distantecho.netRamblings of a wandering nerd

San Francisco was over in a flash. When we were booking the holiday, I was reluctant to spend 5 days there, but in the end, we used every day. As I didn’t have a mobile at that point, they weren’t very well documented days so to recap, here are the days in dot point;

• Saturday : Arrived at 11am. Checked in at 1pm and slept till 4pm. Headed out, had a couple of beers (Sam Adams of course!). Had more beers and cocktails. Went to sleep.
• Sunday : Late start, had breakfast spent the afternoon at Pier 39
• Monday : Intended to go to Alcatraz but it was fully booked (forgot it was Summer. Last time, in the dead of winter, we went over the same day as booking). Decided instead to do a 2hr bus tour. It was really good! The tour guide was excellent. Spent the trip hassling people on the street, telling us where to go and more importantly what to avoid. His thick Spanish accent was hard to understand at times, but made a lot of his jokes funnier. The 1:30 tour that we got was the “last” for the day. about an hour after getting off, we saw him heading off on his next “last” tour of the day. Went to baseball in the PM. Brilliant experience. If I lived here, I’d be at the baseball every other night!
• Tuesday : Got bikes and rode for half the day. Was supposed to go into Union square but the bus trip the day before took us past it and was sufficient.
• Wednesday : Yosemite day trip. Big day – 6:30am to 9:30pm. We were the first picked up, and surprising the first dropped off. Went down the hilly streets of San Francisco at about 50mph which seemed to get the bus airborne at several points. There was a movie where that was done in a Lambo.. Can’t for the life of me remember what it iwas.. Oh well. The actual day was so enjoyable. It’s such an impressive park. Next time we go, we’ll definitely be staying. Didn’t get to see the big trees. I missed the part on the brochure that said the big trees were only done on the tour that had an overnight stay. Not to worry, there is always next time!
• Thursday : Alcatraz. There was more open than last time. Audio tour was really well done. Pretty busy given the season but still enjoyable. After Alcatraz headed to the airport in a Lincon Towncar. Suspension in that badboy was amazing. Almost felt like a theme park ride on the crappy roads of San Francisco. Then checked-in at the airport to discover we didn’t have seats together and the bag boy stuffed up our bag tags so after “self service” failed (epically) spent best part of an hour lined up for “additional assistance”. Finally got 2 seats together and the other two seats that couldn’t be put together were upgraded to premium economy. Other than that, flight to Boston was fine.

And then we were in Boston.

That was our 3rd trip to San Francisco and while we’ll go back to the Napa Valley and Yosemite, it’s unlikely we’ll spend any more time in San Francisco. It’s a great city, but I think we’ve done it enough now.

As per my last post, I am currently on a train. I just bought 4 coffees, 2 bags of pretzels and a Sarah Lee cake for… wait for it, the princely sum of $12.75 USD. Is that not amazing? We’re onboard a train which is a monopoly environment, and there is no attempt to rip us off.

The other day at Yosemite national park, their 6 packs of beer were practically identical to the bottle shops. Ditto for water. $2USD for a bottle of water. ANYWHERE you go. The second you are at a tourist attraction in Australia, the price doubles.

Wanna buy a tourist tshirt, hat or jumper at Alcatraz or Sam Adams brewery? Where a Kakadu tshirt would be $50 there, it’s $15 in the US. Where it’d be $80 for a “I love Sydney” jumper, it’d be $35 here.

Lets not even talk about the 6 polo shirts and 1 jumper I bought at Macy’s yesterday for $140. 3 of them were Calvin Klein! There is no way in hell I could get that for double the price in Australia.

Whether it be food, shoes, fuel, shirts, drinks, alcohol, the list goes on. It’s just cheaper.

Now some of this is accounted for by our strong Aussie dollar. Some of it by economies of scale. Sure I appreciate that. But what is amazingly amazing, is that in America tourist attractions and other areas that you would get seriously ripped off in Australia, are on par with their supermarket equivilents.

Why do we get so ripped off in Australia?

Is it any wonder that no one wants to holiday or shop in Australia anymore? I shed no tears for the death of either of these industries in Australia.

For the first time on this trip, I’ve finally got some time to type away without being in a hurry.

I’m currently sitting on an Amtrak train in Business class with free WiFi. It’s the Acela Express which goes down the East Coast from Maine and ends in Washington DC. I should mention that it only has Business and First class so arguably I’m still in the cheapest seats on the train, but that’s OK. It is seriously relaxing!

Interestingly, the tickets were $100USD each. Cheap indeed! What does business class get you? Big reclining chairs, a table, free soft drinks (apparently) and that’s about all I can say. Not having been on any Amtrak trains before, I can’t compare it to Economy but I’m not that interested in trying Economy now. We have to get to Washington DC by train too so depending on price, it may be Economy but I’m leaning towards paying the extra for the comfort.

The seats as I mentioned are large and are configured 2×2 with the seats facing each other and a table in the middle. Plenty of foot room and there is enough room to recline without annoying the person behind you.

At $100USD, it is at least as cheap as an airfare, but the advantage, at least in Boston (although I suspect this would be the case in most American cities) is that the train station is in the CBD and easily accessible. With no security screening (not that easy to drive a train into a skyscraper I guess), check-in queues, baggage drop, baggage pickup, or other rubbish that takes place at airports, the extra 2hrs travel is well and truly made up for by avoiding the usual hassles at airports.

Other Pro’s include;

• It’s quiet
• Free WiFi
• Great scenery
• Seriously relaxing. The train is configured in such a way that it’s almost impossible for anyone to annoy me

Oh, and did I mention there was no rubbish that’s associated with airports and air-travel?

Now if you were on a tight schedule and had to get cross country, this may not be the way to go, but for a short trip, or even a long one if you had the time, this is definitely the way to travel!

We walked almost 10km the day before (to the baseball, back and beyond) so despite the alarms going off at 7:30am, we didn’t leave the hotel room till 11. Oops. This meant we had a decision to make. Head into the city or head over the bridge. After breakfast at the Hollywood cafe where all the meals were a) named after movie stars of years gone by (I had a James Dean – eggs, sausages, toast and FRUIT) and b) enormous, we settled on the healthier option.

A ride over the bridge.

The bikes were cheap. $27 for 24hrs (after a coupon – which the dude behind the counter gave us… go figure) As with all service so far (except at the supermarkets like Walgreens) the guy that we got the bikes from was great. Plenty of advice, humorous and happy. After being warned that riding on the footpath was illegal, we set off on the right side of the road. Or was that the wrong side.

Anyway, rightly or wrongly, we made it to the bike path. Although this wasn’t much relief. The rules on the bike paths seemed to change depending on who yelled at you, where you were and judging by the randomness of people yelling, the position of the 7th moon of Jupiter.

So our peaceful bike ride, whilst peaceful, was also slightly terrifying. That was until we got to the bridge. Once on the bridge (the shared footpath/bikepath) things got less slightly terrifying and more really terrifying.

The locals seem happy using a tourist attraction but unhappy to accept that tourists generally don’t know what the hell they’re supposed to be doing. With people ringing their bells, yelling on your right, then move right then whistling, whatever the hell that means, none of us knew what the hell was going on.

But that didn’t take away from the magnificence of the bridge. It truly is a fantastic piece of engineering in a fantastic location. While the fog was limiting the view off the bridge, it added to the cool and damp atmosphere looking directly up at the cables gently stretching down.

The whole length of the bridge is accessible. Pity the same thing can’t be said about the suicide barriers. There was a stretch about 15m long of them at a fairly low point on the bridge in comparison to the top. Not sure what the point of them was, when all you needed to do was go up a little further and then you’re back at a handrail.

There were however phones on the bridge with crisis numbers advertised. With suicide such a large problem its odd more isn’t done to stop it.

Anyway, with the locals getting restless and the tourists getting annoying, we decided to make a dash for it and rode as fast as was possible to get the hell off.

At the end, we agreed going back over it wasn’t going to happen so we headed off to Sausalito to catch the ferry back. This of course would not be easy. We had to navigate steep hills and traffic, riding under circumstances I would never ride in back home. But hey, we were on holidays.

Fortunately it was only a couple of miles from the bridge and the fog cleared almost immediately.

Sausalito is a really pretty little town and I suspect its where the rich people live. With a ferry waiting, and tings to do when we get back to San Francisco, we added Sausalito to our list of things to do next time and jumped on the ferry. $10.50 and 45 minutes later, we were returning our bikes.

$27 well spent!

And all I can say is, our travel insurance dodged a bullet today!

As the day was particularly busy, it seemed only appropriate that we eat and drink. So for a quick pre-dinner drink we went to La Trappe. The guy from the Rogue Ale House mentioned it and turned out it was a great recommendation. The beer menu was massive and seriously impressive. (I need to check the pictures to remember what I drank..)

Next it was Italian on Columbus and then after that, Rogues Ale House again for an after dinner drink. This time, an Anchor Liberty IPA.

All in all, a great day!

The Beer is great!. Forget about American’s only drinking crap beer. That is an outdated observation. The beer is normal strength (Lifes to short to drink midstrength crap) and while it’s more expensive than what is normal in America, it’s on par with what you’d pay at the MCG, but… Its good beer!

The big screen is BIG and crystal clear. Unbelievable clarity.

Food variety is great! Pizza, burgers, hot dogs, chips, hot chips, peanuts, candy, ice cream the list goes on.

Home Delivery. They’ll delivery food to your seat.

Entertainment. There is always something happening between innings. Weather it’s some dude throwing boxes of pizza’s into the crowd or 40,000 people singing Karaoke.

Day two started late. We headed off to breakfast at around 9:30. Kate had a monster hangover so it was just the three of us. We went to this place just off Columbus that Kate and I went to last time.

It was just as good as I remembered. The waiter was great. After seating us, he spent the whole time we were there trying to woo people in. While annoying on Lygon st, it seemed less threatening and perfectly acceptable when he was doing it.

In typical American style, the meals were large. I had an omlette which was seriously tasty. It was full of onion, capsicum and sausage. To top it off, there was the potato mix they do instead of hash browns. Ironically its the one thing they don’t deep fry which was probably why I prefer it over hash browns.

Coffee was provided in 6 different flavors and was help-yourself and unlimited for $2.50. I had 3 “Neighbourhood light” coffees.

We paid for the meal and then ducked into Walgreens to pick up some ginger beer for Kate. This failed miserably as all we ended up with was Root Beer which apparently isn’t all that much like ginger beer. What can I say, it’s one beer I know nothing about.

We finally managed to raise Kate from the dead and we headed to Pier 39. As we walked around, it finally dawned on me what was different. It was the first time we’d been to America in peak tourist season. Far out was it busy. The weather was exceptional although as the day progressed the sea breeze picked up which made it cooler than the sun suggested it should be.

We walked around Pier 39 for 3 or 4 hours. We wrapped it up with a wine tasting and cheese platter. Very lah-de-dah but we sat in the sun and watched the crowd go by so life was good.

Everyone was pretty tired by this stage so we went back to the hotel room. Shortly after this, I decided it was time to drink beer. This didn’t seem to impress anyone so I googled Rogue Ale House and was delighted to find it was so damn close. Less than a mile away and more importantly only two turns so chance of getting lost (more likely on the return).

With a spring in my step, I headed up Mason, turned left onto Columbus then right onto Union and there it was. With a grin on my face, I entered, took the first seat I came across and slapped a twenty on the bar. Now in Australia, there isn’t going to be much change from a $20 for a Rogue beer. I was delighted to discover that a pint of Rogue (any) was $6. SIX BUCKS.

Like a kid in a candy store, I quickly apologised silently to Kate for drinking more than the two I originally said I would limit it to and started talking to the guy next to me. He was already a little toasted but he was passionate about his beer and to my delight was familiar with 8wired and Epic.

We talked for another couple of beers but it was fast approaching 9:30 and I did kind of offer to collect dinner. Had I been traveling alone, I reckon I would have ended up in Oakland, but I behaved, purchased 64 ounces of beer “to-go” and marched out the door.

By now I was starting to worry that getting dinner was going to be difficult at this time of the night. So I picked up the pace a little.. Then a lot.. Then I got to Pier 39 to discover it was closed. Oops. In a panic, I power walked up to Bouden’s and thankfully they were open. THANKFULLY!

I collected bread bowl soups for 4 and made it home in good time!

Cost dictated both the destination and airline for this holiday. And the closer I got, the more nervous I got about our choice. The reviews for the airline weren’t great, and then I made the mistake of searching @United on twitter. Boy was that a mistake!

The situation got worse when we jumped on UA840 for the MEL to SYD leg. The hostesses were…. abrupt.. and generally unpleasant.

So with expectations now lowered (again), we were happy to find that the hostesses changed for our SYD to SFO leg. And the replacements were way better! Thankfully.

As there were four of us, we got an entire middle row to ourselves. This was great because we didn’t have to worry about anyone annoying us during the flight (Apart from the psycho parents from hell in front of us).

As has been tradition in recent flights, I’d fallen asleep before takeoff but was awoken by some seriously loud noise that I thought came from the wing (engines) but I was later told it was the landing gear. I can honestly say it scared the hell out of me.

After the rude awakening, lunch/dinner was served. It was about as good as you’d hope to have in the economy cabin. Pasta, salad and pudding. The booze was free and plentiful which helped kill time. But about three hours into the flight, we’d been fed, had a couple of drinks and were coming to the sad realization we still had a hell of a long way to go.

Unfortunately the flight didn’t have personal entertainment systems so we were subjected to terrible movies and TV. But after some restless sleep and a few toilet breaks/leg stretches, we made it.

As the customs declarations cards came out, the following amusing announcement came over the PA in lovely southern twang. “If you don’t fill out the customs and immigration forms you won’t be allowed to enter the country. The good news for you is that we’re refueling and heading straight back to Sydney”. This got a well deserved chuckle from those listening.

We landed about 15 minutes early and then had an hour to wait in line at Customs. Staff were professional but surprisingly friendly and chatty.

Funny thing about airports, is you’re always waiting. Doesn’t matter if customs had been a 10 minute wait instead of an hour, because we would have ended up waiting for our bags. So by the time we finished customs, our bags were waiting for us.

Everything else went through without wait.

And then we were there. Or should I say here. We jumped in a taxi and $50USD and 20 terrifying minutes later were at our hotel.

After getting off the plane, we had a two hour sleep then hit the streets. Two minutes after hitting the streets, we hit the bars and then six hours after that we hit the wall and went back to sleep. It was everything a first day of holidays should be.

Flight checked-in

taxi booked,

newspaper subscription suspended,

packing commenced,

alarm set,

beer opened.

Now what was I doing…

The base plates are on and the big steel frame at the back has been assembled. Beacause there aren’t really any interior walls, this steel will stop the house from skewing/falling sideways.

Some big tasks coming up. They include;

Finalising laundry configuration
Choosing deck timber
Choosing oven
Choosing fireplace

More photos of frame to follow as it progresses.