Wednesday 11/04/2012: Today, I was supposed to be checking out of the hostel with Simon and Victoria. In that ideal world that we all live in, we would be picking up our hippie camper van and be en route to the Yosemite.
BUT, and here comes the big BUT... Things NEVER, EVER go according to plan. So let's rewind and play catch up.
Saturday: After fuelling my body with the nutritious breakfast provided by the hostel, I bounced over to the reception desk and inquired how I would go about getting over to "The Rock". Going by past experiences though, I have now learned not to expect, but more just "deal with".
I was informed that you are required to book WAYYYY in advance if you want to visit Alcatraz, bummer! It was a beautiful day, so I had to get out. I left the hostel with Kevin and Evelien. We had no plans, just a desire to explore. Walking down the big city streets with all the shops, navigating through china town, diving into Fisherman's Wharf and eventually ending up at a bicycle rental store... YES! We got our "Blazing Saddles" for $22/day and set out up some big hills.
First stop was the Painted Ladies
Next stop was riding through Golden Gate Park, which was a spectacular. A thought that entered my mind as we were riding was how many beautiful parks I have ridden through. There are awesome parks EVERYWHERE across North America. Are there many in Sydney? I suppose there are... Anyways, let's continue.
We stopped off many times to take a happy snap in the park
Kevin, myself and Evelien.
Next stop was lunch, initiated by me, of course.
No animals harmed here!
The Vegan lunch was followed up by a lot more cycling, up hills, more hills and even hillier hills...
... it was worth it!
The top of the hill led to the Golden Gate Bridge and that is where we headed. I was not at all fussed about riding across for the second time in 6 weeks, if anything I was more excited this time around. We approached the bridge from a different angle, it was another beautiful day and I was just stoked to be back in this beautiful city.
The ride from the bridge back to the bicycle hire place proved to be rather difficult. We were all tired and feeling THE BURN, but we cycled along the water, through another cool park, past a finished marathon (I was severely disappointed that I did not know it was on) and back to Fisherman's Wharf, where we hired the bikes. Dinner that night was my simple tomato soup, loaded with veggies. It wasn't a late night, but it was a long day.
Sunday: I'm not to great with this thinking back thing, I suppose that is why I take photos of everything. According to the order of my photographs I explored San Fran by foot with a cool hippie-ish skater girl from Calgary. Victoria, myself, Simon and Kev set out to absorb more of this rockin' city. We rocked, we rolled and we... ate pizza for lunch.
Apart from briefly hanging in "City Lights Bookstore" and probing the Scientologists about their beliefs, it was just a fun day hanging out with similarly cool (although not as cool) kids.
What was more fun was the evening shenanigans. We all poured into a cool retro-ish bar with a tonne of different beers on tap. We probably only stay until 9:45pm, but it was just fun to hang out.
Coolest kids around.
Monday: The start of the week bought with it... NO PLANS. So I got up, had my breakfast with my new pal Raymond. D. Sweet (who technically works at the hostel, but really just hangs out with us). I conned him into showing Kevin, Simon and I around the city, so off we set!
The first stop was City Hall, which is this extremely elaborate building right next to a handful of hobos. The building itself is beautiful, there were no less than 3 couples taking wedding photos in the building, none of the brides wanted a photo with me.
After the visit to City Hall, we went down to an awesome supermarket called "Rainbow". They stocked all organic, fresh produce. I don't think they sold ANY meat and it AMAZING. Despite the obesity rates over here, there is an alternate healthy option for those who want it.
Rainbow was followed up with a gruelling hike to dolores park where we had a nice little hour long nap under the sun. Every so often there would be a wiff of ganja, and the occasional salesman passing by.
Refreshed and rejuvenated (We needed to be for the next part of the adventure!) we casually strolled through Castro... This place is rather, different? It's my understanding that this is the gay area of San Fran, and boy was it gay. Dicks-out dudes wandering around, colourful flags on every window, lots of bears preying on me and very odd posters for even more odd looking clubs. It was an experience...
The bus from Castro took us to hippy town, Haight. This area sports some cool and funky stores, along with some odd folk. Everyone seems to be either smoking weed or selling it. Kevin and I got separated from Raymond and Simon, so we purchased some groceries and caught the packed out bus back to our hostel.
That night I threw together some veggies, tofu and Japanese yams for a wicked stir-fry. I'll say it again, I am seriously enjoying cooking. I love purchasing food to cook, I love reading recipes, I love being in the kitchen and I LOVEEEE to eat! (Burritos are my new favourite).
Tuesday: Yesterday was a very chilled out, relaxing, but overall enjoyable day. Again, there were no plans in the morning. I am generally rolling out of bed at 8am, no matter what time I doze off in the evening. I had my granola, banana, almonds and lactose-free breakfast. Maybe myself some sandwiches (I ran out of Jam, so I've been having peanut butter and NUTELLA!)... Yummmmm. In fact, I had one 20 minutes ago.
I've been talking and chatting to a few staff here (Raymond for one) and that morning I was talking to the breakfast serving dude; Rico. Rico is a lovely guy from Minnesota. I asked him to go hang out, so Rico, myself and Victoria went to Westfield San Francisco! We stayed there for a while just chatting away, window shopped a little bit and then it was lunch time! I think one of the hardest decisions for a backpacker is WHAT TO EAT! I love it. In the end we went back to the hostel, and I wanted to try make my own burritos.
Vicious, delicious and nutritious!
The big, heavy lunch left us with a nasty food coma, so for the rest of the afternoon we just chilled out, watched some Jamie Oliver (Food Revolution)... Oh yeah, that's what I have been doing, convincing my roomies and new friends that vege is the way to go. I forgot to mention that Monday evening was spent in our room watching a 90 minute documentary on animal rights and Veganism. So the guys and girls I have been hanging around have been enjoying a few meatless days. Win!
Evelien has left out hostel to go to another one, she is going to stay in San Francisco a bit longer than all of us. Everyone ate my dinner last night so she opted to cook last night. We trekked for about an hour over hills, down mountains and across fields of razor grass. Evelien cooked up a beautiful batch of kidney beans, onions, tomatos and other healthy goodness stuff. The last supper was very enjoyable, but it was time to go. Kevin, Raymond, Victoria and I said our goodbyes to Evelien and stormed out into the rain.
The first few days in San Fran have been very warm and enjoyable, but last night was wet. Wet, wet and wet! Running through the rain was not much fun, but we grabbed a bus back to the hostel
It was... fun... UP UNTIL THIS POINT.
Caution: Hazardous words ahead -
We arrived back at the hostel at 11:15pm, there abouts and at the front desk was Simon. He did not accompany us to dinner because he would rather eat McDonalds than our enthusiastic vege dishes.
Basically, someone asshole has pranced into our room whilst we were gone and rummaged through our stuff. Simon has lost his iPad, iPod, money and passport. Kevin's laptop and camera were taken. All my stuff is in place, except my toothbrush is broken?? My bag had been looked through, but I had all my personal, expensive items either on me or in the locker. Simon claims that his lockers was broken off, because all his stuff was in a locker as well.
This has caused a major inconvenience for all of us and the frustration last night was high. Simon, Victoria and I were supposed to be driving down to the Yosemites this morning, but that has been postponed.
I will still go tomorrow, but we have to hang around another day. So far, not much has happened. It is past lunch time now, I've been writing on and off. We went down to the useless police station, they have come up to the hostel and Simon and Kevin will contact their insurance companies. Not much can happen now, their stuff is long gone. I think the biggest loss has been Kevin's computer, he has been travelling for over 8 months and has lost all his photos now... I got to get a USB to back mine up!
Okay, so we are up to date, I believe. It's time to go for a wander and get some seriously healthy food.
Guess what? I love my life!!
