Saturday 18th August 2012

The best way to start a major trip is to sit on the tarmac for an hour while some old mate finds his passport.

Leaving Melbourne over an hour late made me very nervous, it was touch and go if i’d make my connection as is. My feet swelling up to the size of footballs during the flight didn’t help either.

My flight from LA to San Francisco was at 8:30am, precisely the time I was heading through passport control. Luckily, I had a helpful American Airlines woman who got me onto a 12:15pm flight. That flight was the only sleep I got in a 40 hours period.

I got lost as hell in San Francisco airport, it didn’t help that I had no idea what airline Steve was flying in on. It was pure luck that I found out he would be coming out of Customs A, after him being in there for 2 hours he looked like a broken man, probably a look I shared.

This hostel is fairly decent, we have a TV, Microwave & Fridge all in our room, plus it’s free breakfast and they threw on free Pina Colada’s & Punch at the Luau last night. Each glass just made me even more tired, so after we dominated the pool table for a good 2 hours it was time to hit the way.

We grabbed dinner at some English pub around the corner on Sutter Street. I ordered the Pulled Pork Sandwich, knew it would be a winner. Stevie ordered your stock standard Burger, the waitress asked “how would you like it cooked” to which Stevie replied “oh, just normally”. Baffled looks all around.

Sunday 19th August 2012

For some reason the alarm was set at 7am, so a rude awakening followed. Managed to sleep again until about 9:30am when I was awoken to the spoils of a free breakfast.

Had breakfast with a couple of blokes from New York who are here to study Brazilian music, interesting cats, they were heading off for some Yoga in the park. They must’ve been around the 40 mark.

You hear that San Francisco is hilly, but you don’t realise how hilly it is until you walk from USA Hostel to the Bay. We ended up walking past Lombard Street on the way by pure accident so checked out the ‘crookedest street in the world’, there were so many people taking photo’s opposite it that the cars couldn’t get through.

Unfortunately the low lying cloud stopped us from getting a view of the Golden Gate Bridge, so we’ll head back up tomorrow when there’s hopefully a bit more sun.

A fair bit of bloody walking followed, and my feet have had enough for the day. Ate one of the saltiest Hot Dog’s i’ve ever had in my life. They fucking love salt & sugar here, as well as Oxygen Bars, they’re bloody everywhere. Sea Lions are also everywhere.

I needed a bottle of water badly today, but couldn’t find a 7-11 anywhere, I think because they’re on every damn corner in Melbourne that I expected it to be the same everywhere else. Also, i’m surprised at how nice people are here, not really sure why, I guess it’s just from TV shows that show most American’s to be uneducated jerks. Well…we haven’t been to Texas yet.

Looking for a slice of pizza proved difficult for dinner, we took a couple of wrong turns and ended up in a seriously bad part of town. It was a bit of an eye opener to be honest and left us a bit flat, we ended up finding Uncle Vito’s pizza, made our own. Mine, with Pepperoni, Fetta & Red Capsicum. Stevie’s with Pepperoni, Anchovy & Broccoli, and interesting mix that he was overjoyed with.

We were on our way to Johnny Foley’s for a beer before hitting the sack, a couple behind us who I thought were Poms & Steve thought were Sprinboks asked us for directions on where to get a beer. Turns out they were bloody Kiwi’s, so they came with us for a beer anyway. They were living the dream, older but not retired, they were heading to London on Monday for 4 days then Paris etc, doing the works. It was good to talk to people who we could relate to though, and complain how baffled we are with tipping etc.