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Published: September 12th 2009
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July 28 - July 31 After a hectic three days in the UK after the excitement of Africa we set off on the next part of our adventure - the U S of A! In a rare blast of creativity for an accountant, Simon has written the next few posts... We arrived in San Francisco airport with our bags both weighing over 21kg and further smaller bags draped from our bodies to get the Metro into the city and to our hostel for the next 3 nights.
The hostel turned out to be just what we were expecting, big and full of young travellers of which I had bugger all in common with. Time for a proper American burger then, and we found a gem. Just across the road from the hostel was Pearls - the current winner of San Francisco’s best burger award and it deserved it. The burgers were big, tasty and had all manner of toppings. Cheap and with service lying somewhere between McDonalds and a restaurant the food was exactly what we were hoping it would be for the next 4 weeks. We were in a 4 bed dorm that night (which started at
19:30 for us thanks to jetlag) and Leanne harbours fond memories of it as in the morning I came back from the bathroom to find her deep in conversation with a German boy wearing only a pair of exceedingly tight pants
(just to clarify it was the German boy wearing the tight pants not me - L). Next thing I know the Dutch guy also in our room (who had been sleep shouting during the night) came in wearing a similarly small amount. Leanne was really starting to enjoy mixed dorm hostels whereas all my practise of peering out through supposedly closed eyes was starting to look useless if we were only going to share with men!
Anyway, make your own pancakes for breakfast cheered me up. In fact mine were pretty damn good especially next to Leanne’s 3 inch thick efforts… That day we went on a free walking tour run by one of the hostel staff. This took us from the hostel, into China Town to sample fortune cookies and dim sum, over one of the numerous mammoth hills the city is built on (but where you get a good view of the Golden Gate Bridge and
Alcatraz), and onto Fisherman’s Wharf where the tourists gather. It was here that we found out that all tickets to Alcatraz had been sold for the next week meaning we could not go, our hire car being picked up in 3 days for a trip down the Pacific Coast Highway. Anyway, the tour ended here so with Leanne armed with a corn dog (you have to try these things) we joined the throng of tourists on Pier 39 to watch the colony of grumpy Sea Lions.
That night we moved rooms to another 4 bed dorm and with 2 English girls. I was eager to try out my spying technique but unfortunately by morning I was so embarrassed with myself I just wanted to come home!! But I don’t think anyone wants to hear why…
(you make this sound a lot worse than it was - L) The rest of the time in San Fran was spent walking around and shopping, it was so bloody cold we needed to add more weight to our bags by stocking up on warm clothes. Who knew summer in California would be this cold? At some point we decided it would be
San Fran
Monument honouring fire brigade a good idea to see some American sport while we were here and it doesn’t come much more American than Baseball. Big, unatheletic men chewing tobacco and spitting while trying in vain to hit the bloody ball. I can see now why they have to contest the World Series on their own, it is the worst game ever played and it seems every other nation has the intelligence to realise this. Three hours of incredibly dull ‘play’ made bearable by Leanne’s garlic fries and my copious amounts of wine as well as the cringeworthy ‘entertainment’. The 7th Innings stretch for example is a series of aerobic exercises (gentle of course, these are Americans after all) shown on the big screen for everyone to follow, and they do!! Presumably just to wake up. Don’t ask me the score as I have no idea but I did, much to Leanne’s embarrassment, get us each a certificate to commemorate our first game. The fact that I had to queue up with Dad’s bringing their small children to get one was slightly embarrassing I suppose.
After a couple more nights again in different rooms and the last at a different hostel it was
time to pick up the hire car. Just to tease us there was a Alamo depot right opposite the hostel but in my wisdom when making the booking I had the collection address at the airport, so a few hours later and after a necessary upgrade to make room for our bags I was in possession of a 18ft long Dodge Charger for the next 3 weeks. 250bhp, v6 and the size of a house. I was a happy man..…
I'd just like to point out that I don't think it was a coincidence we ended up with the very car Simon had pined for when we booked back in the UK but that I had vetoed for being too expensive.
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