USA Trip '05 - Part One

Then, less than three weeks later, I was boarding a plane bound for San Francisco, and ultimately London. You may recall that I had handed in my notice at work a few weeks prior, so the future was definitely still uncertain. However, I managed to gather the courage to go back to the boss, and grovel for my job back (actually, grovelling didn’t turn out to be necessary – he welcomed me back gladly, which was very reassuring).

I wasn’t entirely sure what to expect from the trip, and even less sure about what I was going to do once I came to the end of my time in North America. But I made it to San Fran alright, and met up with Chris at the Hotel. Not before spending a couple of hours wandering SF airport waiting for him to turn up, though! The BART deposited me Market Street station, which was just around the corner from the Mosser hotel I had booked. In my haste to get out of the station, dump my bag, have a rest and a loooong, hot shower, I didn’t check the map closely anough, and ended up walking in completely the wrong direction through a less desirable part of town. I made it to the Mosser a few minutes later, slightly wiser, and found Chris in the foyer. It was good to see a familiar face in such unfamiliar surroundings. That wasn’t the end of the challenges for the day though. We attempted top check in, only to find that the ‘twin’ room I had booked was actually a single room with a double bed. We had to upgrade (for an extra $30/day) to a ‘double’ room, which had two twin beds. Crazy! I tried to argue, but my heart wasn’t in it as I really just wanted to get to the room and relax. The room was, after all, quite pleasant and comfortable, if a little noisy. We went out a little later to explore and find some food – mercifully, the hotel was near Union Square, the major shopping area of San Francisco, so there was no shortage of choice.

We actually stumbled upon what I found out later to be one of the best and most popular pizza parlours in SF, Blondies. I’d been hanging out for a good American-style pizza since I got back from Vail, and it was just as good as I remembered. I don’t know how they manage to get so much flavour into a pizza with so few toppings. American food was going to feature prominently on this trip! I spent some time in the Virgin Store listening to music, and came away with three new CDs. Spent plenty of time in the Apple store as well, on this day buying a PowerPod and iTrip for the iPod. We were almost ready for the road trip!