Well the past two days
have been interesting to say the least.
Let's start with
yesterday, day 13.
From the very beginning
of planning for this trip we had wanted to hire bikes and ride around
somewhere, for a bit of fun and some exercise. We decided to do that
yesterday so we could ride through Golden Gate Park and over the
Bridge. Our hostel had a few brochures we could look at for bike
hiring places, all at a student discounted rate, so we ended up
choosing the one closest to our hostel, Blazing Saddles (despite
Marni hating the name).
We went, all dressed in
tights and t-shirts, got our bikes, then were told we had to ride
straight down the street before we got to the designated bike path.
This was kinda scary for us, since none of us ride bikes on a road at
home, let alone in San Francisco on the opposite side of the road! We
decided on walking them down on the footpath, then hopped on once the
bike path was very clear. We were fine until we had to start
following directions, and ended up stopping several times before we
reached the first stop on our self guided tour, Alamo Square Park,
where the Painted Ladies houses are situated. They were so cute and
picturesque! We each decided we like the blue house second from the
right the best.
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| The Painted Ladies! |
We then continued down
to Golden Gate Park (getting lost again on the way) and by the time
we finally got in to the park, we decided it was time for a well
deserved rest and snack, which consisted of vegemite sandwhiches on
the Boudin sourdough bread Rachel had bought on our day at the wharf.
After our snack, we
were feeling a little disparate at our lack of progress. The Bridge
we were aiming to cross seemed so far away!! But we did not. We
decided to take the easy route to the Golden Gate Bridge, with less
hills and shorter in both time and length. Well if we hadn't taken
the easy route, we would probably still be out there cycling! We
finally made it to the Bridge, took a quick toilet break, before
hopping back on, and battling both the wind and pedestrians as we
rode across one of the most famous bridges in the world, looking over
one of the most beautiful bays in the world. It would have been handy
if the bikes had autopilot while we were riding over the bridge so we
could keep looking at the stunning view, with the Pacific Ocean to
our left. We continued riding all the way to Sausalito, rewarded
ourselves with some fish n chips as well as ice cream.
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| Our view of the Golden Gate Bridge from the bike track |
Once we had returned
our bikes and arrived back at the hostel, we needed to do some
washing. The story only gets better from here. We put the washing in
and decided to spend the 30 mins waiting time by popping into the
hostel's comedy night which we thought would be entertaining. Lets
just say... it was. The first few comedians were a little awkward
(and high) but it was still quite funny. There was a fellow
Australian sitting in the same row as us, from Tasmania, who had had
a little too much to drink and kept on chiming in to the comedian's
stories. We listened to a couple of the comedians and then left to go
and check on our washing.
Well. Turns out we had
put more than double the amount of dishwashing powder into the
machine and our clothes were soaking wet. Not just wet, but dripping
wet with all this soap all in it. So we put it into the dryer hoping
it would dry up. Nope. It took another 2 cycles of drying (45 minutes
per cycle) to finally get our clothes warm and dry, even though some
of them have shrunk (especially Sohan's pyjama top!)
While we were loading
our washing into the dryer, the host of the comedy night, Luke, pops
into the laundry room to give us some company. Luke has had a lot of
alcohol during this comedy night which provided free beer and wine,
which meant that he wasn't quite in the right state of mind. After a
couple of minutes of regular conversation where he informed us that
he was in fact a comedian and he performed earlier on in the night
when we weren't there, things got a bit out of hand. We told him to
tell some jokes, and he said he would be willing to give us our own
show, and we were like 'oh cool, yeah, a comedian show while we wait
for the laundry – how exciting!' Not quite – he wanted to offer
us a “private show” in a “secluded area”... we politely
declined.
So in between these 45
minute clothes-drying sessions we popped in and out of the comedy
night. Every time Luke went up on stage to announce a new comedian,
he winked at us in the front row. Every. Single. Time.
It was funny at first,
not so much as it continued.
Once our clothes
finally finished drying, we went into the laundry room and who do we
see? The Tasmanian who was sitting near us, passed out on the chairs,
with wet pants. Yes, ladies and gentleman – he had peed his pants.
That's what I'm going to leave this day blog with.
_______________________________________
On to the next day - We
had a leisurely start today, left the hostel a bit before 10, and
stopped into Zara (who are having a big sale) before heading to the
bustop to go to Ghirardelli Square.
Once on the packed bus, Rachel
looked in her bag, and realised her wallet was not there, and had in
fact been stolen. This kinda ruined our morning as she called banks
to find that her cards had been used and money had been taken out, so
they were all cancelled and organised to have new ones sent to New
York.
After sorting all this
out, we changed our plans and headed straight down to the Boudin
Bakery again, to have an awesome sourdough bowl of soup. It was so
much windier down there than the past few days, and since we ate
outside, it was somewhat tricky!! We then continued on foot to
Ghirardelli Square, stopping a few places along the way, until we
finally reached the chocolate heaven! It was somewhat overwhelming
when we entered, in terms of what to buy for our family and friends,
and also what to get for ourselves right then and there! Then of
course navigating through the masses of people in the Ghirardelli
cafe was a task in itself. We each ended up getting an ice-cream
sundae, which was exciting at first, but afterwards we all felt very
sick...
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| Pre-Sundae |
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| Post-Sundae |
We purchased some
chocolate and nursed our bloated bellies, we headed back to the
hostel to recover from our ice-cream comas properly. Somewhat
recuperated, we headed out to Lori's Diner, stepping back into the
50's for some diner style food.
Now we're packing our
suitcases (a little more difficult after our purchases), ready for a
chill day of travel tomorrow.
That is all!
Marni, Rachel and Sohan
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