“Take me to a Gay Bar, Gay Bar”

Catching the bus over the bay bridge to San Francisco bay i catch my first glimpse of my home for the next four days. If I knew how great this city was going to be I would have stayed a week. Any way back to the blog. I walk to the Hostel but I forgot I should have watched the film Bullet before I came to here, then I might have remembered about all the bloody hills in San Fran. After climbing up and down Nob Hill (Heehee Nob) with my backpacks on and asking a hobo directions for one dollar, I should have known he was going to charge me for this information. Still i’d rather give it to a homeless person if he helps me in some way or form, he could of offered to carry my bags for me.
I have notices about the US, I’m not sure if i’ve talked about this in pervious blogs but i thought i’d bring it up again because it still amazes me the amount of homeless people that live in the cities and also the state of the ghettos and trailer parks around the cities that wouldn’t look out of place in a South African. Quite shocking really if this is what a world super power looks like. Maybe Bush and his cronies should stop dropping bombs for oil in the middle east and look around there own country for a while.

Rant over, the hostel was wicked, one block away from China Town so it was right in the heart of the city. The hostel its self was the best place I’ve stayed in so far on my US adventure. Not only was it a great place to meet people, the guy who ran the place was so clued up about the sub cultures and places off the beat in the city.

The next day I put on my walking shoes and headed over to Pier 39, Its a bit of a tourist trap but you can visit the rather amusing seal lions that have taken up there home on side of the wharf.

I must say i didn’t get many photos of San Fran on my digital because I kept forgetting to charge the dam thing. But its ok, I have some wonderful shots to share with you from my Leica. I also took a test roll of the cheapest nastiness film I could find. The colours and the prints were just flipping terrible but at least i know my camera is working. I will say the film was so bad at getting the right colours the photos came out in a kinda dream like. I’ll show you. So I kinda like the weird colours.

My trip passed Pier 39 lead me on my way to another great icon and a great piece of engineering ‘ The Golden Gate Bridge’ Walking across this giant was so much fun, not only do you get a great view of San Fran but It just looks awesome with its massive red suspension supports holding it all together. Again, another sight to tick off the ‘Things I must see before I die’ list
After walking back to the hostel which seem to take the whole afternoon as I was snapping away an must of got though at least 3 rolls of film I met up with a great guy from Dublin called Colm. We went out for a bite to eat but disaster was just about to bite me in the arse. After eating some crazy food at the Garlic restaurant (They have Garlic Ice Cream) i suddenly realized that I didn’t have my Debit card, yep thats right I left it in the fucking ATM. So the next hour was me panicking and canceling it, luckily I had my back up credit card so at least i could get money out. This was also a great source of entertainment for everyone in the hostel, so to cheer me up a hand full of us went to the nearest bar in the neighborhood. Random nights out are always the best and always seem to be followed by a very bad hang over. This was the case when we gatecrashed a private birthday party at a bar, ate all there nachos, wore their wigs (Yes wigs) and danced to Depeche Mode, i must say the dj was playing some wicked tunes and I think he really enjoyed the pissed up foreigners.
When you go out with the Irish
1. You spend far more money than you would normally do
2. You drink 3 times as much, in this case 3 Jagermeister one after another followed by pints and pints of pale ale! I don’t even like beer much.
3. You are guaranteed to have a bloody good night and the worse hangover in the morning.

Next day waking up early as one of the German girls in my dorm was snoring like a train, I drag myself down to Golden Gate Park aka Hippy Hill at the weekends. Its just what I needed after a heavy night on the piss. Picture me sitting on a hill watching new age hippies dancing around to people playing bongo drums stoned off there face. This park was was once the focus of the Nam protests back in the day. Still, there are many crusty people with flowers in there hair spreading the words of love. But really I lost all faith in the crusty’s when I saw one playing his Playstation Portable. Wow man thats spiritual! It was a great afternoon out and worth a visit to the area, its a lot like Camden with its Hipsters cafes and tattoo shops.
No one in the hostel did very much that evening except complain about how much there head hurt so we all had an early night.
Next day and my final day in the gayest city in the world so before I left I had to see the most crocked road in the world. You know the one, i don’t have any digital photos of it to show you I’m afraid. Its rather a climb up Nob Hill (hehe Nob) but i’d rather walk it then take the $5 cable car up there aim at the hoards of tourists that want to see the street. Use your legs for god sake you fat bastards.

The night time was a right laugh, I wanted to go out in a bang and i sure did. $0.80 a drink at a bar in the gay district, this doesn’t bother me in the slightest but we had these two ‘macho’ aussie with us who were so homophobic they were so scared of the place. The chubby fucker got what he deserved when a (i’m really not making this up I promise) a massive topless black dude walks up to him and cups his balls! HA HA, well for the rest of the night we all kept touching him on the arse, the chubby git didn’t know what to do. But really, in this day and age people shouldn’t be like this especially if they know before going its a gay bar, the were both full on tossers anyway.
The music in the bar was wicked, I can report 2 Depeche Mode songs were played and as well a ‘DJ Hell’ track which I found rather strange as just before hand I was dancing to Madonna ‘Like a Virgin’. My night was cut short when I had to help my bunk buddy Esther back to the hostel as she had been downing vodka red bulls all night. I’m a good friend holding helping her hold her hair back as she pucks over the floor. I did laugh loads as it was very funny. Poor girl, she will hate me for writing about this but a classic way to make new friends!

The morning i left for the airport, no one was around to say goodbye to but thats ok as i knew they wouldn’t be out of bed till noon. Its ok I have all there details and i’m sure I will see a few of them again soon. What on earth would we do without Facebook, people? Its getting as important as mobile phones these days, if you don’t have Facebook, why not? I wonder how much work gets done at Red Bee or the BBC now? Seems like most people are glued to their profile.

So thats it, a quick trip to San Fran was over, I wish I could of stayed longer but I had someone coming from the UK to hang out with me for the next 10 days. Who could this mystery person be?

Here is the List for San Fran
1. Take a walk or bike over the coolest looking bridge in the world.
2. Nob Hill (heehee Nob)
3. China Town is great, its so big and has to be the best China Town outside… errr China, its also the closest place I’ve been to that feels like China but without the crazy food.
4. Hippy Hill at Golden Gate Park. Much fun watching the stoners dancing around to bongo drums
5. ‘The Bar’, yes thats what it is called $0.80 cents a drink. Crazy prices!