[Still on last Saturday in San Francisco...]
At the point of falling asleep after dinner, I forced us outside for a drink in the surrounding neighbourhood. Accustomed to dressing in single layers for most of this trip so far, we were hit by what felt like a freezing force 9 gale whistling through the streets. A bit of bad weather can always take the shine off things, and now I noticed just how many bums and beggars there were on every sidewalk – were they hangers-on from the hippy dream-turned-bad, or had things been bad for them from the start? The Irish bar we hit wasn’t particularly good either (unless you like baseball), but it did the job.
Returning to the SAN FRANCISCO INTERNATIONAL HOSTEL (capital letters represent shouting, you’ll see why), at a little before 9.30, we milled around with the other 30 or so expectant drinkers. Could free beer really exist? Was there some sort of small print attached to the word “free”? Looking around, I noticed that I was probably the oldest there by about ten years, leaving Our Kid aside. Most of the hostels we’d hit so far, there’d been people way older than me – in Chicago, for example, they seemed to almost exclusively cater for mature clientele. But here...here there was definitely a youthful (read "naive and crazy") feel in the air.
After 15 minutes waiting around in the larger dining area, a couple of likely lads appeared. Likely Lad #1 (let’s call him “Terry”) lept onto the stage and took the microphone, yelling to get our attention. His monologue was loud and punchy, and he loved the sound of his own voice. Here’s some of what he communicated:
- The SAN FRANCISCO INTERNATIONAL HOSTEL is full tonight with 450 people!
- The SAN FRANCISCO INTERNATIONAL HOSTEL is the third biggest hostel in America!
- Normally the SAN FRANCISCO INTERNATIONAL HOSTEL prides itself on giving out free condoms, but they have run out tonight, so if anyone wants to do “anything” they’ll have to do it with themselves!
- The beer is free down in the nightclub, where you can also play poker, beer pong and “chess”. Yes, there is a chess room with nothing but a table and a chess board with most of the pieces missing. Go there late at night and “play chess”, if ya know what I mean! [nudge-nudge-wink-wink]
- Bring your red cups to the bar to get refills, but don’t take them outside onto the street because the cops don’t like it. By all means go out onto the street and make noise, but not with your red cups. The SAN FRANCISCO HOSTEL will not be responsible if you do!
- There is a challenge - $1,000 if you can drink 1.75 litres of vodka between two people in half an hour without throwing up. Of the 100 or so who have tried, only 12 have managed it, all of them from Eastern Europe!
- Be nice to each other – there was a fight last night – no need for any of that at the SAN FRANCISCO INTERNATIONAL HOSTEL!
From these amazing titbits, I conclude one thing – I am back at bloody university! None of this stuff was mentioned on the booking website! Oh well, when in Rome...
The order is given to queue up outside the door down to the nightclub. Tim and I find ourselves first in the line with likely lad #2 (let’s call him “Bob”). At first we think Bob is Australian, so when he asks us where in England we’re from we give the standard answer of Liverpool. “Oh,” he says, “you don’t have the accent.” Busted! The guy is English like us. I give him the specific directions: “We're from Middlesex, a small village inbetween Staines and Slough.” He registers, “Staines? Where Ali-G is from?” That’s the one.
Bob finally opens the door and the happy party-goers troop downstairs to the depths. It actually looks like a proper nightclub down there with the lights, the smoke, the glitter ball, the...errr...chess room, and the booming hardcore dance sounds. As mentioned, beer is deposited into red plastic cups and we find a corner from which to observe the young `uns. There seem to be a regular crowd who come down here and they gather themselves in two teams to play beer pong across the specially designed table. If anyone is unfamiliar with this drunken pastime, each team has several cups lined up at either end of the table. Players take it in turns to try and throw a ping pong ball into one of the opposing team’s cups, if successful that team has to drink the beer and there is one less cup to hit. The team with no cups left loses. I’m not joking, they took this game as seriously as if it were an Olympic event.
[...And here's a shot of the Beer Pong table!]
Across the "club", another group of chaps sat down at the Texas Hold `Em poker tournament. A Danish guy who I’d chatted to while emptying the tumble dryer asked me if I fancied the $5 dollar buy-in, and I was tempted, but not tonight. I was still looking forward to that bed and was supposed to be in it shortly.
If there were about 50 of us down in the club, I wondered where the other 400 guests were. As time went by, lots of less hardcore party people came downstairs, got their red plastic cups filled and went back upstairs...obviously didn’t like the music. Couldn’t blame them really. Raul came down for a chat, then went out to meet a friend somewhere in the city. He told us that the free beer ran out in about an hour. I only really fancied one or two, but I found myself getting through them faster than planned – those old student union instincts were kicking-in – get it while you can!
Terry arrived on the scene with his 1.75 litre bottle of vodka. Getting no takers for the $1000 challenge, he started handing out shots instead – I sensibly refused (if it was bourbon, that would have been a different story). It didn’t take long for the beer to run out and a Scottish guy to appear – Jim Bean bottle in hand – saying that people were gathering in the foyer to head off to a club around the corner. At this point the rush we’d had from the beer faded and we decided to hit the hay.
Our other room mate had just returned from sightseeing for the whole day and most of the night. Penkaj is over on holiday from India for ten days in a cunning plan to put off doing his PHD thesis. Nice guy, very keen to hear how we were travelling, and gave us the positive news that India in December will be the best time to go there. Speaking at this moment, India in December seems light years away, an unreal proposition that exists in another universe.
But in THIS universe, it was time to go to sleep (and ignore any late night drunken hollering in the corridor).
[Checkmate!]
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