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Published: June 11th 2008
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Cable Car
These are quite cool, each one is painted in the colours of a different country in the world. On Friday i flew into San Francisco with a huge smile on my face, even before we landed San Fran looked like such a cool place. I got on a train from the airport to a station near to the hostel where i would be staying and walked from there to the hostel.
The hostel was/is brilliant! it's quite a big one with a lot of dorms and private rooms. It also has a lot of facilities which really make a difference to your stay. for example: free all-you-can-make pancakes every morning, this is actually really fun, and a good way of getting to meet and talk to people, just make sure they've had their coffee first 😉. speaking of coffee, there is free tea and coffee all day as well. Every evening the hostel runs an event, Kareoke, Movie Night, Pub Crawls, that kind thing. They have a free laundry, pool table and table football (foosball they call it here). The hostel staff are great for getting information about what is good to see and do too. I came expecting a bed and a shower and got a whole lot more, so that's cool.
Other than pancakes, i
WW2 Submarine Gun
looks absolutely sweeeeeet! XD discovered that Subway do 12inch subs for $5. This is a really good price for the amount of food you get, and it's healthy too. Even if you convert it to british pounds, i highly doubt you could get a 12inch sub for £2.50 in the UK. So foodwise it's been pretty cheap and pretty good!
Now day one... The friday i arrived i went for a walk around downtown for a couple of hours to get a feel for the area, what i found was that even though it was very busy, it still seemed a lot more relaxed and stress-free when compared to L.A. and especially compared to New York. I'm still not entirely sure why that is.... After a while i came back to the hostel where they had a $5 all-you-can-eat bolognase session going down. So of course i filled my face, so much so that i struggled with the pancakes the morning after! I then joined in with some guys playing pool which was also a good way to meet people without having to get completely in their face demanding their name's and social security numbers :P
Day two... I got up early
so i could get to the showers before 'rush hour', i took my time and had a shave afterwards. All freshened up by about 7am, I stumbled down the stairs and into the kitchen, made a couple of pancakes and washed them down with two cups of coffee.
Later that morning i set off to A: buy some new shoes and then B: find some cool stuff. Got the shoes and then headed toward Fisherman's Wharf through Chinatown. Fisherman's Wharf was actually pretty good, loads of little stalls selling fake sunglasses, touristy gifts and suchlike. There were some old ships and a WW2 submarine which all costed money to go on to, so i just looked at the outsides of them. I found a cheap cruise around the bay which lasted about an hour or so, went under the golden gate bridge etc which was worth it.
Day 3... I can't really remember, think i walked around for about 8 hours just looking at stuff.
Day 4... Got up late and did some stuff on the laptop, went to Alcatraz for the afternoon. Really good tour.
Day 5... Went on a sightseeing minivan trip with 10 other
guys from the hostel. This was probably the best day i've had so far. The tour guide was great, and after the 5-hour tour i had gotten to know everyone on the tour pretty well.
So that's pretty much where i slept, what i ate and what i did. Things that stood out were:
Homeless people, probably the most i've seen in a city so far. I was walking along the street today and came upon the most stereotypical street-preacher guy standing on the corner, tattered bible in hand, shouting at people and judging them left, right and centre whilst homeless people were stumbling past him just begging for some food. It was sickening to be honest.
That's probably the only negative point however, San Francisco seems to be a very liberal, accepting place with many different cultures living together in harmony.
oh also, Medicinal Marajuana is legal in California. Apparently doctors can perscribe a "weed card" which enables you to buy pot from vending machines and cannabis stores as well as grow your own. I think it's quite a recent thing, came about in the past couple of years. but it'll be interesting to see
whether it is indeed a help to society or a hinderance. Either way, i don't think the drug companies are happy that you can grow your own remedy in your back garden instead of paying for their pills :P
check ya later
p.s. i can't upload photos at the moment, but i thought i should publish it anyway. i'll upload when i can!
-dan
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Chaz B
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sisco
i reckon out of all the cities in yank san francisco would be the one id want to visit, shame about the preacher guy, nobhead needs to read the book hes holding, feed the poor and judge not! ...not judge the poor and feed not... fills me with a sense of self righteous rage lol... glad you having a good, got it good here too heh. look after yourself! chaz