Friday, 25 December 2009
Stay classy planet Earth!
The plane ride to New York was painless enough and our arrival was similarly easy. As soon as you arrive at JFK airport, there is a conveniently placed travel desk which books you straight on a shuttle bus to your hotel. Once we'd battled through the New York traffic, we arrived at Hotel 31 in Downtown NYC. We were starving by now and it was absolutely freezing so we didn't venture far that night. We just popped to a great little Italian restaurant on the corner of our street which was full to the brim with real New Yorker types. We liked New York so far and it was nice for me to think that, as Kev said over dinner, this was the last unfamiliar place we would be going to on this trip.
The next day, T minus 2, we ventured out into the cold towards Times Square. Times Square is just bonkers, like a poor man's Tokyo but with much more annoying people everywhere! The crowds were doing my head in and it was beginning to snow pretty heavily so we found ourselves a local Irish bar and went in to try and thaw out and get some feeling back in my toes – yes, at the time Kev reminded me of my quote in Kuala Lumpur when I vowed to never complain about the cold again, but I still did complain!
A beer each and ten chicken wings later and it was time to tackle the heavily falling snow again. We walked all the way through Central Park, past the ice rink, past the horse and carts and past the tourists and locals who were also braving the weather that day, right through to the Metropolitan Museum. We went into the foyer, but didn't bother paying to go inside. Instead, we wandered on a little to the Guggenheim Museum of modern art and co-incidentally, there was a Kandinsky exhibition on at the time. Kandinsky is Kev's favourite artists, so obviously, we had to go on in. The inside of the museum is like a huge peeled orange and it made me a little giddy walking up the continuous spherical slope, but it was an awesome place and Kev enjoyed the artwork.
By this time we were a long way from our hotel and the snow was even heavier now, but still we wanted to walk back rather than take a cab. We walked all the way to another Irish bar, about ten blocks from our hotel and decided we had to go inside because by now my Converse trainers and the four pairs of socks I had on beneath them were soaked through and my feet were about to fall off. It was a nice pub and the barman must not have been a genuine New Yorker because he was really friendly!
But we didn't stay in the pub long, just long enough to recharge our internal heating systems and then we went back out there to walk the ten blocks to the hotel. At the hotel, I quickly changed my outfit and we went straight back out to experience a Saturday night in New York City and to see what all the fuss is about! We made it along to an area called Murphy's Hill, which as you can imagine from the name, is full of Irish Pubs, but we like Irish pubs, you know where you are with an Irish Pub!
We ended up spending the entire evening in various pubs, having many drinks and having a very merry Christmas time. In the last pub we met some great guys from Minnesota. One of them, a girl, had just come back from Iraq and she showed me here photos on her phone and told me stories which fascinated me for hours (well, not hours, but a good ten minutes anyway, I've never met anyone who's been to war before!). They were a great bunch who told us that they enjoyed spending their free time deer hunting. I didn't tell them that I thought deer hunting was gross, but when Kev told one of the guys that he had never ever shot a gun, he erupted in amazement and summoned all his mates around to tell them all that 'can you believe this, this guy has never shot a gun'....'never shot a gun!?!' they replied in harmony, it was amusing to say the least.
We left the pub to find a foot of lovely white, clean snow on the ground. That night New York got dumped on by half of it's annual snow allowance for the year, it was chaos everywhere! But me and Kev enjoyed the walk home, rugby tackling each other to the soft, cushioned ground and laughing a lot. We had celebrated our last Saturday night of the trip in style and we were merry!
The next morning however, we were feeling a little rough, but there was no time to waste by lying in bed with a hangover. This was our last full day of the trip and we had much more exploring to do. The guys in the pub last night had given us their sightseeing bus tickets which were still valid for a couple of hours, so we hurried out and literally walked through the snow (they're not very good at cleaning up the snow in NY – unsurprisingly I suppose, when you consider it costs them £1m per inch and they'd had a massive 12 inches over night) to the bus stop, just by the awesome Flat Iron Building.
We caught the bus right down to the Statton Island Ferry pier, through the Greenwich Village, Chinatown and the Financial District. The bus tour was really good actually and if we were to go back we would definitely do the whole thing. The Statton Island Ferry would have taken us over an hour and we only wanted to do it for the views of the Statue of Liberty and the Manhattan skyline. The people waiting at the pier were pretty grimey and we decided that we couldn't face the trip with a hangover, so we saved that for next time! Instead, we wandered through Battery Park (past all the memorials for September 11th ) and to the water edge where we got perfectly acceptable views of the statue.
From there we walked back through the Financial District, past Ground Zero (which we didn't hang around by) and down Wall Street and the Woolworth's Building which is awesome, in fact, a lot of the buildings around there are awesome when you look up. Although me and Kev were amazed at how un-tall the buildings there are, I think perhaps compared to Hong Kong and Kuala Lumpur they didn't seem too big. From there we went right on back through Chinatown which, despite the name, seemed to be only full of West African men selling dodgy knock off goods! It was horrible around there and the crowds of people trying to get tatty handbags that would probably fall apart by the time they got home was unbelievable! We moved on to Little Italy, which was much nicer, full of little bars and boutiques. From there it was into the East Village, which again seemed really nice, and from there, back to Murphy's Hill for a quick stop off in one of the familiar Irish Pubs.
That evening we celebrated our last night NOT in the real world, by going for dinner in the lovely Italian near the hotel. It was a night of mixed emotions. I was so excited to come home, but sad that the trip that had pretty much taken over the whole of 2009 for us, was just about over.
On our last morning, I woke up early. Kev had a long lie in to savour one of the few opportunities he would have in a while to sleep late. Once he had risen, we went out to Macy's, which was a big mistake. I don't know why anyone would chose to go shopping in New York at Christmas time – it's crazy there! There's too many people and Macy's is impossible to find your way around, so we didn't shop for long. Instead, we did what I love best, and went for some food!
With our full tummy's we went back to the hotel to pick up our bags and then walked 11 blocks to Grand Central station, which was pretty impressive. We got on the bus to the airport and waved goodbye to our final destination. I was preparing myself for something to go wrong with our flight home. Throughout the trip we had experienced no delays, nothing stolen, nothing bad at all really and I was just waiting for something to go wrong! How pessimistic of me!
We went to the check in desk, but the guy behind the counter looked confused. I began to worry, we hadn't been able to check in on-line and now I started to worry whether Trailfinders had booked a flight home at all. After about 5 minutes of his confused face and my increasing heart rate, he told me I needed to go to the ticketing desk to get my e-ticket. I didn't know what that meant, but I left Kev with the bags and went to queue in the slowest line ever at the ticketing desk. As I stood in the queue, my nerves were racking, I was nearer to home than I had ever been, yet I was still so far away! I overheard a lady at the counter asking for a ticket (who knows where to, but in my head it had to be that she was wanting a ticket for the 7.40pm to London Heathrow, surely) and the man replied that he couldn't sell her a ticket because all the flights were full – this type of talk did nothing to calm my innards! But I was fretting in vain, as I got to the counter and within seconds, the lovely saviour behind the desk wrote down two e-ticket numbers and told me not to worry, there was no charge (NO CHARGE, I should blinking well think not!).
We checked in and handed over our bags before joining the queue to security. While standing in the queue I watched News 24 and began to panic again when I saw 'travel chaos expected as severe storm forms over the Atlantic'! ......'Uh, Kevin, we're not flying over the Atlantic, are we?'
Silly question, I know, but I just wanted to be sure. Kevin just looked at me and didn't say a word. Then I saw a flash on the TV screen saying 'travel disruption on America's East coast'. Phew, I thought, and for a split second I tricked myself into thinking we were on the West. But no, we were the East coast and then the final news flash ...'delays and cancellations expected at American airports JFK......etc'. Now there was no tricking myself, I was standing in a queue at JFK airport and there was a storm gathering over the water that I needed to fly on. By this point, I was convinced that my long awaited trip home was to be scuppered by nature, dam that nature thing.
But again, my pessimism was uncalled for and while the 7pm flight to Heathrow got delayed, by some stroke of luck, our 7.40pm flight pretty much boarded on time. Secretly, I was thinking, well still nothing bad has happened, surely we're just going to crash into the sea! (of course I didn't say this to Kev, I knew the turbulence that was inevitable on this flight was going to be bad enough for him to cope with, so I kept my morbid thoughts to myself...until now).
But despite all my negativity, we touched down on British soil just an hour late, after a pretty smooth journey and an awesome selection of films on demand. Surely my bag must have been lost in transit, I was now thinking, but no...there it was on the carousel. Everything had worked out fine and there was my Mum and Dad eagerly waiting for me at the entrance.
I though we might have left all the extreme weather conditions in every other country around the world, but it seemed that Britain was experiencing it's own crazy weather. The icy roads slowed us right down and then, for the first time in my life I think, both bridges into Wales were closed. Consequently, the journey to Newport took a million hours, but we finally made it to the land of my birth (well not actually, but it's a line from my school song) by the afternoon.
It's crazy how quickly everything became normal and it already feels like we've never even been away. We'll be heading back up to Scotland after Christmas, we'll be moving into our new flat, and we'll be starting back at work and everything really will be back to normal. I think the weirdest thing to get used to though will be not spending 24 hours a day with Kev. Amazingly, despite spending pretty much every minute with each other for the last four months, we've managed to get on pretty well!
So now that it's all over, I had wanted to sign off with my own line....'You stay classy.....Planet Earth', but Kev insists that that line is cheesorama and he chose a different sign off. Strangely enough, while I'm writing this blog we're watching the film that Kev's choice of sign off comes from so it seems fateful and strangely appropriate to go with Kev's version...and besides, I've kind of hogged this blog for 4 months, so it's only fair that I let him get the last word (it's the only time he'll ever get to do that while I'm around!). So, enjoy the last few photos and thank you all so much for reading the blog, I hope you've enjoyed the whole thing as much as we've enjoyed circumnavigating the globe. And now there's only one thing left to say....so, if I don't see you...good afternoon, good evening and..........goodnight!
The next day, T minus 2, we ventured out into the cold towards Times Square. Times Square is just bonkers, like a poor man's Tokyo but with much more annoying people everywhere! The crowds were doing my head in and it was beginning to snow pretty heavily so we found ourselves a local Irish bar and went in to try and thaw out and get some feeling back in my toes – yes, at the time Kev reminded me of my quote in Kuala Lumpur when I vowed to never complain about the cold again, but I still did complain!
A beer each and ten chicken wings later and it was time to tackle the heavily falling snow again. We walked all the way through Central Park, past the ice rink, past the horse and carts and past the tourists and locals who were also braving the weather that day, right through to the Metropolitan Museum. We went into the foyer, but didn't bother paying to go inside. Instead, we wandered on a little to the Guggenheim Museum of modern art and co-incidentally, there was a Kandinsky exhibition on at the time. Kandinsky is Kev's favourite artists, so obviously, we had to go on in. The inside of the museum is like a huge peeled orange and it made me a little giddy walking up the continuous spherical slope, but it was an awesome place and Kev enjoyed the artwork.
By this time we were a long way from our hotel and the snow was even heavier now, but still we wanted to walk back rather than take a cab. We walked all the way to another Irish bar, about ten blocks from our hotel and decided we had to go inside because by now my Converse trainers and the four pairs of socks I had on beneath them were soaked through and my feet were about to fall off. It was a nice pub and the barman must not have been a genuine New Yorker because he was really friendly!
But we didn't stay in the pub long, just long enough to recharge our internal heating systems and then we went back out there to walk the ten blocks to the hotel. At the hotel, I quickly changed my outfit and we went straight back out to experience a Saturday night in New York City and to see what all the fuss is about! We made it along to an area called Murphy's Hill, which as you can imagine from the name, is full of Irish Pubs, but we like Irish pubs, you know where you are with an Irish Pub!
We ended up spending the entire evening in various pubs, having many drinks and having a very merry Christmas time. In the last pub we met some great guys from Minnesota. One of them, a girl, had just come back from Iraq and she showed me here photos on her phone and told me stories which fascinated me for hours (well, not hours, but a good ten minutes anyway, I've never met anyone who's been to war before!). They were a great bunch who told us that they enjoyed spending their free time deer hunting. I didn't tell them that I thought deer hunting was gross, but when Kev told one of the guys that he had never ever shot a gun, he erupted in amazement and summoned all his mates around to tell them all that 'can you believe this, this guy has never shot a gun'....'never shot a gun!?!' they replied in harmony, it was amusing to say the least.
We left the pub to find a foot of lovely white, clean snow on the ground. That night New York got dumped on by half of it's annual snow allowance for the year, it was chaos everywhere! But me and Kev enjoyed the walk home, rugby tackling each other to the soft, cushioned ground and laughing a lot. We had celebrated our last Saturday night of the trip in style and we were merry!
The next morning however, we were feeling a little rough, but there was no time to waste by lying in bed with a hangover. This was our last full day of the trip and we had much more exploring to do. The guys in the pub last night had given us their sightseeing bus tickets which were still valid for a couple of hours, so we hurried out and literally walked through the snow (they're not very good at cleaning up the snow in NY – unsurprisingly I suppose, when you consider it costs them £1m per inch and they'd had a massive 12 inches over night) to the bus stop, just by the awesome Flat Iron Building.
We caught the bus right down to the Statton Island Ferry pier, through the Greenwich Village, Chinatown and the Financial District. The bus tour was really good actually and if we were to go back we would definitely do the whole thing. The Statton Island Ferry would have taken us over an hour and we only wanted to do it for the views of the Statue of Liberty and the Manhattan skyline. The people waiting at the pier were pretty grimey and we decided that we couldn't face the trip with a hangover, so we saved that for next time! Instead, we wandered through Battery Park (past all the memorials for September 11th ) and to the water edge where we got perfectly acceptable views of the statue.
From there we walked back through the Financial District, past Ground Zero (which we didn't hang around by) and down Wall Street and the Woolworth's Building which is awesome, in fact, a lot of the buildings around there are awesome when you look up. Although me and Kev were amazed at how un-tall the buildings there are, I think perhaps compared to Hong Kong and Kuala Lumpur they didn't seem too big. From there we went right on back through Chinatown which, despite the name, seemed to be only full of West African men selling dodgy knock off goods! It was horrible around there and the crowds of people trying to get tatty handbags that would probably fall apart by the time they got home was unbelievable! We moved on to Little Italy, which was much nicer, full of little bars and boutiques. From there it was into the East Village, which again seemed really nice, and from there, back to Murphy's Hill for a quick stop off in one of the familiar Irish Pubs.
That evening we celebrated our last night NOT in the real world, by going for dinner in the lovely Italian near the hotel. It was a night of mixed emotions. I was so excited to come home, but sad that the trip that had pretty much taken over the whole of 2009 for us, was just about over.
On our last morning, I woke up early. Kev had a long lie in to savour one of the few opportunities he would have in a while to sleep late. Once he had risen, we went out to Macy's, which was a big mistake. I don't know why anyone would chose to go shopping in New York at Christmas time – it's crazy there! There's too many people and Macy's is impossible to find your way around, so we didn't shop for long. Instead, we did what I love best, and went for some food!
With our full tummy's we went back to the hotel to pick up our bags and then walked 11 blocks to Grand Central station, which was pretty impressive. We got on the bus to the airport and waved goodbye to our final destination. I was preparing myself for something to go wrong with our flight home. Throughout the trip we had experienced no delays, nothing stolen, nothing bad at all really and I was just waiting for something to go wrong! How pessimistic of me!
We went to the check in desk, but the guy behind the counter looked confused. I began to worry, we hadn't been able to check in on-line and now I started to worry whether Trailfinders had booked a flight home at all. After about 5 minutes of his confused face and my increasing heart rate, he told me I needed to go to the ticketing desk to get my e-ticket. I didn't know what that meant, but I left Kev with the bags and went to queue in the slowest line ever at the ticketing desk. As I stood in the queue, my nerves were racking, I was nearer to home than I had ever been, yet I was still so far away! I overheard a lady at the counter asking for a ticket (who knows where to, but in my head it had to be that she was wanting a ticket for the 7.40pm to London Heathrow, surely) and the man replied that he couldn't sell her a ticket because all the flights were full – this type of talk did nothing to calm my innards! But I was fretting in vain, as I got to the counter and within seconds, the lovely saviour behind the desk wrote down two e-ticket numbers and told me not to worry, there was no charge (NO CHARGE, I should blinking well think not!).
We checked in and handed over our bags before joining the queue to security. While standing in the queue I watched News 24 and began to panic again when I saw 'travel chaos expected as severe storm forms over the Atlantic'! ......'Uh, Kevin, we're not flying over the Atlantic, are we?'
Silly question, I know, but I just wanted to be sure. Kevin just looked at me and didn't say a word. Then I saw a flash on the TV screen saying 'travel disruption on America's East coast'. Phew, I thought, and for a split second I tricked myself into thinking we were on the West. But no, we were the East coast and then the final news flash ...'delays and cancellations expected at American airports JFK......etc'. Now there was no tricking myself, I was standing in a queue at JFK airport and there was a storm gathering over the water that I needed to fly on. By this point, I was convinced that my long awaited trip home was to be scuppered by nature, dam that nature thing.
But again, my pessimism was uncalled for and while the 7pm flight to Heathrow got delayed, by some stroke of luck, our 7.40pm flight pretty much boarded on time. Secretly, I was thinking, well still nothing bad has happened, surely we're just going to crash into the sea! (of course I didn't say this to Kev, I knew the turbulence that was inevitable on this flight was going to be bad enough for him to cope with, so I kept my morbid thoughts to myself...until now).
But despite all my negativity, we touched down on British soil just an hour late, after a pretty smooth journey and an awesome selection of films on demand. Surely my bag must have been lost in transit, I was now thinking, but no...there it was on the carousel. Everything had worked out fine and there was my Mum and Dad eagerly waiting for me at the entrance.
I though we might have left all the extreme weather conditions in every other country around the world, but it seemed that Britain was experiencing it's own crazy weather. The icy roads slowed us right down and then, for the first time in my life I think, both bridges into Wales were closed. Consequently, the journey to Newport took a million hours, but we finally made it to the land of my birth (well not actually, but it's a line from my school song) by the afternoon.
It's crazy how quickly everything became normal and it already feels like we've never even been away. We'll be heading back up to Scotland after Christmas, we'll be moving into our new flat, and we'll be starting back at work and everything really will be back to normal. I think the weirdest thing to get used to though will be not spending 24 hours a day with Kev. Amazingly, despite spending pretty much every minute with each other for the last four months, we've managed to get on pretty well!
So now that it's all over, I had wanted to sign off with my own line....'You stay classy.....Planet Earth', but Kev insists that that line is cheesorama and he chose a different sign off. Strangely enough, while I'm writing this blog we're watching the film that Kev's choice of sign off comes from so it seems fateful and strangely appropriate to go with Kev's version...and besides, I've kind of hogged this blog for 4 months, so it's only fair that I let him get the last word (it's the only time he'll ever get to do that while I'm around!). So, enjoy the last few photos and thank you all so much for reading the blog, I hope you've enjoyed the whole thing as much as we've enjoyed circumnavigating the globe. And now there's only one thing left to say....so, if I don't see you...good afternoon, good evening and..........goodnight!
I left my heart in San Francisco...
When we first got to the Travelodge in San Francisco, everything seemed fine. The room was nice and there were partying Santa's everywhere we looked – we couldn't understand why the motel was so cheap, but we would soon learn! That night was the Santacon, which is an event that started many years ago in San Fran and has since spread to major cities around the world. It's basically a night where everyone dresses up as Father Christmas and goes out on a huge pub crawl about town. Having seen everyone having so much fun, me and Kev decided that we should go out too. We quickly got ready and headed out looking for the Lucky 13 pub that we had noticed on-line.
We left the hotel and turned right instead of left and walked for an eternity. The further we looked, the more dodgy the streets seemed to become. We decided we should head back and try the other direction. So we battled our way through the millions of drunken Santas and through the hundreds or homeless zombies that take over the streets of San Fran, and we made it to the Lucky 13 bar.
While me and Kev had left the UK thinking that American's can't handle their drink, this preconception was gradually being eroded during our time in the States. The Lucky 13 bar did nothing but dispel our belief even further – we now stand by the conviction that American's can drink....like fish! After ordering one JD and Coke and being handed a glass of barely drinkable neat alcohol, I chose to order another Jack Daniels, but this time in a long glass. In Rosy world, ordering a spirit in a long glass, means ordering 25ml measure of alcohol but in a glass with a lot of Coke. In America, this simply means pouring a long glass full of JD and then adding a splash of Coke – but charging the same amount of money for it as the small glass! In Kev's eyes, this was the best thing ever, but for me, this resulted in a very sore head in the morning!
And it was on that morning that Kev forced me to embrace the day and get out of bed to go for a wander. I'll be honest, that day I really didn't feel like going anywhere, but Kev tempted me out of the motel by promising to buy me breakfast (considering we were using a joint money account, that was a school-boy error on my part, but it got me out of my pit nevertheless!).
We walked up towards the area of Haight and found a popular looking breakfast diner, frequented by many many super gays. As Kev gobbled down his eggs, I sipped my lemonade and tried hard to stomach anything at all, while sound of the gays filled the room. I could have sat there all day listening to the campness and loving it, but Kev was on a mission to explore the city that day. We wandered off and soon stumbled on a neighbourhood that we instantly knew wasn't very friendly. It's strange how you can literally cross one road and find yourself in a terrible area and then walk on a block and cross the road again and be instantly in the safety of a good neighbourhood. So in this bad bad area, there were loads of bums hanging around on every corner and a few crazies and homeless people thrown into the mix. We picked up the pace and got the hell out of there and later looked the streets up on the internet. We found out that we had stumbled across an area called Tenderloin....one of the worst neighbourhoods in San Francisco!
Once we had escaped Tenderloin, we walked down towards Union Square, but when we got there it was so busy with tourists and homeless people that we instantly wanted to leave. We walked back along Market Street to our motel and were stunned by the number of homeless men and women everywhere – I'm honestly not exaggerating when I say that the homeless double the population in this area. Again, checked this out on the internet when we got back to the motel and realised that Market Street and Union Square is the main hub of the homeless in San Fran. So this answered our question of why our motel was so cheap – we were staying in the worst part of town!
Once we were back at the motel, I refused to leave again and we spent the evening watching TV! I think Kev nearly went mad with boredom, but there was no way I was going back out there with the scary people. Despite getting a really early night, we didn't get the best night's sleep as on this Saturday night, the streets were loud with drunken revellers and at around 2pm some bum went around knocking on everyone's door, probably asking for money. When we heard the knock at the door, we both sat up bolt upright in bed and looked at each other, unsure what to do...should we open the door, shout through door or phone reception – oh no, we couldn't phone reception...I'd spilt water all over the phone the night before when trying to pour myself a glass full, which had totally killed it...well done me and good job we didn't need it as a lifeline that night! Thankfully, it took us so long to do anything at all that the bum moved on and went to the next door, but once a strange person has tapped your door in the middle of the night, it's pretty hard to go back to sleep. The intrusion makes you immediately aware that while staying in a motel, the only thing separating you from the dodgy outside world is a small bit of glass or a flimsy plywood door. Thankfully, that was the last night we would spend in a motel!
The next morning we got up early and packed up our bags before getting as far away from Downtown San Francisco as possible. We drove up the roller-coaster type hills to the San Remo hotel in North Beach, San Fran. And what a difference! The San Remo is a lovely, traditional Victorian hotel, which is decorated in a quaint little style my Mum and Kev's mum would totally love it. As soon as we saw our room, I said to Kev 'This hotel is bound to be haunted'! But to be honest, for once this didn't bother me – as my Mum had always said 'it's the people who are alive you want to be scared of, not the ones who are dead!' and having spent the last two nights in Downtown, I was inclined to believe her and take my chances with the spirits.
We checked in and got back in the hire car for our final drive to the rental store, where we were met by the friendliest New Yorker we had ever (and would ever) meet, not that that's hard! He took our hire car away and after spending more than 3300 miles in that vehicle, it was time to say goodbye. Thankfully, Kev didn't take the loss of this car as badly as he had taken the end of his time in Rehab. He hadn't enjoyed the driving in America at all, it's either too busy or too quiet, nothing in between!
From the rental store we walked back to Union Square, but only to the nice bit where the posh shops are and the nice rich people! From there we wandered back to the hotel via that crooked street that you see on all the films, you know, the windiest hill in the world. That afternoon we went along to the waterfront at Fisherman's Wharf and decided to check out San Francisco's Hard Rock Cafe, to see whether it was as good as the one in Vegas. Admittedly, it did have a lot to live up to, but unfortunately, it didn't quite make the grade, but it was OK.
We stayed there for far too long and spent far too much money and then headed off to get some sushi for dinner. We found a great sushi bar just by the hotel and then went for another wander along the main road in North Beach, Columbus Avenue to sample the bars along there. There was a great little cafe/bar where we interrupted a Christmas party and met a beautiful little Boston Terrier called Shuh Shuh. From there, we moved on to the nearest Irish Bar, and then to a lovely local place called Sweeties just by the San Remo, before going back to the haunted hotel for the night. Strangely enough, that evening, we were sat in the hallway getting Wi Fi on the computer when we saw the owner of the hotel showing a young guy around. As he walked towards our hall way we heard him say...'this is the corridor that they call the haunted corridor' – great, I thought, my suspicions had been clarified. The owner proceeded to tell me that people who sleep in those rooms report seeing a blue light in their sleep. Luckily, I was so tired that night that I fell straight asleep and no blue lights could have woken me even if they'd tried!
The next morning we walked down to Fisherman's Wharf again to get on one of the famous San Fran trams. The trams are actually cable cars and they're the original ones so it was great fun to ride up and down the hills on it. We took the cable car to Union Square for a quick wander around before taking the tram back up over a different hill to Fisherman's Wharf again. We looked around Pier 39, which was basically just tourist shops, but was nice and then it would have been rude not to have popped back into Hard Rock as we were so close by!
That evening we went back to Sweeties bar just round the corner from the hotel and there we met the best Boston Terrier I've ever encountered. It's great in San Fran because everyone has Boston Terriers and they're awesome. Before we left for this trip we had always wanted to get a Pug, but had been concerned about the vets bills as they're notorious for having breathing difficulties. Boston Terriers are just like pugs, but cuter, friendlier and don't have the breathing issues – ideal, I can't wait to have one!
As well as Lola the Boston Terrier, that night we also met some guys from an organisation called Plastiki. These guys were British but had been in San Fran for a couple of years while they built a ship made of plastic bottles. They were planning on sailing to South America in the name of charity on this ship. Unfortunately, they've already been snapped up by the Discovery Channel so my attempts to get them for Matchlight failed, but keep an eye out for them in the news in future!
The next morning we had to wake up earlier than we'd woken for ages as today was the day we were getting thrown behind bars! Typically, this was the only day of bad weather we had the whole time we were in San Fran, it was raining and foggy and when we got to the pier we couldn't see the rock that we were about to head to. We boarded our ferry to Alcatraz and froze the whole way there (it's only a ten minute journey, over a mile and a quarter, to the prison, but still it was really cold!!).
Alcatraz was awesome, although much smaller than we had expected. The audio tour that you get given is totally worth it and as you wander around, the genuine prison guards and ex-cons talk you through the cells, the guard's quarters and the escape stories. First thing in the morning is totally the time to go as well, it was pretty quiet and it gives you a chance to feel the eeriness of the place.
We spent most of the morning at Alcatraz, but the weather was pretty grim and so we didn't wander around to appreciate all the flora and fauna that the rock has to offer. Once we'd seen the dank and dirty prison cells we'd seen enough! We hopped back on the boat and back to the bustling shoreline of San Francisco, the same shore line that all those prisoners looked out to while they were cooped up in Alcatraz.
That afternoon we had a lazy afternoon of watching films in the hotel while it poured with rain outside. An evening of sushi and an early night ended that day – we needed to get all the sleep we could that night, it would be a while before we would get to bed again!
The next morning, we checked out of the hotel and stored our luggage in their office. Then we just had ten hours to kill before we could get our shuttle bus to the airport. We chose to spend those ten hours getting a lovely breakfast in Little Italy and then wandering up to the Coit Tower, admiring the view of the Bay Bridge and the Golden Gate Bridge while we were there. The weather was beautiful that day thankfully. We then took a walk up and down the ridiculous hills of San Fran, along to the Ferry Building, and around the media area and along to a great little pub called Grumpies, which played an endless selection of the Deftones. From there it was back to Little Italy, which is a lovely part of San Francisco and then back along for our final night in Sweeties.
Typically, this was the best night in Sweeties and during a pool competition, Kev met Vinnie who was a fireman in San Fran who lived on a boat down at the pier. Vinnie introduced us to Cleveland (that wasn't his real name, but a little nickname I liked to use) and a whole load of other locals from the area. We had a great time chatting to them and finding out more about the city that they, and everyone else, seems to love so much. But alas, at nine pm it was time to go and pick up our bags and get our shuttle bus to the airport.
The bus picked us up from the San Remo and drove us out of town, picking up speed and refusing to stop at red lights as it ventured through Downtown in the dark! We had arrived at the airport by about half ten and we couldn't check in until 4am. So the only thing to do, was what everyone else who was saving money on a hotel that night did...sleep in the Subway restaurant! We bought ourselves a foot long, made ourselves comfy and settled down to get a few hours sleep.
At four I roused the reluctant Kevin and we went down to check in before going through to the gate to wait for our flight to New York City....our final destination.
We left the hotel and turned right instead of left and walked for an eternity. The further we looked, the more dodgy the streets seemed to become. We decided we should head back and try the other direction. So we battled our way through the millions of drunken Santas and through the hundreds or homeless zombies that take over the streets of San Fran, and we made it to the Lucky 13 bar.
While me and Kev had left the UK thinking that American's can't handle their drink, this preconception was gradually being eroded during our time in the States. The Lucky 13 bar did nothing but dispel our belief even further – we now stand by the conviction that American's can drink....like fish! After ordering one JD and Coke and being handed a glass of barely drinkable neat alcohol, I chose to order another Jack Daniels, but this time in a long glass. In Rosy world, ordering a spirit in a long glass, means ordering 25ml measure of alcohol but in a glass with a lot of Coke. In America, this simply means pouring a long glass full of JD and then adding a splash of Coke – but charging the same amount of money for it as the small glass! In Kev's eyes, this was the best thing ever, but for me, this resulted in a very sore head in the morning!
And it was on that morning that Kev forced me to embrace the day and get out of bed to go for a wander. I'll be honest, that day I really didn't feel like going anywhere, but Kev tempted me out of the motel by promising to buy me breakfast (considering we were using a joint money account, that was a school-boy error on my part, but it got me out of my pit nevertheless!).
We walked up towards the area of Haight and found a popular looking breakfast diner, frequented by many many super gays. As Kev gobbled down his eggs, I sipped my lemonade and tried hard to stomach anything at all, while sound of the gays filled the room. I could have sat there all day listening to the campness and loving it, but Kev was on a mission to explore the city that day. We wandered off and soon stumbled on a neighbourhood that we instantly knew wasn't very friendly. It's strange how you can literally cross one road and find yourself in a terrible area and then walk on a block and cross the road again and be instantly in the safety of a good neighbourhood. So in this bad bad area, there were loads of bums hanging around on every corner and a few crazies and homeless people thrown into the mix. We picked up the pace and got the hell out of there and later looked the streets up on the internet. We found out that we had stumbled across an area called Tenderloin....one of the worst neighbourhoods in San Francisco!
Once we had escaped Tenderloin, we walked down towards Union Square, but when we got there it was so busy with tourists and homeless people that we instantly wanted to leave. We walked back along Market Street to our motel and were stunned by the number of homeless men and women everywhere – I'm honestly not exaggerating when I say that the homeless double the population in this area. Again, checked this out on the internet when we got back to the motel and realised that Market Street and Union Square is the main hub of the homeless in San Fran. So this answered our question of why our motel was so cheap – we were staying in the worst part of town!
Once we were back at the motel, I refused to leave again and we spent the evening watching TV! I think Kev nearly went mad with boredom, but there was no way I was going back out there with the scary people. Despite getting a really early night, we didn't get the best night's sleep as on this Saturday night, the streets were loud with drunken revellers and at around 2pm some bum went around knocking on everyone's door, probably asking for money. When we heard the knock at the door, we both sat up bolt upright in bed and looked at each other, unsure what to do...should we open the door, shout through door or phone reception – oh no, we couldn't phone reception...I'd spilt water all over the phone the night before when trying to pour myself a glass full, which had totally killed it...well done me and good job we didn't need it as a lifeline that night! Thankfully, it took us so long to do anything at all that the bum moved on and went to the next door, but once a strange person has tapped your door in the middle of the night, it's pretty hard to go back to sleep. The intrusion makes you immediately aware that while staying in a motel, the only thing separating you from the dodgy outside world is a small bit of glass or a flimsy plywood door. Thankfully, that was the last night we would spend in a motel!
The next morning we got up early and packed up our bags before getting as far away from Downtown San Francisco as possible. We drove up the roller-coaster type hills to the San Remo hotel in North Beach, San Fran. And what a difference! The San Remo is a lovely, traditional Victorian hotel, which is decorated in a quaint little style my Mum and Kev's mum would totally love it. As soon as we saw our room, I said to Kev 'This hotel is bound to be haunted'! But to be honest, for once this didn't bother me – as my Mum had always said 'it's the people who are alive you want to be scared of, not the ones who are dead!' and having spent the last two nights in Downtown, I was inclined to believe her and take my chances with the spirits.
We checked in and got back in the hire car for our final drive to the rental store, where we were met by the friendliest New Yorker we had ever (and would ever) meet, not that that's hard! He took our hire car away and after spending more than 3300 miles in that vehicle, it was time to say goodbye. Thankfully, Kev didn't take the loss of this car as badly as he had taken the end of his time in Rehab. He hadn't enjoyed the driving in America at all, it's either too busy or too quiet, nothing in between!
From the rental store we walked back to Union Square, but only to the nice bit where the posh shops are and the nice rich people! From there we wandered back to the hotel via that crooked street that you see on all the films, you know, the windiest hill in the world. That afternoon we went along to the waterfront at Fisherman's Wharf and decided to check out San Francisco's Hard Rock Cafe, to see whether it was as good as the one in Vegas. Admittedly, it did have a lot to live up to, but unfortunately, it didn't quite make the grade, but it was OK.
We stayed there for far too long and spent far too much money and then headed off to get some sushi for dinner. We found a great sushi bar just by the hotel and then went for another wander along the main road in North Beach, Columbus Avenue to sample the bars along there. There was a great little cafe/bar where we interrupted a Christmas party and met a beautiful little Boston Terrier called Shuh Shuh. From there, we moved on to the nearest Irish Bar, and then to a lovely local place called Sweeties just by the San Remo, before going back to the haunted hotel for the night. Strangely enough, that evening, we were sat in the hallway getting Wi Fi on the computer when we saw the owner of the hotel showing a young guy around. As he walked towards our hall way we heard him say...'this is the corridor that they call the haunted corridor' – great, I thought, my suspicions had been clarified. The owner proceeded to tell me that people who sleep in those rooms report seeing a blue light in their sleep. Luckily, I was so tired that night that I fell straight asleep and no blue lights could have woken me even if they'd tried!
The next morning we walked down to Fisherman's Wharf again to get on one of the famous San Fran trams. The trams are actually cable cars and they're the original ones so it was great fun to ride up and down the hills on it. We took the cable car to Union Square for a quick wander around before taking the tram back up over a different hill to Fisherman's Wharf again. We looked around Pier 39, which was basically just tourist shops, but was nice and then it would have been rude not to have popped back into Hard Rock as we were so close by!
That evening we went back to Sweeties bar just round the corner from the hotel and there we met the best Boston Terrier I've ever encountered. It's great in San Fran because everyone has Boston Terriers and they're awesome. Before we left for this trip we had always wanted to get a Pug, but had been concerned about the vets bills as they're notorious for having breathing difficulties. Boston Terriers are just like pugs, but cuter, friendlier and don't have the breathing issues – ideal, I can't wait to have one!
As well as Lola the Boston Terrier, that night we also met some guys from an organisation called Plastiki. These guys were British but had been in San Fran for a couple of years while they built a ship made of plastic bottles. They were planning on sailing to South America in the name of charity on this ship. Unfortunately, they've already been snapped up by the Discovery Channel so my attempts to get them for Matchlight failed, but keep an eye out for them in the news in future!
The next morning we had to wake up earlier than we'd woken for ages as today was the day we were getting thrown behind bars! Typically, this was the only day of bad weather we had the whole time we were in San Fran, it was raining and foggy and when we got to the pier we couldn't see the rock that we were about to head to. We boarded our ferry to Alcatraz and froze the whole way there (it's only a ten minute journey, over a mile and a quarter, to the prison, but still it was really cold!!).
Alcatraz was awesome, although much smaller than we had expected. The audio tour that you get given is totally worth it and as you wander around, the genuine prison guards and ex-cons talk you through the cells, the guard's quarters and the escape stories. First thing in the morning is totally the time to go as well, it was pretty quiet and it gives you a chance to feel the eeriness of the place.
We spent most of the morning at Alcatraz, but the weather was pretty grim and so we didn't wander around to appreciate all the flora and fauna that the rock has to offer. Once we'd seen the dank and dirty prison cells we'd seen enough! We hopped back on the boat and back to the bustling shoreline of San Francisco, the same shore line that all those prisoners looked out to while they were cooped up in Alcatraz.
That afternoon we had a lazy afternoon of watching films in the hotel while it poured with rain outside. An evening of sushi and an early night ended that day – we needed to get all the sleep we could that night, it would be a while before we would get to bed again!
The next morning, we checked out of the hotel and stored our luggage in their office. Then we just had ten hours to kill before we could get our shuttle bus to the airport. We chose to spend those ten hours getting a lovely breakfast in Little Italy and then wandering up to the Coit Tower, admiring the view of the Bay Bridge and the Golden Gate Bridge while we were there. The weather was beautiful that day thankfully. We then took a walk up and down the ridiculous hills of San Fran, along to the Ferry Building, and around the media area and along to a great little pub called Grumpies, which played an endless selection of the Deftones. From there it was back to Little Italy, which is a lovely part of San Francisco and then back along for our final night in Sweeties.
Typically, this was the best night in Sweeties and during a pool competition, Kev met Vinnie who was a fireman in San Fran who lived on a boat down at the pier. Vinnie introduced us to Cleveland (that wasn't his real name, but a little nickname I liked to use) and a whole load of other locals from the area. We had a great time chatting to them and finding out more about the city that they, and everyone else, seems to love so much. But alas, at nine pm it was time to go and pick up our bags and get our shuttle bus to the airport.
The bus picked us up from the San Remo and drove us out of town, picking up speed and refusing to stop at red lights as it ventured through Downtown in the dark! We had arrived at the airport by about half ten and we couldn't check in until 4am. So the only thing to do, was what everyone else who was saving money on a hotel that night did...sleep in the Subway restaurant! We bought ourselves a foot long, made ourselves comfy and settled down to get a few hours sleep.
At four I roused the reluctant Kevin and we went down to check in before going through to the gate to wait for our flight to New York City....our final destination.
Sunday, 13 December 2009
Land of the giants
Sacramento was a lovely place. It's the third biggest city in California, and I think I'm right in saying that it's the state capital. It just had a nice feel about the place and the buildings were pretty. It helped a lot I think, that we were recommended a cool coffee house and in there, everyone seemed really cool – that always helps me like a place, when the people who live there seem cool and dress well!
We went to Old Sacramento, which is an area that has remained as it was back in the olden days – mainly just for tourists though. But nevertheless, it's a pretty little place full of shops. Kev wasn't keen as he was noticing lots of homeless people, but I didn't think it was any worse than any other big city we had been to. We went to State Park which was pretty fancy and generally just wandered around. We decided we would stay there that night and checked into a motel. We were pretty tired because we'd got up so early expecting our trip out of Tahoe to take hours. We spent the afternoon chilling out and when the sun went down we headed to the cool coffee shop for a coffee. We left there to try and find a take away place, but instead we found a cool bar – turns out it was an English bar, but it was cool. I wasn't drinking, so it meant it was my turn to drive, which Kev always finds pretty scary, but I managed!
We grabbed a Chinese takeaway and went back to the hotel and that was Sacramento.
The next morning, after grabbing a coffee from Weatherstones – my new favourite coffee houses– we drove north west through California and up into Oregon. We still hadn't decided whether we were going to go all the way up to Seattle, so we figured we'd make it up to Grant's Pass in Oregon and then make our mind up. The drive through California was so different to the other states we had been to, there was actually vegetation along most of these roads! Unsurprisingly, I had developed an annoying cough over the last couple of days, to go with the cold that I seem to be constantly fighting, so I was pretty tired on this drive, having kept myself awake most of the night. I decided to put the chair back and try and get some shut eye. With my feet up on the dashboard and my head right back on the floor, I was pretty comfy as Kev drove along the Interstate.
I woke to find Kev turning off the road – he was being pulled over – again! He hadn't been speeding, he hadn't been doing anything, but a police car had driven past him, then slowed right down and gone behind him and then pulled him over! Strangely, the policeman did not go to the driver's side, but instead came to my window. He peered in and asked us where we were headed. Kev got nervous again and forgot where we were going, so I replied 'Grant's Pass'. The policeman glanced around the car and then said 'OK guys, drive safe'...and that was that, no reason, no nothing – all we can imagine is that the policeman drove by and saw two feet on the dashboard with no head and wanted to check that Kev wasn't actually the '7 minute abs' guy who was carrying a dead hitch-hiker on the front seat! Satisfied that Kev wasn't a murderer, the policeman drove off and we continued, bemused, but amused, on our journey to Grant's Pass.
We got to Grant's Pass, which looked nothing like the pictures on the internet, it was just a bit of a nothing town – not nice, not horrible, just nothing. We checked into a travelodge and then walked just across the street to a bar where we could get dinner. Kev hadn't eaten all day and he ordered a huge burger. The woman who served us was like, 'you know that's two burgers in a bun, yeah?'. Kev told her he was starving and she just rolled her eyes and walked off. When the burger came the guy next to us commented 'wow, that's a big burger', but it turns out that Kev has an appetite bigger than an American's – who'd have thought it – and sure enough he ate the whole thing. I was craving vitamins and settled for a salad - the nicest salad I've ever eaten I must say – I suspect it was the ton of salt that was sprinkled all over my chicken!
The pub played awesome music and it was a typical American red neck style bar, where we all sat along the bar and watched sport on the TV screens. Kev was a bit freaked out because it looked exactly like the bar in the film 'Monster' which is a pretty gross film, so gross in fact that I refuse to watch more than 10 mins! But we had a nice evening and then headed back to the motel.
We needed to decide whether we were going to head north or south from Grant's Pass. We both really wanted to go to Portland and Seattle, but it was a long drive and we weren't sure. We realised that the Portland in Oregon was actually not the Portland we had wanted to go to (we wanted to go to Portland in Maine, which is the other side of this little country!!) and we decided that Seattle was too far, we were getting sick of long drives, so the decision was made that we would head south instead.
That night, we didn't have the best night's sleep in the world because it was absolutely freezing. Whenever we switched the heating on it must have churned up dust or something and it made me cough ridiculously, so we were forced to put up with the cold instead!
So, the next morning we drove down to Crescent City which is just on the northern tip of the Redwood Forest National Park. It wasn't a long drive and it seemed like a nice enough place when we got there. The park ranger in the tourist info was super helpful and the Pharmacist in the Chemist was lovely when he sold me some cough medicine, so we were happy to spend a night there. We didn't do much that day though, just ate lunch in a traditional dinner and did some laundry. In the evening, Kev popped out to get a Taco Bell – we had been meaning to try Taco Bell since we got to America because they look so good on the adverts – turns out, the adverts lie! No, it was OK and cheap, did the job, filled a hole, but don't think I'll be going out of my way to get a Taco Bell again.
The following day, we drove down to Redwood Forest. The trees there are just crazy big. We did one little hike and it kind of freaked me out to be in such a huge forest. But Kev was having a great time, climbing trees and running around, I think he reverted back to being a little boy for just a short while!
We continued the drive, which is totally worth doing. Kev had been getting sick of the driving in America. He says it either just really boring straight roads that go on forever and there's no other traffic around, or it's the opposite, where there are a million cars, switching lanes and going super fast – so it's either boring or stressful. So when we got to Redwood, I think Kev was pleased to be able to do some normal driving again, through the forest and on a windy road, with plenty to look at.
We drove though the Elk Meadows and saw a few Elks and then found ourselves in a town called Eureka. We had intended to stay in Eureka that night so we stopped and got some lunch and had a bit of a wander around. It didn't seem like a great place so we decided to move on to the next town, Fortuna. We were glad we did because as we were driving out of Eureka we saw what a truly horrible place it was. There was a million homeless people all loitering around the streets and the only motel we saw was full of bums hanging around outside. We were glad to get back on the Freeway and out of that place.
By the time we got to Fortuna, it was getting dark, so we just checked in to a Best Western Motel. It was above budget and I think at first Kev was a bit annoyed that I'd gone ahead and booked it. But that changed when he saw the huge reclining chair in our room, and he settled into that for the night, re-enacting that episode of Friends where Joey and Chandler shout 'Draw' and catapult their reclining seats back – it amused him.
After an awesome breakfast, where I learned how to use a waffle iron (I don't even like waffles, but I wanted to have a go anyway) we drove on to the Avenue of Giants, which is another part of the Redwood Forest. The trees here are so tall it is nuts and we did a couple of nice little walks and again, Kev had plenty of fun climbing trees.
And after that, we began the long drive to San Francisco. We stopped off in a lovely little place called Willets and got a coffee and some groceries, but that turned out to be a bad idea. From Willets to San Fran there were no rest stops and the two of us became so desperate for the toilet that it hurt!! We got to the Golden Gate Bridge and were overjoyed to see a visitor centre which had toilets. We literally ran from the car to the toilets, it would have been hysterical had it not hurt so much!
We took a few photos on the bridge and it was nice to see other tourists for a change. We haven't seen many tourists anywhere that we've been in America, so it felt nice to be surrounded by others who weren't from the place.
Back into the car and to the motel in San Fran. We instantly knew we liked this city when we were driving in. The buildings are beautiful and we had to drive up this hill that was literally like 90 degrees steep – well maybe not that steep, but I honestly though the car was going to topple backwards. And before I go into more details about San Fran, here's Kev with some pictures of the story so far....
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
