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22/05/09
We boarded the bus but didn't manage to sit next to each other. I ended up sitting next to a fairly plump man and was a little worried that I would end up leaning on him if I fell asleep. Luckily I was woken up at 3 when the driver slapped the lights on and I was sitting up straight with my head perfectly in line with my body. The driver had decided to stop off at another burger place and we watched as a french guy tried to charge up his laptop so he could finish watching a film on the bus, he was rushing around looking for an outlet and ended up trying to unplug the ATM. When we got back on the bus I struggled to get back to sleep, then with 20 minutes to go, a load of people got off the bus so we managed to get double seats to ourselves, I fell straight to sleep and was woken up in a daze shortly after and we had to get off.
We managed to bundle 5 of us with all our bags in a standard taxi from the Greyhound stop to the Amsterdam Hostel. It was abou 7 when we arrived and we were told we had to wait until 1130 to check in, so we went downstairs to the common room and used some free wi-fi and I then pushed 2 sofas together and apparently snored for hours. I was woken up at about 1pm so we went for a walk around town to get our bearings. There wasn't anything of much interest around so we went back to the hostel and had to wait until 2 to check in because the person on the desk didn't have a clue what they were on about this morning. I lazed around for most of the afternoon and eventually got the energy to go have a shower. Some Chinese girl arrived in the 6 bed dorm room to make up the 6th person, she didn't look too impressed as the only bed left was above Helen and was the most rickety, creaky bed any of us have ever seen. She dumped her suitcase, left the room then came backa few minutes later, picked her stuff up and left again. We then had some Danish bloke arive and we spent an hour or so talking about how we know why Americans get so fat because all we can seem to find to eat are all you can eat buffets and rank fast food burger places. We all laughed at him when he put on one of those money belts and tucked it right down his trousers.
At about 8 we wandered in to town to find some place to eat. We ended up going for a curry house with, you guessed it, an all you can eat buffet. The others all went for it but I decided against the buffet in the end because I didn't want to feel sick all night. Rich found it obsurd that the place only had one toilet considering they were doing curry buffets breakfast noon and lunch, and Pat couldn't get over the fact that the single toilet was in a room as big as his bedroom. When we got back to the hostel the bloke above Helen congratulated us for not getting burgers, then Laura and I watched Oceans 13 so we could spot all the places we had visited the past few days.
23/05/09
I was woken up by the others telling me get out of bed. I felt shattered for some reason so left it until the last minute to get out of bed. We managed again to fit all 5 of us in a taxi and were dropped off at pier 33. We queued up to get on the ferry to Alcatraz Island and boarded at about 1015. It was bitterly cold outside and the lads and I were wearing flip flops and shorts, big mistake.
First off we heard a brief speach and watched a short film about the history of the island and then went on a guided tour of all the escape attempts during its life as a prison. We were then handed an audio guide and walked around the prison learning about what life was like for the inmates. The guide literally told us where to place each foot and exactly where to look while we were in the prison. We managed to see the Golden Gate Bridge from the island although it was pretty foggy and not very clear.
When we returned to San Fran we walked along the pier a bit until we reached Fisherman's Wharf where we stopped for a bite to eat. The place was packed and we struggled to find somewhere we could sit down inside and eat. Rich had calimari and chips, Pat and Helen had fish and chips, and Laura and I had cream of chicken soup served in a huge roll. It was awesome, just what I needed when I was feeling so cold. As we were leaving some tourist with a huge camera knocked over a guys drink and it went everywhere, the bloke didn't take it very well and stood up looking seriously hacked off picked up his tissue and threw it on the table with all his force then started having a go at the tourist.
From here we hailed another cab and again he let all 5 of us cram in. We asked him to take us to 24th at Bart Station. He ended up taking us the wrong way along 24th street but we eventually found the place. We met up with Ella and Grace from Fiji at the station and they took us to a carnival that was going on. As we were entering the carnival we were all searched and had to walk past a donation box, Laura gave them a look as if I'm not giving you s*** and just walked straight through. The carnival turned out to be a bit of a let down, there were just loads of stands selling rank looking hot dogs and kettle corn. We were all freezing so we tried to find a place to sit in the warmth and have a chat. We found a coffee place and sat around for an hour or so and warmed up. There was guy that must have played at least 10 games of chess while we were there. We said bye to Ella and Grace and then took the Bart home which was a fraction of the price of the taxi from earlier. The girls then went shopping, the guys went and watched the Basketball and I sat in the TV room for a while.
When they got back milled around in the room for a while, Rich got a Subway for dinner and Laura and I went and got a pizza, I promised myself that I'd save 1 or 2 slices for breakfast but ended up scoffing the lot. We watched an episode of the Simpsons and fell asleep during it so went to bed. Laura was making the worst groaning noises while she was sleeping because of her cold, and apparently I have started snoring really badly now.
24/05/09
I woke up early and Laura was still moaning like mad. I couldn't get back to sleep so went and used the laptop for a while. I rushed back upstairs to shower and pack before we had to check out at 10. We left our luggage in storage and took a taxi to Fishermans Wharf so Pat could look around for some kind of gift. We stumbled upon the Pier 33 Seal Cafe and spent about 10 minutes laughing at the amount of noise they were making. There were hundreds of them making such a racket, eventually 2 of them ended up having a fight to get one of the platforms all to themselves. On the way out I got caught behind yet another fat american dawdling along at a snails pace. She was so fat I couldn't actually navigate around her and had to wait for a huge opening to get past. When I caught up with the others Rich couldn't stop laughing when I told him all about the fat slag.
We then walked down the road and found Helen's idea of Heaven, an iHop. We entered and stuggled to decipher the code that the menu was written in, and eventually had to get a waiter to spell it out for us. Turns out that we could get breakfast with pancakes for dessert for the same price as pancakes on their own, so we all got breakfast. Helen gave me her 2 eggs, and I wasn't keen on the pancakes, they were actually more like cake than the crepe like ones were used to at home. We came to a group decision that it was far too cold to cycle the Golden Gate Bridge so we took another taxi. This taxi driver was a complete nutter and actually scared the s*** out me. We were on the freeway and he noticed that the road ahead was jammed so he attempted to pull a U in the break of traffic on the other side of the road but completely misjudged the turning circle of the vehicle and nearly slammed in to the barrier on the other side. There were cars screeching to a halt behind us as he was frantically trying to reverse and pull away again. From there on he just seemed to go nuts, he was driving so fast and so erratically I was tempted to ask him to let us out. Luckily we made it to the start of the Golden Gate Bridge safely.
We walked across it and were treated to some good views from the centre of San Francisco and Alcatraz. On the way we spotted the suicide hotline and a few funny signs. We got back to the other side after an hour and then took a taxi back to the hostel. We sat around in the hostel listening to the music collection of the guy behind the reception which consisted of the s***test gangster rap ever, it really started to do my head in. We sat there from 3 until about half 8 when Laura and I got a subway to share then took a taxi to the greyhound terminal. The taxi only had 4 seats and I was stuck on the far right in the back. The seat didn't reach all the way to the door and there was a huge gap where I was sat, every time we accelerated, breaked or went over a bump I sank down the recess a little more and I was soon sat on the floor and seriously wedged in. When we arrived the guy at the terminal offered us an earlier bus which was only half full so we would all have double seats to ourselves. We got on the bus and I laid out on the 2 and had my feet on a spare one across the isle with a blanket over my legs, I've never had a more comfortable position on a bus, I was loving it. After 20 minutes we stopped at Oakland to let a few more people on. For some reason we were stopped there for about half an hour and people kept arriving at the door then getting on the bus. I was starting to get a little bit worried. First someone went and sat next to Rich, then was forced to move and sit next to Pat, before I knew it Laura and I were forced to sit next to each other again and the bus was completely full. I woke up at some point with my head stuck out in the isle and the feeling that my neck was going to split open, I must have got about an hours sleep but couldn't get any more.
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