Tales From The City

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This was taken on our last day in San Francisco. We’d rented bikes to get around and I’d spent the whole time about 200 metres behind Fraser struggling to get enough breath to shout out “slow down”. I suspect he was only pretending not to hear. Bastard. This was taken on a well deserved rest. I’d recommend the bike thing for anyone going there but I would also recommend only travelling with someone of a similar fitness level to yourself. It’s difficult to enjoy the surroundings when you’re constantly on the brink of passing out. But San Francisco was an interesting place. We were staying in a dingy hotel that had three cages you had to get through before you reached the reception. Our whole San Franciscan trip had centred around a series of books called “Tales From The City”. It was like Friends or Sex and the City for the west coast. A major bestseller that we had happened to pick up four cities previously and couldn’t put down. So we made a point of visiting as many things mentioned throughout the story as possible. Our next stop was a small town in the middle of the desert that had no redeeming values other than that it hosted a brothel that one of the protagonists had visited. So we went out on this, our last night, to the gayest gay bar we could find where all the boys looked liked girls and the girls looked like boys. I got so drunk that I couldn’t see my own hand and had to be carried out by Fraser, who was almost as drunk as me and no help whatsoever. On the way back to our hotel we spotted a tiny old man bar and I decided we were now sober enough to drink again. We walked in and took a seat at the bar in what can only be described as a homosexual version of “Cheers”. It was very much a traditional ye olde English pub, where the clientele was made up wholly of middle aged males who seemed to dislike abbreviated versions of their names. We made ourselves at home in between them all and explained our trip so far and what was to come. Our new best friends, Gregory and Christopher, were shocked to hear of the small town we were visiting next. I told him of how we were only doing what the book described. I asked him if he knew the book. Not only did he know it, he knew the author. Who was sitting in the corner. I imagine this author now wishes his identity had never been disclosed as we took it upon ourselves to become his new, very best friends. Luckily for him, last orders were called very shortly afterwards and we somehow made our way home. The next morning we woke up drunk as skunks at five minutes to check out time and half an hour before our bus to the desert was due to leave. If ever a time of my life has resembled an Indiana Jones movie, that frantic journey from the hotel to the bus depot was it.

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