Up to 9th April: Pre-trek
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Gavin's diary—12.50am 9th April 2007, Best Western Americania, SF
So this is San Francisco! The chrome fittings, the pink-and-beige striped wallpaper, and the cluttering bathroom fan.
Due to an unfortunate experience at our local eatery, we seem to have decided to spend our entire stay in San Francisco in the hotel room. (Maybe this will give us a better feeling of true confinement than our planned visit to Alcatraz later this afternoon.) But to bring you up to this point, we must first take you back to the distant past ...
We set off at 8.00am yesterday for Heathrow. (It was supposed to be a 7.30 start, but you know what James is like.) Our driver, Corrie, seemed to be shouldering all the travel stress on our behalf. (Perhaps she had finally realised how much she would miss our contribution at home over the next 17 days. She will just have to empty the bins herself.)
The flight
The airport experience was that of a tedious factory inspection line, exacerbated by the fact that Virgin Atlantic would not let us check in online from home. (We later discovered the reason: Virgin had blacklisted another passenger named James Wilson.) Our tickets must have been examined 10 times, and our passports likewise. Everyone even had to remove their shoes so they could be inspected for explosive. As I told my neighbouring passenger in row 46 on the 747, the weak chink in these anti-terrorist measures is now the inside job—that the man who cleans the toilets or works at Starbucks in the departure lounge passes the bomb to be passenger who has passed all security inspections.
I told James that the woman in front of us in two of the queues was Sophie Ellis Bextor, the pop singer. He thought it could be, but he also thought that her boyfriend "looked gay". My only doubt stems from the fact that this woman and her entourage were, like us, in the economy queue.
The passenger processing took so long that, once complete, I forgot to buy the items on my shopping list, namely the US travel adaptor and antiperspirant roll-on I half-needed.
The flight went without incident and we arrived on time. The seats were very cramped. The redeeming feature was the in-flight entertainment, which is now totally on-demand. Start any of the 30 or so movies whenever you want. You can even play games with and send messages to any other passenger on the plane.
Arrival
From the inside, the corridors of San Francisco airport are much like those of any other. But from the outside, it's a fairly attractive essay in concrete, with curved roads and aerial tramways, set against the background of the green hills, blue Californian sky and Pacific clouds. The fresh air reminds you that the sea is not far away. Once we had worked out what sort of transport would get us to the hotel, we shared the door-to-door van ride with two girls who had flown in from Las Vegas. It was heartening to see the instant bond that James can create through the offer of a cigarette light.
The hotel
The Americania is on the edge of the downtown area. Decked out in a pink, Mexican hacienda style, it's fine in itself, although our room seems to be on a major pedestrian route and it's far too close to the ice machine. But when mentioning the neighbourhood, one must emphasise the 'down' in downtown. For our first dinner, the hotel receptionist directed us two blocks up, to the fast-food area on Market and Seventh. But this junction is far too down, even for the likes of McDonals and Burger King. There must have been 20 people just hanging around on the four corners of this junction, either doing nothing or waiting for the next unsuspecting opportunity to arrive. At one stage James and I had been squabbling and threatening to separate. We quickly appreciated how unwise such a decision might have been.
A man with 'SECURITY' in big white letters on his t-shirt constantly patrolled the restaurant while we ate. A tramp asked James for money at the till. A hoodie went in and out of the toilets. A very brightly dressed woman went in to the toilet and hadn't emerged before we left. We realised how down-at-heel the area was, and returned directly to our hotel room.
San Francisco
Alcatraz
Today we took the hotel's complimentary bus to Union Square, thereby avoiding all the ne'er-do-wells on Market Street. From there we walked to the Chinatown Gate and up through Chinatown itself to the Italian district on Columbus Avenue, also taking in the zigzag section of Lombard Street on our way to Fisherman's Wharf, where we had an obligatory Burger King before disappearing into Ripley's Believe It or Not which, despite Bill Bryson's claim, is just plain tacky.
But the pre-booked boat trip to Alcatraz was simply excellent. The combination of the audio guide (voiced by former guards and inmates), photos and recreated cells made this island outstanding.
Dodgy Video Footage
- Pre-trek, largely in SF (Duration 5:09)
