The Streets of San Francisco
Friday, April 29th, 2005Hello!
I am on the final leg of my trip. Cant believe that 4 months have gone by already but they have.
My trip to the States started off with me travelling together with a guy called Neil. I met Neil whilst watching football in Franz Josef in NZ. Yes, I was watching football. And then a few weeks later, I ended up flying to Fiji with a guy from my hostel in Auckland called Archie. Once we got to Fiji, Archie joined his group of friends and Neil was one of them. As it turned out we were both headed to LA on the same flight so we decided to meet at the airport and get together to road-trip California!
We spent a couple of days in Santa Monica getting excited about how cheap everything was and laughing at all the people trying to look cool on Venice Beach and eavesdropping stupid conversations. Our hostel was full of students and people trying their luck in Hollywood. Some were nice, hardworking people and some were just plain idiots who liked the sound of their own voices a bit too much. They dont call it La La Land for nothing you know.
Then we got our car! We headed straight up Pacific Highway 1, taking in Malibu (but could not find any nice houses to sneak into), Santa Barbara and the surfers at Pismo Beach. We watched big seals lying on the beach and visited Hearst Castle before we reached the Big Sur, which was pretty cool. The cliff road winds around the coast and you end up stopping every 5 minutes to take a picture of the views. We headed on to Santa Cruz which was just lovely (Mike & Cueszy, you lucky buggers). It just seems like a cool place to stay; nice beach, nice houses, surfers! Our trip took 2 days and we were pretty bushed by the time we got to San Francisco.
I have now been here over a week and have done loads of things like wandering around the different areas; the Haight (for alternative music and clothes, stuff like that), Castro (gay boys), Fishermans Wharf (too many tourists), Chinatown and North Beach as well as Union Square (shops!). I rode the Golden Gate Bridge by bike which was really cool and then went to Sausalito for lunch, which was a downhill trip. I was told it would take me about 30 minutes to get there but it took me only 10 with no brakes, hehe. Alcatraz was a must and with good reason too. I spent some time chilling out in Golden Gate Park and went to the beach too. Then, yesterday I wandered over the Bay Bridge to Berkeley, a University town, and mingled with the students. I did think about sneaking into a lecture but then I thought no.
The Americans I have met have been fairly pleasant. There are actually quite a lot of Americans travelling around their own country. Some of them are puzzled when I tell them Im from England, they’re like, what you’re not Indian? And Im like, Hey, not all brown faces are Indian. And none of them have heard of Mauritius. Except two.
My hostel is really cool, the Green Tortoise, its run by the same guys who organise the bus tours, I know some of you have done them, so its like a 24-hour party (mum and dad please dont be shocked by how tired I look when you come to pick me up). I met a really cool bunch of guys here – 2 Aussies, Shane & Mike, a Mexican, Cueszy and Matt from Stevenage and we stuck together the whole time until they all started leaving, one by one. Cueszy and me leave tomorrow and then Neil will be on his own for one more day…
So, I have thoroughly enjoyed my time in Asia, Oz, Nz, Fiji and here. I wish I had longer but my credit card expires this weekend so I should really come back!! Hopefully the stop home wont last too long because there is so much more to see in the world than the inside of a tube train and the grumpy faces on the bus in the mornings. And with invites to see tigers in India in August and life in Brazil in November, it would be just plain rude to stay in London. Only question now is, who’s gonna come with me???
PixieDoux