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Published: August 8th 2007
Ned's armour
In awe of Ned - an Australian iconHello all! We write our inaugural travel blog entry in a dilapidated, rat-infested "internet" room of the back corner of a backpacker's just outside the red light district of San Francisco. We've had nothing but bread and water today (being on a tight budget), and the smell of hot dogs drifting in through the broken window is making our mouths water.
Actually, we're sitting on a comfy leather executive chair in the study of my aunt and uncle's home in the USA's Silicon Valley - Cupertino, California. This place is far from dilapidated, and there certainly aren't any rats or red lights around. And who said anything about hot dogs? We've stuffed ourselves silly (for the fourth time in two days), the crime scene tonight being a Chinese Restaurant just outside the main part of San Francisco. And to think I've got the nerve to tackle two scoops of Godiva white chocolate and raspberry ice cream (insanely good) while I'm writing this.
Yes, this is the backpacker's life, and a fine way to start a world tour.
It was with the words "well, we've managed to organise ourselves enough to make it to San Francisco" that I
Miss Saigon
Outside Her Majesty's Theatre Melbourne stepped off the plane at SF International Airport. It was a moment of deep relief and self-satisfaction, in the light of months of frantic organising. In the 24 hours prior to leaving we posed for (spare) passport photos (at least Elle did - I got mine last week, but then lost them), purchased birthday presents for family members, pre-voted for Labor (at least I did, Elle wasn't sure who she voted for...) in the state elections, got an International Driver's Permit, packed our backpacks, did a budget for the 15 weeks of travelling (with the help of our brother-in-law David, who I believe was markedly impressed by my lack of insight into financial planning, wildly over-budgeting in some areas and completely forgetting to include other items), cleaned up our mess at Elle's parents' place (where we moved to the week prior), ripped music to our Ipod for the trip, made scans and photocopies of all our vital documents (including our yellow fever vaccination certificates), lost Elle's passport (for a frantic 20 minutes), bought traveller's cheques, watched the Lord of the Rings trilogy (just kidding), slept about 3.5 hours between the two of us, woke up at 5.30am, drove over to
Stanford
Late afternoon at Stanford University Catherine (Elle's sister) and David's place, realised we had forgotten our yellow fever vaccination certificates, drove back to Elle's parents place (the certificates were in the photocopier, where I'd left them), got stuck in the peak hour crawl between Castle Hill and the airport (during which I confessed several times "we're not going to make it...", arrived at the airport 15 minutes prior to take off, picked up my passport (complete with Brazilian visa) from my friend Saulo (whose mum works for the Brazilian consulate) waiting at the airport for us, and breathed big sighs of relief when we were told that our Virgin Blue flight to Melbourne was delayed by 20 minutes due to fog.
Yes, the first night of our world trip was spent in our own gorgeous country, in Melbourne, where we went as part of a birthday present for Elle to see "Miss Saigon" at Her Majesty's Theatre. We arrived in Melbourne mid-morning, taking the efficient shuttle bus from the airport to Spencer St station. It was an odd feeling getting off the bus in a big city neither of us knew very well, strapping ourselves into our brand new Kathmandu backpacks, wearing our day
Golden Gate
San Francisco Bay, Golden Gate bridge in the background packs on our chests (in true backpacker style), and working out how to get to our hostel. We felt like foreigners in our own country! We also felt like walking Kathmandu advertisements. Well, we advertised about 200 metres up the road to the acceptable Astoria Inn ($100 a night, clean place with private bathroom) where we dropped off our bags and set off to explore Melbourne for the day. Elle has taken to wearing her bright white sneakers with blue jeans, and by her own confession looks like Jerry Seinfeld. We strolled along the Southbank area by the Yarra River, crossed a bridge to Federation Square (very impressive architecture), caught the FREE city circle tram around town (gotta love the freebies - this one in particular is excellent - it takes you around the edge of the CBD, frequently stopping, giving commentaries on the sights you pass and directions from each stop to the places you can't see), stopped off at the State Library of Victoria (magnificent) where we posed with Ned Kelly's armour (dented), and then trammed it back to Spencer St, buying $45 worth of gifts and completely blowing our day's budget in the process (bollocks!) At the
Cute Squirrel
Isn't he the cutest thing? hotel
we had a breather and played Electronic Travel Yahtzee. Elle's taught me how to play, and we have as our goal to beat Catherine's high score of 565. At the moment neither of us are scoring over 250. Pray for us!
Her Majesty's Theatre is a lovely venue just outside Melbourne's Chinatown, where we spent most of that evening watching Boubil and Schoenberg's Miss Saigon. This is Elle's favourite musical, and I won lots of brownie points when I told her we should go down to Melbourne to see it before we went overseas. It was a good production. Elle was a bit concerned about Kim's voice (the lead female part) going flat, and I was a bit concerned about the front of house sound, and it was a bit raunchy, but all in all we had a fun time, and I enjoyed teasing Elle (who inherited the 'musical nut' gene from her mother) about the way very regular comments like "Chris arrived with me today!" seemed to be sung with all the intensity and heightened emotion which would be more appropriate for a line like "Chris was killed by a laser ray!" I have taken the melodies from the musical and enlivened my own everyday words with them. I sung to Elle this morning "I had cereal for breakfast!"
We bade farewell to the Astoria early the next morning, and trudged down to Spencer St station fully laden with our backpacks. Back onto the shuttle bus, and one Virgin Blue flight later we are back in Sydney. We did enjoy our short glimpse of Melbourne, and will be back for more someday.
QF73 from Sydney to San Francisco was our first international flight together. We looked longingly at the wide and well-spaced out business class seats (they look more like capsules really) and walked right past them into Economy, or as the lady sitting next to me referred it, Cattle class. For some strange reason, there is enough excitement about flying that you walk into the plane, having completely forgotten the feelings of angst and restless legs that accompanied the last 8 long hours of your last international Economy class flight. Well, six hours into the flight, having devoured every crumb of dinner (with red wine, in an attempt to make myself drowsy) and jealously stowing away our 'snack packs' for a needy time (as any budget-conscious backpacker would), having watched "The Prestige" (which completely confused me), I am frustratedly trying to get to sleep in the "virtually-upright" seats (a fully reclined economy seat). I have the eye mask on, the blanket over my head, I am shifting my legs (partly to get comfortable, partly to prevent deep vein thrombosis), and most annoyingly of all I am not asleep. This is truly "economy class syndrome"!
And so after a not-so-restful flight we found ourselves behind the wheel of a Chevrolet at SF International, and were not a little disoriented sitting there with the driver's seat on the left. Nevertheless, I made Elle promise to stay awake to warn me if I was driving on the wrong side of the road, and gingerly set off out of the carpark. With good directions from my uncle, we only managed to make two wrong turns, which I eagerly corrected by use of several U-turns at traffic lights, which are completely legal here! Having forked out well earned money for U-turning at a light in Australia in the past, this was especially fun for me.
It is now Elle here (It's getting late and Kev was taking too long 😊...). So we're in Cupertino, seriously jetlagged! Kev's uncle and aunt have totally spoiled us by taking us out to eat American-sized meals (big enough for a family) and driving us everywhere to "play tourist" as they say. Sightseeing: Yesterday we went to Stanford University (very pretty!) and the local area and today we headed to San Francisco for what was essentially a driving tour (with us nodding off occasionally, despite sleeping for 11 hours last night!). We saw Union square and Fisherman's wharf etc from the comfort of a Mercedes and got out sometimes to take the odd photo of the Golden Gate Bridge. It's a very pretty city actually...lots of old buildings and the bay is lovely. I particularly like bridges, and they do them well in San Francisco! We also stopped at the Botanical gardens, where Kev and I stopped for about 20 minutes to play with squirrels (a novelty for us and very cute!). Worth a visit to see those squirrels and the magnolia trees and cherry blossom! Actually there's cherry blossom everywhere here...lots of Japanese immigrants a while ago I think. There are also a lot of homeless people here, which we found quite saddening...I guess a reflection of the political system. But I won't get into politics cos this is a travel blog and you'll soon learn how little I know 😊
All in all, it's been lovely to see a bit of California...much more scenic than I expected and I would definitely come back. And I've also loved meeting Kev's family, who are lovely! And I'm finally feeling better about this trip...ie i'm no longer freaked out, stressed and over-tired. I'm just excited and ready for the next stop....LA!!
P.s. thanks to everyone who's messaged/emailed us...keep them coming!! Love you all...
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Dave T
non-member comment
Great!
Hey Kev, loved the writing, don't let Elle shut you up... keep it coming!! Love you both lots, trust that you're having a fantastic time... enjoy the spoiling while you can, because you're soon going to take the plunge!! dave