If You're Going To San Francisco....

wan·der·lust/: Noun: A strong desire to travel: "a man consumed by wanderlust".

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If You're Going To San Francisco....

I know this is much, much overdue (so I apologise), but life is keeping me busy!

A few weeks back now myself and ten others from the International group rented some cars and roadtripped down to San Fran. It's about a 5 and a half hour drive, so obviously obnoxciously singing disney songs down the highway was required. One car left the thursday night, and my car left the friday afternoon. Considering we had a Dodge Minivan, poor Claire who was driving looked like a soccer mum of a very interesting family!

On the drive down, Claire and Jordan brought up the idea of picking up a hitchhiker. Now, dont get me wrong, im sure all y'all hitchhiking folk are lovely...but every thought about mass murding psychopaths mqy or may not have crossed my mind. But, it's was on some peoples bucket's list, so pick up a hitchhiker we did! Her name was Kasey, she had awesome tatts, awesome hair and an adorable little puppy! Actually a really nice girl, I chatted with her until we dropped her off.

So on we drove! We crossed over the Golden Gate at night, siging at the top of our lungs of course, then took a detour down Lombards St; the most twisty street in the world! We then, while trying to find our way to our hostel, managed to drive down a one way street.....the wrong way. Whoops.

We finally got to the hostel at around 9pm friday. Now, i've never stayed at a hostel before in my life, and boy was this place a one star introduction to hostels!! The place was rather sketch, down a creepy alley, complete with a red light massage parlour on the corner! But even though there was no real security, doors and gates that didn’t lock, mismatching and *ahem* stained sheets, showers and toilets that didn’t work perfectly and hand rails up narrow stairwells that were falling out of the wall, the people were pretty cool, so that made up for it. Once we got settled, we got dolled up, threw on our heels and got our drink on baby! I thought i'd lost my camera and had a massive stress out fit, but Jord and Vicente found it for me...apparently I have really bad blonde moments sometimes...
Once we were suffuciently buzzed, off we walked to an 18+ club called City Nights! Once we got there, one of the promo people called Claire over cause apparently she looked interesting. They then noticed the rest of us/we crashed, and we got interviewed for a promo for the club! Win for being international! We then wandered inside, and holy crap what an inside! For all of yous reading from Melbourne, specially from Knox, think of a giant cross between the cages and pole of Dakkas and Cheers and the awesome of Roxannes. This place was nuts! Main room had a giant dancefloor, stage and then two storys of balcony complete with cages and pole.....aaannndddd gogo dancers! Half naked guys and girls paid to dance for us all...drunk Courtney was happy. After the place closed, Kelly, Vicente and I realised we had lost the others, and decided to walk back to the hostel....through the dodgy end of town. We apparently made friends with a pimp and his 'women', which will make an interesting story to tell any future granbabies!
But, we did get home alive...after gettting very lost!

The next day (Saturday), I thank god did not have a hangover! We ended up wandering around Union Square, got lunch, then took a 'cable car' (which I swear is actually a really old tram..) to the Old Ferry Building and perused the markets there. Which was rather lovely and the sun was out and amazing. I bought a shirt and a bracelet made out of a fork, which makes me happy for some random reason. And Melboure, you really do have some catching up to do on decorating! There was a giant water feature that you could walk under, over, up, down and through! I had far too much fun with that thing. We then watched a mass group of bmx'ers pull some tricks, whick was sweet. We then got on another cart out to Pier 39.

 

 

Pier 39 is a sweet, sweet tourist trap, but I loved it anyway. There was hella people, but we all had a great afternoon touristing, looking at California Sea Lions, getting a glimpse of Alcatraz and the Golden Gate, miraculisly without fog. We all met up and chilled on the ground listening to music and taking photos with a superman on stilts! We then got on a bus off to China Town! We had a wander, bought touristy things, and in general, acted like the annoying tourists we love to hate at home. It was fun. Had a late lunch/dinner which almost turned into a food fight as Claire flinged a prawn tail at Jord, who ducked, and it almost hit the people behind us. Our bad. Full we then headed home. I was exhausted and pretty much just fell asleep, but not before we made friends with our two new dorm mates Igor and Roy, who are on exchange in Santa Barbra. We all pretty much decided to adopt them, and offered to take them with us the next day, which, well, duh, they did!

 

On Sunday, our last day in San Fran, we got up early, checked out of the hostel and headed out to Cal Academy of Science. As it was one of only 4 free entry days for Cal Academy in the year, we knew it was going to be busy, but boy was that the understatement of the year! By the time we got there, the linne was above 2000 people. But thankfully, we only had to wait about an hour; some people apparently waited five... It was so worth it though! I had the biggest geek fest in there! Aquariums, rainforests, a 75st domed projector screen; everything! It was like mixing ScienceWorks, the Melbourne Museum and the Melbourne Aquarium into one and it was still better! I thoroughly enjoyed myself! On another note, on the way there and trying to find a park, we also learnt that Tunisians can park like bosses. Well done Nidham!

After that we went to the Golden Gate Bridge, and you guessed it, acted like complete and utter airheaded tourisits. And we loved it. I bought some more souveniers (which are now all tucked away in my wardrobe) and we jumped back into our cars, had dinner then got on the road home.

But wait! There's more!

We were driving home, trying to stay awake, looking for a petrol station and kinda wanting to stop and take photos of the sunset. Sooo, the driving was pretty all over the place! For example, pulling off the highway just after an exit, and then pulling back out again. So safe to say we weren't too surprised to look in the rear view mirror and see Highway Patrol behind. And yes, they did pull us over. One of the cops came up to the passengers window and asked for license and registration yada yada. Copper number two says, “I’ve pulled you over because you swerved off the road and then tried to exit the free way.” I'm pretty sure that when we all opened our mouths and told them we were kinda lost and looking for a gas station, all he was thinking was "Bloody toursits!" The first cop comes over as well and now asks:

“Ok, Where you lot headed tonight?”
“Arcata.”
*sus tone of voice* “What are you going there for?”
“We got to uni at Humboldt.”
“Ah. Do you have any large sums of cash on you?”
“No, we're uni students.”
“Any marijuana in your possesion?”
“No, we’re not those kinds of kids.”
*cop number two, laughing* “Give it a few months and you will be.”
*cop number one* "Ha, yeah you'd probably be picking up your stash on the way through!"

. . . . .
#humboldt

Safe to say, it was a good weekend, and it wouldn't have been the same without our little International Family. <3