San Francisco

After parting ways with Izzy i arrived at my hostel, it was nice to have a shower available whenever i wanted it and a fully functional kitchen once again! The first night i met an English girl doing pretty much the same trip as me just a bit quicker, we went out to get some food after dark. On the way there it was a little bit dodgy with a lot of homeless people on the street but they weren't bothering us. San Francisco has 18,000 homeless people, so this was not a rarity. However when we had finished eating and headed back about an hour later things had changed dramatically. The streets were lined with gangs, i'm assuming they were apposing as they were on opposite sides of the street. As two young, white women, who clearly stuck out as tourists, we were an instant target. It was a very, very hostile situation which we were both extremely uncomfortable in. Every man we passed would make a snide comment and leer at us, so we picked up our pace and looked out for a cab passing that we could hail, although none came. The walk back to our hostel was only 5 minutes but about 30 seconds up the road one of the gangs of about 15 men came out of their doorway they had been huddled in, they made a semi circle across the pavement in front of us, stopping us passing. We stopped and i said excuse me, they picked up on my accent immediately, they were asking us where we were going and that we should go with them. I was 100% ready for them to show a knife or gun and mug us, i was practically getting my bag off my back to hand to them when a little gap emerged in the group and we slipped through, luckily although they called after us they didn't follow. Absolutely terrified by this point we walked so fast we missed our turning and ended up a lot deeper into the ghetto, which we would later find out was the heart of the tenderloin area of San Fran; the most dangerous area, where tourists are advised to steer clear from. Realising we were lost Johanna got out her phone to check google maps and find where we were. At this moment from across the street a man who i assume was homeless, started staggering towards us shouting "b****es!!", i looked at Johannah and we both just ran in any direction, picking the most lit road. We got 3 blocks away and it felt slightly safer, we were finally able to look at a map and find our way back to the hostel, rather shaken and not planning to ever leave the hostel at night again. I instantly regretted not buying mace a lot earlier!

After that drama we headed to sleep and the next day we explored Fisherman's Wharf, this Bay Area was really cute and sold some great food. We spent most of the day here and also looked around Little Italy and China Town. The most notable thing about San Fran had to be all the hills. After travelling across America for nearly 3 months i was amazed at how flat the country was but that was certainly not the case here! Some of the roads were so steep there were signs telling cars to park at 90 degrees and steps had been built into the pavement as they were otherwise to steep to walk up! You would definitely get very fit living here!

The next day i went for a jog to the Golden Gate bridge, i didn't realise quite how far it was away and ended up walking 20km and running 11! It was beautiful though, although very busy, i was glad i hadn't rented a bike to cross the bridge as there were so many pedestrians the cyclists were constantly having to stop so as not to run them over. The Golden Gate Bridge has become notorious for people committing suicide by jumping from it. To the point where there are phones installed along it with signs that state "consequences of jumping from this bridge are tragic and tragic" The telephones are linked up to a suicide helpline which no doubt would alert authorities that someone might jump The sign above the phone says "There is hop, make the call". Despite this macabre aspect of the bridge the views from it were amazing, it was extremely windy though! I kept getting blown across the walkway! Considering I was in California and Danville had been 38 degrees it was absolutely freezing in San Francisco!

As i had left booking my hostel for July 4th too late the one i was in was unavailable, the hostel i had to move to for 2 nights was even closer to the dodgy area where i'd had the unpleasant experience the first night. I wasn't really looking forward to it but it didn't turn out that bad, the only time i left after dark was on July 4th when we went to watch the fireworks down in Chrissy Field. We were a large group of Aussies and Brits and all found it amusing how American the celebrations were, with a very cheesy band and songs such as "This land is your land this land is my land" and other song about how great America is. The funniest part was that the fireworks were mostly concealed by the thick smog that permanently hung in the air, the fireworks illuminated the fog but you couldn't really make out half of them properly!

I headed back to the other hostel after spending a day window shopping with the Aussie girls i'd met. I then headed over to Oakland to meet up with Izzy as my replacement bank card had been sent to her friends house. Finally i had access to money again!! That evening i hopped on the Amtrak for an overnight trip to San Diego, hoping it would be a little warmer down there!