't call it a station - it's more like a small bus shelter really!) and boarded the 'N' train when it arrived about 5 minutes later. About 7 or 8 stops later, we left the train at our stop and walked back to our hostel.

When we got there, we checked to see if the wifi was working yet, which appeared to only work downstairs. We did the usual checks, such as Facebook, emails, etc, before doing a little search for somewhere to eat in the local area. We chose to head for 'Jack in the Box', as it was just a short walk up the road, and we were aware of an offer shown on TV, which consisted of a double chicken sandwich with curly seasoned fries and a drink for just $3.99. Emma wasn't particularly hungry, so just picked at a few of the fries and had some of the drink, whilst Craig ate the rest.

We came back to the hostel and went up to our room. We were pleased to find that the wifi was now working up here, and we have since sat writing this incredibly long blog entry (if you are reading, don't worry - it's almost over!). We plan on having a relatively early night for another busy day of exploration tomorrow!

---