The homeless capital of the USA!!

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Well we arrived in Emmeryville on time, surprisingly, and got on our transfer coach to San Francisco with a very unfriendly coach driver who told us abruptly we needed to get off at Market Street as this was closest to our hostel. However due to the time zones our physic buttons had been turned off and we didn't realise he was just agreeing that this was the best place to get to to find our hostel, not that it meant he was dropping us off there!! luckily a lot of other people on the coach thought this too and kicked up a fuss when he got to Fisherman's Wharf where he pretty much wanted to turf us all off. So we finally made it to our hostel which was very busy and loud, both audibly and in colour scheme and got to our room to find two very worried looking room mates darting from the window ledge and waving away the weed smoke that had filled the room. The room was really nice and homely except the top bunks had no bars so them so it was hit or miss (excuse the pun) if you made it through the night without breaking something.

The first day we got up pretty late after being tired from the train and went down for the free all you could make pancake breakfast. This was great except I managed to burn mine and even with the huge amount of syrup I piled on, it still tasted rubbish - from now on Nath would be making the breakfast. If most of the staff weren't already hard of hearing they will be soon, as breakfast time in the basement kitchen was like a night club (God I sound old now). As we had wasted half the day getting up late and spending time on the net to arrange our days in the city, we decided to go to Alcatraz for the afternoon. We thought it would be great to sort out a travel card which allowed us on the trams/cable cars (how exciting) through out the city, and what a great way to arrive at the wharf on our first day to catch our boat to Alcatraz.....No not great in fact….. Piss poor!!! We waited in line for about half an hour (despite accidentally on purpose jumping half the queue) waiting for maybe 3 trams to make their way to the turn table and decide to set off again. Surrounded by beggars and "musicians" knowing that we were tourists (as no respectable local would use this form of transport as we found out later), I think it was karma for jumping the queue, but by the time we got on the tram we were running out of time to get to the wharf on time for our boat. To add to that the tram went really really slow, and in the end we had to jump off about half way (in China town) to the pier and run the rest of the way! I thought I was gonna have a coronary!! I don’t do running!! We arrived at the pier with about 5 mins to go (Nath had run off ahead to get our tickets) and without having had time for lunch boarded the boat. 2 pretzels (with cheese filling from the ferry bar) to keep us going and we were on our way to Alcatraz.

Well what can I say, it’s a big ex prison and it’s about as much history as San Fran has so I can’t really diss it. The tour was an audio one so we joined the queues of people trying to look in all the cells at the right time to make the narration relevant. You could still see some of the carvings on walls and imagine the sounds that must have come from the cells. Half way through the tour we went outside as directed only to be distracted by the Blue Angels (the USA's equivalent to the Red Arrows, but not as good of course) practicing their display over the island ready for Fleet week which started this coming weekend (what great timing). It was so loud when they passed so close that we almost forgot about the rest of the tour. Bar the Prison there isn’t much else more to see and not as much as they reckon there is, so we got back on the ferry and headed to the mainland and our hostel.

We met our new roomies that night (having got rid of the dope smokers), Maxine and Jim from Canterbury (small world) and spent a useless night trying to get stuff done on the internet, which was on and off the whole time we stayed at the hostel (much to our frustration). The next morning (after much less burnt pancakes!!) we joined an organised van tour run by some local guy call Dylan which was recommended by a few resources. He took us to a fair few of the local neighbourhoods, never really stopping for more than 20 mins, which was fine as some of the neighbourhoods were better off viewed from the van!! We later went to Muir Woods, which was full of giant Red Wood trees but again we were rushed round this too (managed to see a deer although the little bugger moved every time we tried to take a photo of it!) and then we headed to a great view of the Golden Gate Bridge. Overall the tour was ok but I wouldn’t bother again, luckily it was one of the cheapest around. That night we joined the hostels' pizza night ($6 for two slices of tiny pizza and a local crap beer - but that was still cheap enough to keep our interest). We sat with Max and Jim and got talking about loads of usual rubbish, only to find that Jim had gone to Swansea Uni pretty much the same time as us (I had thought he looked familiar the night before but couldn’t put my finger on it). Turns out he was involved in a lot of the event organising (music and lighting etc) and was pretty much involved in nearly every ball and fundraiser etc that had gone on (including the RAG events that I had organised). We went through an endless and boring to Nath and Max list of people that we both knew, including you Lou if you're reading this (Jim Wakeham??? - do you recognize the name?).

The next day was meant to be the best weather but it wasn’t, I was slowly realising that San Fran was colder than I thought and that the TV yet again had lied to me. We made our way to the Wharf as we were planning on watching the Fleet week show (Naval ships passing into the bay and air show) and after waiting for one to pass we couldn’t be bothered to hang around in the cold waiting for anymore. I was very excited at finding a shop dedicated solely to xmas decorations, so I had a look round that (didn’t buy anything) whilst Nath waited patiently outside. The apparent “air show” had started soon after but there wasn’t a great deal gong on, generally one single plane after another, a big speech over a crackly microphone about being so proud to be an American, followed by a musical tribute bellowing over the tannoys placed strategically throughout the wharf. I found myself wanting to shout “America f**k yeah!!” in a Team America type fashion but resisted the urge. We had decided to hire bikes this day due to the “great weather” we were expecting, so stuck with the idea and went to hire our “Bay city bikes” bikes for the rest of the day. Stopping once in the sunshine to watch another part of the average air show, we continued on towards the Golden Gate Bridge. The dedicated bike paths were full of people all watching the show, having BBQ’s in the cold (just like us) and drinking some brewskies! But we managed to only take out a dozen or so our with our “clothes line” style riding.

Cycling the bridge was FREEZING, even more so than we were expecting. It was like watching that part in the movie Dumb and Dumber when they are driving to Aspen on a bike and their snot is frozen to their faces!! Fun all the same though and the views were awesome. We were lucky enough to be half way across when one of the jets in the air show did a low level flight over the bridge which we caught on film (frightened the life out of me! But made Nath very happy). After about 4 hours we headed back to the bike hire place, with much more ease now the wind was behind us and crowds had dispersed (they obviously had much more sense than to be out in the cold). We then decided to head into China town for some dinner and this was easy to find (for the obvious reasons) and full of so much choice for places to eat. We had both remembered part of the name of two separate restaurants that had been recommended but not enough information between us to find either of them, so we settled for one that looked busy and clean. The food was really nice and apparently the restaurant was the oldest one in China town and the whole of San Fran, being built way back in 1960!!!

After eating Nath suggested we head back towards the wharf to watch the fireworks we had read about, and although it was freezing and up hill to the next tram I went anyway. We were doing well for time on this tram and looking forward to seeing the start of the fireworks over the bay as we arrived…..however we picked the one tram that broke down and needed to be towed the rest of the route although they wouldn’t tow it with us on, so we got thrown off a good few blokes from the wharf and that was quite a walk in the cold so we waited for the next tram to arrive (I really really needed the loo at this point). I couldn’t have got to the wharf any sooner - it was a close call I can tell you!! (btw isn’t that one of the best feelings??.....sorry I digress). Needless to say after getting on a broken tram and waiting in the cold etc we were late, however we hadn’t missed the fireworks (good times) they were never on anyway (bad times). So we headed back to base for another failed night of trying to access the internet.

Tomorrow we get to collect our hire car and start our road trip down the west coast.......... ROAD TRIP!!!!!!!

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Photos

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The view from our bedroom window (aka the "high" window)

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So thats why they call it "The Rock"

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The prison showers

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NATH DONT PICK UP THAT SOAP!!!!

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I cant remeber if this was a cell in the prison or the hostel in Niagara

Comments

[Russ]

Were American **** yeah!!
I felt exactly the same when we were there. Fantastic city