Day 30 - Geeking it up at the Exploratorium & Day 31 - Travelling to Boston

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We're pretty late in posting this blog entry due to a long day travelling yesterday and an early night prior to that!

Thursday was our last full day in San Francisco, and as we had a ticket each left in our CityPasses for the Exploratorium (basically a big, interactive science museum), this is where we spent most of it!

We were up at around 9am, and were ready and out for about 11am. We went to get some breakfast/dinner from Carl's Jr. before walking up towards Chinatown to the number 30 bus stop. Just as we got there, a bus was at the stop, but it looked a little full and there was another bus right behind it, so we got on that one instead. Unfortunately, it turns out that this was the one that only takes us part of the way there, it was the other bus that would take us the whole journey. We got off near to where we got kicked off before and waited around 10 minutes for the other bus to turn up.

We got off a stop too late (the driver asked where we were going and when we told him, he said that we should have got off at the previous stop), but eventually found the big golden dome of the 'Palace of Fine Arts', with the Exploratorium right next door. We went through the entrance, handed over our ticket and walked into the museum. This place was amazing! I won't go into detail about all of the different things that were there because there were literally so many awesome things that I wouldn't be able to if I tried.

If you have been to a science museum before, you will kind of know what this place was like. You basically go around the different 'exhibits', doing little 'experiments', most of which show the weird and wonderful ways of science. These included being able to float a particle of water on a fan, making huuge bubbles, talking to each other on different sides of the room using big concave domes, making big rings of fog/mist shoot into the air, making a water vortex, putting a slinky onto a descending conveyor belt, seeing your fingertips through a microscope (which looks GROSS btw) capturing a drop of water falling into a cup of water on a camera by the millisecond and making sparks that immediately cool when they touch your skin. These are literally just a few of the cool things that you can do there, but there were literally hundreds of other things, involving magnets, light, water, sound, gravity, optical illusions, perception, and various social experiments, such as a 'poker-face' bluffing game that you could play (which Emma was pretty rubbish at being as she burst out laughing every time that she lied). Being science geeks, we were in our element all day!

We left the Exploratorium pretty much when it closed at 5pm (we would have spent longer there if we could!), and walked back towards the number 30 bus stop. We noticed one coming up the road, so we ran to catch it and rode it back towards the hostel. However, as this was our last day, and we STILL hadn't ridden one of the traditional cable cars, we got off early and found the start of the Powell-Mason line. There was a queue of people, so we joined the end of it and watched as the cable cars turned up, were turned around on a giant turntable, were loaded with passengers, then made their way up the hill. Finally it was our turn to board, and as we were first on, we went straight to the side and took a few pictures of ourselves hanging off it. Once we were moving, Emma took a seat on the side whilst Craig stood just in front of her on the edge of the car.

The ride back to Market Street took around 15 minutes or so, and we were pretty cold by the time we got back (the weather today was a lot cooler than it has been, but unfortunately, we didn't realise this until we were out in our shorts and t-shirts!). We headed towards Walgreens to pick up something for our tea, and some postcards for Craig's auntie. We got some noodles, some Zingers (cakes kind of like Twinkies but chocolate/vanilla flavour with icing on) and found some postcards then walked back to the hostel.

Once there, we went straight to the kitchen to cook our noodles, which we just needed to add water to, then microwave for about 5 minutes. We had two flavours; chicken chow mein and beef teriyaki, so we cooked them both then split them between us on two plates. Once we had eaten them (they were very yummy), we went back up to the room to eat our cakes and to pack our cases. We had to be up very early the next day to catch our 7am, so once we were done by around 8pm, Emma went to bed whilst Craig stayed up for a little longer playing on the netbook.

We were up the next morning at 3am (STUPIDLY early time >😞 ), and we sleepily got ready and finished packing away anything else that we had left out to use. Our airport shuttle was booked for 4:30, so we went down at around 4:15 to check out and to wait for the shuttle. It arrived about 5 minutes later, so we put our cases into the back and took a seat. We waited until 4:30 to leave (there was one girl that we were waiting for who just about turned up on time), then set off towards San Francisco International Airport.

Our stop was the first one, so we got off, paid the driver and walked over to check-in. At the desk, we were told that our flight was going to be delayed by two hours, and that we wouldn't be leaving until 9am. As this then meant that we would miss our connecting flight in Atlanta, we had instead been transferred onto a different connecting flight, which wouldn't leave Atlanta until 8:50pm and wouldn't reach Boston until around 11:30pm. This meant that today was going to be a looong day of waiting in airports!

We checked in our baggage and then headed over to our gate. We had been told that, as there was a delay, we would receive a complimentary meal voucher from a representative at the gate in a short while. We sat down and played on the netbook until an announcement was made that we could collect our voucher, so Emma went to pick them up while Craig waited with the bags. The voucher was for $10 (we had one of these each), and could be used at any of the airport restaurants, so we had a walk around the different eateries to see what there was to offer. We eventually settled on a turkey burger meal for $8.95 each, and we ordered them together so that we could combine any money left to buy a drink. Once the tax had been added on, we just had to pay a dollar or so for the drink.

We filled our drink at the machine, then sat and waited for our number to be called out so that we could collect our food - noticing on our receipt that we had been served by Jesus at the till! Eventually our number was called, and we collected our food and brought it back to our table. It was HUGE. The burger was absolutely massive and there was a mountain of fries with it too. We both ate as much as we could before admitting defeat and throwing away what was left, but agreeing that it was good that we got that for free! We sneakily refilled our drink (we may have been allowed to but we weren't sure) before going back over to the gate to find a seat.

9am came and they had not even started to board the plane. Finally, at around 9:20, the announcement was made for the different sections to begin boarding, so we made our way onto the plane, which eventually took off from the runway at around 10am - three hours later than it should have! The flight to Atlanta took around four and a half hours, and was fairly uneventful. There were no TV's, and although wi-fi was available on the plane, it cost around $12 an hour (or something ridiculous like that) so we settled on playing some games on the netbook, listening to music, reading a book or looking out of the window. We also got a bit of sleep on there (which wasn't too difficult as we were both very tired after our early wake-up!) and we landed in Atlanta at around 4:30pm (we also lost 3 hours due to the time difference).

Once off the plane, we were met with a staff member who informed us that our connecting flight would be leaving from gate C12, so we made our way over there, knowing that we would still have to wait around four hours until our next flight. We found a seat by an electrical outlet so that we could charge the netbook, and sat there for around an hour or so. We were starting to get hungry, and wondered if we were eligible for another meal voucher, as our previously delayed flight had caused us to miss the other one, delaying us for a further four hours. Emma went over to the customer services desk, where she explained the situation to the woman there, who said that we could get another meal voucher, but to come back in around an hour as she didn't have any at that point in time.

We waited for another hour (mainly spent playing on the netbook and trying to stay awake), before going back to the desk and receiving another two $10 vouchers. We had another walk around, looking for somewhere to use them, and Craig spotted a Wendy's, pretty much the only burger place that we haven't eaten yet! Emma didn't really fancy a burger, but Craig went for a 3/4lb triple cheeseburger combo (the equivalent of three quarter-pounders with cheese!), and as he had a bit left over on his voucher, Emma got a small pot of chilli and paid the 30c extra, leaving our other voucher unused. We ate our food (the burger was an absolute MONSTER), then contemplated where to use our other voucher.

We had walked past a Ben and Jerry's earlier, so we decided to use the other voucher there! We chose a brownie sundae with cookie dough and caramel chunk icecream, which was like a mountain of goodness once they had made it up! We grabbed two spoons and dug in (with Craig remembering to take his pills this time!) - it was heaven! The brownie at the bottom had been warmed up and it all tasted amazing - thanks AirTran! We polished it off, before going back towards our gate. As there were no electrical outlets free by our gate, and our netbook needed charging a bit more, we went to the next gate, where we found a free one. We then sat and waited for another hour or so until we could board.

They boarded a little earlier this time, at around 8:15pm, but we still didn't actually take off until around 9pm. While we were waiting on the plane/driving towards the runway, we could hear what sounded like the tiniest dog ever, crying a few rows behind us. We couldn't actually see it, but we assumed, as everyone seemed to be looking down, that it had been put in a cage under the seat for take-off, which he didn't like one bit!

Once we were finally in the air, we pretty much did the same as what we did on the other flight. However, this time round there was quite a lot of turbulence, and we saw a storm in the distance flashing between the clouds. A little while later, we actually flew right through a storm - the lightening was flashing right outside the window - which was a little scary! Thankfully, we made it safely to Boston, and landed at around 11:30pm. We made our way to the baggage claim area, where our cases showed up on the carousel after around 10 minutes.

Prior to us being delayed, we had planned to catch a couple of subways towards the hostel in downtown where we were staying. However, as it was now much later than we had intended, we checked the internet to find that the route that we wanted to take was not available at that time of night, and that we would instead have to catch two different subways and walk half a mile in the dark to our hostel. We weren't too keen on this idea, and so instead we decided to get a taxi, figuring that as we had spent nothing on food all day, we could use that money to pay the fare.

There was a big line of taxis waiting outside the terminal, and after checking with a guy on how much it would be to get to our destination, we got in one and headed to 40 Berkeley. It only took around 15 minutes to get there, and once there, we paid the driver, grabbed our cases/bags and walked over to the entrance. The lady on the desk opened the door for us (it is locked for security reasons after 10pm) and gave us a friendly welcome talk and told us about the hostel, gave us a map of Boston and a few other bits of information on what there was to do, and the events that were on in the next few days. She then checked us in, and we paid the remaining balance for the room on our card, before handing us our key to our room on the sixth floor.

We took the elevator up and found our room, which was a little nicer than the one that we had just left in San Francisco! Again, it is pretty basic, but this time we have a desk, a chest of drawers and a large wardrobe to store everything in - last week we literally just had to leave stuff on the floor! There are male and female shared bathrooms in each floor, which we quickly checked out - they are pretty big and clean with a few cubicles containing either a shower or a toilet.

We were a little thirsty, so we went back downstairs to get a drink. Whilst down there, we had a quick look around at the other facilities, which included a large lobby/recreation area with two pool tables, a laundry room, several computers with internet access, LOADS of books to read, a couple of microwaves and a coffee/hot water machine. We also noticed a fairground-style popcorn machine filled with popcorn, but after tasting some and realising it was salty, we thought that we would give it a miss (why do Americans always have their popcorn salted?!).

We found a water fountain where we had a drink, then came back up to the room. Just before going to bed, we checked the internet on the netbook, which appears to be the best that we've had yet! We finally got into bed at around 1am for some much-needed sleep!

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