The U.S.A. – Part 3 – San Francisco
So imagine the scene: you’ve just arrived at the airport in a large international city, at night, and with all your worldly belongings strapped to your back, when you realise you realise you ain’t booked any accommodation – no problem, you just call up a hostel and book a bed, right? WRONG. When you realise that every hostel and budget-price hotel in the city is fully booked because nobody informed you that it was the weekend of the largest gay festival in-the-world – you begin to panic. When you then catch the bus into the city (that you don’t know your way around) and find out that the only first-come-first-serve ‘hotel’ is actually a shitty crack-den with its reception CLOSED – you begin to panic a lot more. Fortunately in my case I didn’t have to sleep on the streets that night with what seemed like half of San Francisco’s population (the place is ridiculously poverty-stricken) because a saint by the name of Billy came to my rescue. I chanced my luck on a small hotel nearby – Billy at reception told me there was only one room left and it’d be $139.
“I can’t afford that mate!” was naturally my response, but I was desperate for somewhere to crash for the night. After helping me call every hostel on the list to no avail, Billy pipes up with “Ah, fuck it buddy – I’m leaving this job in two weeks anyway – you can have the room for $65.” I couldn’t believe my luck. “Oh but just so you know, the room’s real small…” says Billy – by small he meant the American equation of small: spacious en-suite with a double-bed and sink unit. You wanna order some food here – two can eat for the price of one – half the meal’s filling enough!
Anyway, I flew to ‘San Fran’ earlier than originally planned in the hope that I could bring forward my flights to New York and then London respectively. This proved impossible, so I stayed at a hostel in the city for the next 9 days. This wasn’t too bad – plenty of picture-taking opportunities to be had: the city…
…the Golden Gate Bridge…
…and Al Capone’s second home, the island prison of Alcatraz…
The Alcatraz trip was excellent, and one I’d highly recommend. You walk freely around the grounds and cell-blocks whilst listening to an audio tour on an MP3 handset featuring former inmates, wardens and staff members during its time as a maximum security jailhouse. The tales of several attempted breakouts were particularly interesting.
I killed a lot of time in San Fran by making use of the hostel’s free internet facilities, and I even did a day’s work to pick up some much-needed cash ($80) by clearing rubble from the basement. One stop until home – so good they named it twice – New York, Noo Yoik baby!!
J.
Tags: Random Stuff, The U.S.A, Travel
J
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