My people were fair and had sky in their hair, but now they're content to wear stars on their brows

[Rewind to the morning of Sunday, 22nd July...]

42 A.D.

It’s no fun having to get up and go in the middle of a night when you’re sharing a room with three people, even more so when you’ve got to climb down a rickety, creaking bunk bed to get there. No one heard me though. Blame it on the Budweiser. Tim, on the other hand, had a very different experience. He woke up thinking he was back in the Vanderbilt YMCA in New York and that the toilets were down the corridor, not in the next room. So he got down from his bed and considered making a dash for it, but somehow remembered he was in the SAN FRANCISCO INTERNATIONAL HOSTEL and the door would lock if he closed it behind himself. He therefore wedged it open with his pillow, then went back into thinking he was at the YMCA and dashed along the corridor. None of us heard him, but he himself did not become aware of where he truly was until he awoke in the morning. I’m getting worried about that boy.

[Looking over the bannister to a hundred laptops whirring below.]

We came down to breakfast wondering what great merriment the night had brought once we left the party people to it – both the communal PC’s in the lobby were out of order...I dread to think what may have been downloaded. Breakfast here consists of free coffee and pancakes, so long as you make them yourself. Tim was game, but I didn’t fancy the look of the frying pan that was doing the rounds and settled for my apple-a-day. Back up on the sixth floor (technically the seventh, and the stairs are killing us!) we said goodbye to Pankaj, who was still very interested in our trip. He said that six months was a long time to be travelling and that a lot of mental strength must be required. Nah, you just have to be mental.  

After the heartache of being unable to skype our parents due to overcrowded wi-fi, we left base camp and headed out into the city. We’re on Mason Street and the area directly west is called Tenderloin, but there’s nothing tender about it – lots and lots of bums and acid casualties talking to themselves.

San Francisco is an old port and we made our way to the quayside, enjoying the intermittent waves of heat, coupled with occasional blasts of cool wind. Everyone goes on about the weather in California being amazing, and so far I concur. The piers used to be a real rough `n` ready place full of dodgy sailor’s bars and brothels (a little like Ainsdale-on-sea), but now they’re a big tourist trap. Pier 39 is the biggest of them all, full of seafood eateries with a fairground feel. Having packed sandwiches, we took a seat and ate our lunch with a view of Alkaseltzer. Tours of the former prison are available, but you have to reserve them at least two weeks in advance, and we’d had no such foresight. Staring out across the bay, I was not surprised that so few inmates managed to escape (and apparently the one who did was recaptured immediately).

The piers ended at 44 and we headed up something that San Francisco is very famous for – hills – tonnes of `em, each more steeper than the last! As if the six flights of stairs in the hostel weren’t bad enough! We gritted our teeth and headed up to the swanky neighbourhood of Russian Hill, staring enviously at the people in the cable cars. Lombard Street is well known for having a section named “Crookedest Street” – a one way winding road that you would never want to attempt in winter. But there were no shortage of motorists driving down it in summertime.  

I should say that up in these elevated neighbourhoods there were no ker-azy bums or beggars, just nice clean, sun-drenched houses with quirky, individual architecture. I may end up having legs like tree trunks, but I could definitely live here. I also feel a very creative urge in this city, as if it would be the best place to come up with the next great American novel, although I’ve had no time to write anything more than my blog entries. It really does feel like you could change the world from here...

... And in a sense that happened in the next neighbourhood we went to. North Beach was where the beatniks made their home in the 1950s and Ginsberg, Kourac, et al gathered to read inflammatory poetry that was sensationalised by its censorship (are you loving my alliteration? Not very poetic, is it?) Slap bang in the centre of North Beach is Washington Square Park (every city we visit seems to have a Washington Square Park). There were lots of people chilling out here, but I couldn't be sure if this was where the flower children came in the Summer of Love to turn on, tune in and drop out. We just sat down on a bench to rest our weary calves.

[Spot The Bum competition.]

Even higher up in the city is Coit Tower, the money to build it donated by some famous lady I forget the name of who wanted to give something back to the city she loved. I can see her point of view, as well as the fog rolling into the bay. By now we’re really starting to tire and we need a Segway or a Starbucks, so we make our way back through a very chaotic Chinatown – the second largest Chinese community (after New York) outside of, errr, China.

Back at the SAN FRANCISCO INTERNATIONAL HOSTEL I meet the ever-enthusiastic Terry in the elevator. He asks me if I’m going down to the nightclub that evening and I answer, “But of course!” He goes on to say that a Sunday for them is like a Friday night because they have gallons of extra liquor, and tonight that liquor is margarita mix. They call it “Holy Water Sunday”. I would have whooped had I not been so knackered.

Back in room 602, Raul was hanging out and having the quietest ever argument with his girlfriend over the phone, but we had no extra room mate. Were we going to fluke it and go without? The lobby was always crowded with people arriving, sometimes without having pre-booked, so the chances of having a free bunk below me for Holy Water Sunday looked slim. And besides, way back in Washington D.C. we’d thought our luck was in, only for Hannah and Mike to burst in at 10.30. But this is America, and anything is possible here. I spent my time before tea productively sewing up the hole that was developing under the arm of White Shirt, then we went out for a meal at a 1950s-style diner. And for once I had a decent-sized portion that did not cost an arm and a leg (nothing exciting though – steak and eggs).

At a little before 9.30, the siren went off in the corridor and the free beer warning rang around the building. People gathered in the lobby again and Terry went through his spiel about condoms, chess and a special plea for people to stop writing in their reviews that the hostel bedrooms are dirty (they’re not great, but I’ve experienced worse). The plan tonight was to drink until the ale ran out, then sit down with the laptop and book our accommodation for the next stop, San Diego.

[Terry does his nightly stand-up pre-amble.]

[Bob, in the background, guards the doors and asks to see your room keys. Tim, in the foreground, pulls a silly face.]

Down in the club, I still felt bloated from the diner meal and resisted the urge to quaff like someone was going to take it away from me. Tim spoke to the right/wrong person and got conscripted into a beer pong team. Not sure if he won, but he learnt that there are more rules than simply throwing the ball into the cups, there’s all kinds of weird and wonderful things to do with trick shots and the like. I end up giving a Danish guy called Simon advice on hiring a car in the USA and how not to spend a night in Yosemite. Simon is 21 (probably quite old for this place) and has just finished four months in the Danish army – he wisely decided to quit before being shipped off to Afghanistan. Simon reckons that I am 26 and Tim is 21. When I tell him the truth he literally cannot believe it. And in a strange kind of way, I cannot either.

Beer pong goes on and on and on, with lots more people in attendance than the previous evening, but there’s only so much I can take before it gets boring. I head up to the lounge area to write the last blog entry (apologies if I forgot to run a spell check!) However, I keep nipping back to the bar for a quick margarita and I’ve no idea where Tim is. Consequently, drunken chaos reigns and the San Diego accommodation does not get a look in. By the time Simon and his Danish mates call me over to play a drinking game called “Goggles”, I remember that I’m 34 and it’s 12 years since I was at university. I leggit.  

Holy Water Sunday ends with me returning to the room to see the sleeping shape of a new room mate in the bunk below me. So close...

[Holy Sh*t Monday...]

Amazingly we made it out of bed sometime between 8 and 9 a.m. I did not meet new room mate because he’d only been in our room temporarily for the one night and was transferring to another floor. However, I concluded he must be German because of his deodorant – dusche das (“shower that”). So that means we’ve got another person to share the room tonight!

Another day of sightseeing beckoned to kill the hangovers, so we got the bus west across town to the Haight-Ashbury district. The fame of the original Beat generation pushed the prices in North Beach up high, so the younger followers had to find somewhere cheaper to live. They came to the Haight, an old rundown Victorian area, and settled in to become the first hippies and kickstart the psychedelic sixties. The area spawned the likes of The Grateful Dead, Janis Joplin, and The Jefferson Airplane. Maybe The Backstreet Boys as well, I can’t be sure.  

[Making notes for the blog at the centre of 1960s counter-culture cool.]

Nowadays Haight Ashbury is home to modern day hangers-on to the hippy dream, but the only thing to see are the tacky shops, most of them either selling things made in Tibet, or trying to save it. We made the relatively short walk to Golden Gate Park...maybe this was where the flower children first started dancing naked together? Not today though – it’s warm, but not that warm. Unfortunately there is little shade and I have to put my hood up because the top of my head is already pretty burnt. Yes, yes, I should have bought a hat, but there doesn’t seem much point now. Don gave me a baseball cap back in Birmingham, but I lost it somewhere in Texas.

Golden Gate Park goes on a lot longer than the map suggests. We realise this is because the left part of the map is not to scale and has been condensed. Where are we? I give my compass a nudge and it points north. I give it another nudge and it shows north in a completely different direction. When did that break? And how do you even break a compass in the first place?

After a lot of confused trekking, we find our way out of the park and take a seat on a bench for lunch. At our feet is a small hole and a goafer repeatedly pokes its head out, then disappears back into the darkness. Well, it’s something to look at! The thing we really came this far north west of the city to look at was Golden Gate Bridge. Created at the height of The Great Depression, it really was a masterful achievement for the time. The famous shade of “international red” was originally going to be an undercoat for a more conventional grey look, but the citizens voted to keep it that way.

We arrived in New York with the Atlantic ocean behind us, but now we’d met the Pacific...and it looked bloody freezing! As expected, it was incredibly windy on the bridge, which is about a mile long. Given how far we’d already walked, we went halfway along it and came back. We sensibly got the bus back to the San Francisco International Hostel (can’t be bothered with capitals any more).

Monday night was a much more civilised affair in the hostel. Sure, they still gave out free drinks and the beer pong tournament continued, but it was as if the excess of Sunday left most people wanting a quiet one. Our new room mate arrived – Marshall, from Vietnam. He’s been living in the US for nine months, which puts our measly few weeks to shame! And it’s a shame we don’t have longer to get to know him, but we have to move on. Unfortunately San Diego is proving a tricky place to book. There’s some sort of event going on that’s filled the hotels and put the prices up. Guess we shouldn’t have been so laissez-faire about getting it sorted on Holy Water Sunday!

Now, on Tuesday, we’ve checked out and I’m hanging out in the lounge and getting the blog written. Despite the hedonism of this hostel, I’ve really enjoyed my time in the city. San Francisco is definitely a place I could live in, settle down and have lots of little James’s who would grow up to be blonde-haired beatniks, hippies and bums.

And do I have any regrets from all the time I spent here? Only that I forgot to wear some flowers in my hair.