I left my (29 year old) Hartnett in San Francisco

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Well it's been ages because of the lack of internet cafes here in the states and the ridiculous prices of those that do exist (18 dollars per hour if you can believe that!) but I'm in a hostel now where it's slow but free so here goes...

We left Wellington for a long journey to Napier and stayed 2 nights there - Napier itself is very pretty - the Art Deco capital of NZ (don't think Ireland has one of them - Nobber maybe?) and on the sea which is wild and loud - no swimming allowed but I don't know if we would have braved it even if it had been. The hostel we stayed in was cool - a small little place with friendly inhabitants including a Dutch guy with a Donegal accent - he'd been living in Australia with a load of Irish lads until he was kicked out for not paying a fine for peeing on the street. A true adopted son of Eire. I would say that Napier itself was quite dull apart from the fact that the day we left there was a massive standoff between the police and an ex-army guy who, on being searched for a routine drug bust, decided to take arms against the police, booby trapping his house, injuring 2 police, a neighbour and finally being killed himself. So not as dull as we thought.

Onwards to Taupo - a quiet wee town sitting on the largest lake in New Zealand which was very impressive - it's a big sky diving place but funds didn't allow us to get that far and from what we heard the weather was a bit unpredictable and some people we spoke to had theirs cancelled so we didn't feel we were missing out on too much. After a couple of nights there drinking cheap cheap boxes of wine and playing endless games of cards we made our way to Auckland which was cooler than we thought, having been warned by everyone not to go. This may have had something to do with the fact that we had tickets to see Dylan Moran on the first night - a few pints in Father Ted's bar ( yep) and then onto the gig which was, as expected, brilliant. It had been moved from the Town Hall to the Civic Theatre which has to be the most beautiful theatre I've ever been in (yeah, even nicer than the room above the pub in Hampstead). It's been done to look like you are at an outdoor event in a castle courtyard - ceiling complete with navy sky and stars. Castle walls lit up with turrets etc - Really amazing. And now a word from Mr Moran:

'I know that New Zealand is different to Australia and you have a very distinct culture. For example, different brands of beans....but not just that, sausages also'

The flight from Auckland to LA was long and fairly sleepless - we almost weren't allowed to check in cos we had no address in LA but after a quick run to the bookshop to jot down any old hostel from Lonely Planet we got there and then ended up actually staying there. The Orbit hostel was on Melrose Avenue in a funky part of LA complete with boutique fashion shops and cheap eats - we helped ourselves to a giant Burrito and walked and walked and walked ( and got the blisters to prove it) the streets as far as Hollywood Boulevard which was littered as we imagined with mad people shouting at the sky - it did cross my mind that perhaps these people were investment bankers and this was a recent phenomenon but they seemed fairly seasoned so I think not. LA also delivered exactly what I hoped I'd see - a woman pushing her dog in a buggy complete with jumper and safety belt. We also paused to respect the various stars on the walk of fame, some highlights included Lassie, Ronald Reagan and Tony Danza (who's the boss? He is and he has a body that just wont quit according to his co-star - you know, the slapper granny)

The next day we decided to get out of LA and head for San Francisco. The Greyhound station in LA is a long walk up the dodgiest street in the world - down and outs and gangs of homeless people - profoundly sad and quite scary - we walked it without our luggage to buy the tickets but decided to bus and taxi to the station with our stuff cos you can't run very fast with a rucksack. Or at least I can't.
We caught the overnight bus to San Francisco and arrived very early on a lovely sunny morning without a clue as to where we were. We found a coffee shop and drank about a litre of coffee each and then began the mad-eyed hunt for internet - found one and booked into a hostel/cheap hotel on North Beach, slap bang in the middle of Chinatown and Little Italy. We spent a week in San Franciso with brilliant weather, lounging in the Golden Gate Park which is really great and bizzarely bouncered by gangs of dudes whispering 'Green Buds' to everyone who passes despite the police cruising around, wandering about Haight Ashbury which is now a kind of lame museum to hippiedom although we didn't get too far off the beaten track, lazing at the beach - dipping our toes in the freezing water, walk walk walking and using bus, trolley and cable cars to buzz around and ooh and ahh at the Golden Gate bridge and the Bay Bridge. Paul turned the ripe old age of 30 while we were there which was celebrated by Donuts for breakfast and a few scoops! He's not looking too bad on it I suppose if you were being charitable.

On our last day there we went to Alcatraz which was well worth the trip - very interesting - we had no idea that American Indians occupied the island in 1969 and held it for 18 months! The whole tour is very well done - told by ex guards and inmates - not a place you wanted to be on either side of the bars although the guards families lived on Alcatraz for years, ferrying accross to the mainland for school and living, what they saw as, a perfectly normal life on the island apart from the fact that everyone's Dad worked in that massive building holding the most violent and dangerous criminals alive! Needless to say we loved San Francisco and could have stayed another week but onwards and upwards to Portland.

The journey to Oregan took a whopping 16 hours and the bus had it's own cast of wonderful characters - a woman who was convinced the man beside her (who was unable to walk) was going to rob her, a guy who loved the sound of his own voice so much he eventually got hauled off by security for a talking to and a deaf guy whose car had broken down and had gone to a church where a priest had given him the fare home. He was hilarious and found everything else hilarious and laughed for, oh, I think the entire 16 hours.
Once we got to Portland we had the task of trying to find our hotel (hostels are not big here) - we ended up going about half an hour out of our way on the bus along a motor way. Once we got back to where we started we spent a good 40 minutes taking turns asking people and wandering about trying to find it - eventually, as Paul was en route to find a phone box to ring the place, he found it.
Lucky for us Portland was having unseasonably great weather and the annual Rose Festival was on ( a week earlier than usual). There was a massive fair on the waterfront which was fun to wander through - the highlight being a young 'preacher' guy roaring at everyone and telling us that we were all going to burn in hell - he was constantly surrounded by an angry mob and just babbled and roared passages from the bible in defence to such questions as 'what are you doing?' There was also a big fireworks display on the first night which was one of the best I'd ever seen. One of the days we headed across the bridge to Hawthorne which had lots of cool cafes etc and drank a local Rauchsbier - smoked beer - which was foul. But we persevered fair play to us.

This morning we took the, yes you've guessed it, Greyhound from Portland to Seattle. Everywhere seems to be booked out but we got into this hostel for tonight and then booked a different place for the next 4 nights. So far we think the plan is that Trish and DJ are going to pick us up on Sunday and bring us to Vancouver. Sweet. Today we walked around Seattle and up to the space needle. There's a music museum there which at the moment has a Jim Henson - The Magic of the Muppets exhibition so guess where we'll be going tomorrow, after moving house and watching the Champions League Final of course. Viva Barca!
Seattle, along with Portland and San Francisco is full of bums and it is really shocking to see such poverty and on such a scale but you do get used to it. We haven't bumped into Frasier or Niles yet but the places we're going would probably be more Martin's scene.

We're thinking of home a lot now and getting excited! To Brogans!

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Comments

[Terrell Barrett]

ah, San fran...
Alcatraz has actually always freaked me out a bit. It's a bit morbid, you know, touring such a brutal place, albeit historically fascinating. The gift shop is slightly in bad taste, though...there's lots of "faux" prison gear. "Green buds," eh? I confess I've never had an experience of that caliber in Golden Gate Park, though Berkeley, across the bay, is apparently a mecca for such indulgences (it was supposedly the first city to disallow police for arresting solely due to possession -- I think they make up for it by oppressing parking meter violations). Did you happen to pass the sfraffle.com "dream home" while you were there? It's the latest in a series of luxurious home raffles around the bay, and probably the only chance I'll ever get at moving back up there. Anyhow, supposedly it's near golden gate park, so I was curious if the "green buds" extended that far out.