misty emeralds.

In Seattle we stayed with the prolific Couchsurfer Eric on Capitol Hill. He was undoubtedly one of the most fascinating and gracious persons met during our trip, and even beyond that. Despite hosting over 700 people over the course of five or six years in his apartment in Seattle he has a desire to get to know every single person that comes to sleep on his floor. When speaking to Eric, it seemed that Couchsurfing was more than a fad, more than a hobby, but rather a way of life. He seemed to thrive on these fleeting encounters. During the summer months there would be seldom a night that there wasn’t someone from some corner of the earth residing on his carpet. To give an example, for the duration of our stay in his three-room apartment, the floor was shared with four guys from Arkansas and as well as a guy from Portland, Oregon. What took us by surprise was quite how much he wanted to get to know us; it was almost an expectation on his behalf. As if that by providing someone with shelter for a night, all he asked for in exchange was to share your life and stories with him. This creates a very comfortable and warm environment and one of my favourite Couchsurfing experiences.

As for Seattle itself, it is a pretty cool place. Capitol Hill, where we stayed, is the liberal, bohemian neighbourhood of Seattle with more hip dive bars, restaurants and coffee shops that you can shake a fixed-gear bike at. Seattle is perhaps most famous for its ridiculous Space Needle that dominates the city’s skyline. At first, it only seems like an eyesore, but grows on you like irksome, yet endearing, mole. Its Jetsons-esque facade harkens back to a retro 1950s sci-fi aesthetic that seems so out of place among the skyscrapers of a modern major city, yet this is where the structure garners its appeal. The architectural freak of Seattle. There are some really intriguing examples of public art in and around Seattle, including a troll under the bridge in the Fremont neighbourhood, inspired by the Three Billy Goats Gruff fairy tale as well as a old communist statue of Lenin shipped over from Slovakia at the collapse of the Soviet Union. We found that there wasn’t a huge amount to see in the downtown area, like many American cities it was largely just businesses. Although we did manage to spend a whole afternoon in the EMP (Experience Music Project) where I learnt, one, to play my first song on guitar, Louie Louie; a box ticked in my life. Although that talent has since left my memory, which pains me greatly. And two, that Seattle resents the grunge movement. The Pike Place Market was a really quaint, old-fashioned market that I knew I wouldn’t be able fully appreciate without a little bit money to spend on all the awesome stuff within, but that’s a running theme throughout. Oh, and as all four of us are martial arts fanatics, we took the opportunity to take a hike in the rain to Bruce Lee’s gravestone, take a photo of us performing some variety of karate stance in an entirely respectful and good-natured manner before abruptly leaving and feeling really good about ourselves.

Our next stop was Vancouver, Washington, a suburb just over the bridge from Portland, Oregon where we were taking it easy by spending a low-key night with my relatives. Did our washing, got fully-fed and, after being pie’d by one Couchsurf, headed into Portland where we managed to find a last minute place to stay with Couchsurfer Alyssa and her friends. Portland is a city of beers, bikes and bridges. The fervent subculture of liberal types and lefty punks means there’s a variety of establishments to cater for these sorts, in particular the Microcosm Publishing shop was worth a visit and I picked up a plethora of zines to peruse on the Greyhound. While we fully intended to sample its wide breadth of microbrew options, funds once again saw us clambering for Pabst Blue Ribbon and Four Loko. However, the formula of PBR and Four Loko didn’t calculate a very successful night for yours truly. Four Loko did as its want, and caused me some kind of complete blackout that meant that I don’t recall anything of a trip to a nightclub and spent much of my time, supposedly, either sleeping in there, being fed water by our Couchsurf hosts and otherwise being a drunken, embarrassing mess. Great first impressions, eh? They didn’t seem to mind at all though, and in all were very good to us and enjoyed our company, despite their mild-mannered sensibilities that come across as slightly awkward. Our time in Portland was really short, a mere day and a half. The main tourist-style activity we did was visit the Shanghai Tunnels. What we thought we were in store for was a tour around the underground tunnels of Portland that were used to imprison drunken men in bars where they were kept until they were forced aboard ships to work out of the port. Whilst this even happening sound pretty ludicrous, and even more so when it has happened in the last 150 years it does seem to be true. The tour, however, was a joke. The "tunnels" was the cellar of a restaurant that had a makeshift prison cell installed and various items that alluded to Shanghaing. But everything the tour guide said seemed to allude to some kind of ridiculous ghost story and minimal historical insight. Bit of a shame really as it is a very interesting subject.

The next voyage was the most epic of all; 20 hours from Portland all the way to the Golden Gates of San Francisco with a brief stop in Sacramento, CA (where we were hoping to catch a glimpse of Governor Schwarzenegger, but all we found was a very hot, desolate and largely unappealing Californian state capital). I think I fell in love with the Frisco the moment my eyes fell on the white city and its expansive bay from the hills of Oakland. The relief of the city coupled with the offshore winds brought in by the rising, hot Californian air constructs the eerie fog that coats much of western San Francisco, and giving the city its unique and striking image. The city’s geography as part of the San Francisco Bay Area defines and, most importantly, restricts the expanse of its urban planning, creating a dense, fascinating and natural-feeling city. I've never been to a city where the hills are so steep that some require stairs to walk up.

Yet, before staying in San Francisco proper we had two nights in the college town of Berkeley, which is located on the other side of the Bay, with Patrick’s friend, Dani, who studied abroad at the University of Leeds. Whilst in Berkeley we mostly hung out with Dani’s boyfriend Mike, as she had to work during the day. He took us up the foothills of Berkeley, which provided not only some stern hikes but also some truly spectacular views out over the Bay and down onto Frisco itself. We sampled the Californian delicacy of In N Out Burger, which is an ethically run burger joint in the south-west most famous for its secret menu where the seasoned customers find their favourites eats. You used to be able to order a burger with any number of burger patties or slices of cheese in the form of, for example, 8 x 8 (8 burger patties and 8 cheese slices). After someone ordered a 100 x 100 they decided to save the structural integrity of their burgers by limiting it to a 4 x 4, which is still ridiculous. I was, however, constrained to the secret grilled cheese burger and the secret animal fries. We ventured to a batting cage and hit a few baseballs, which made me feel more American than ever as well as inspiring me to become a designated hitter in the MLB. Stranger things have happened. I’d probably need to start taking more drugs and get fat though. Whilst in Berkeley the punk tourist in me saw a good opportunity to visit 924 Gilman. Sadly, we couldn’t go inside, so after snapping the obligatory photo we moved on. Mike also took the opportunity to introduce us to the rather intriguing Barcardi 151-proof rum, which chimes in at a resounding 70.5% alcoholic content. That not being enough, we then went on to set the stuff on the fire and inhale the vapours. Needless to say, three of us had to pray to the porcelain Gods and one of us burnt the inside of their nose.

The Europa Hotel in downtown Frisco was the next place we were resting our heads for a couple of nights. This hotel, located between Telegraph Hill and North Beach was hands down the most terrifying place I have ever had the pleasure of entering. Nestled between Taqueria Z and Little Darlings, the one of many nearby strip clubs that endlessly tried to hustle us inside, we found the Europa Hotel. Rather than functioning as a hotel for weary travellers, it seemed to be a temporary form of residence for the drug-addicted, vice-ridden scum of the city. At $200 a week it is a rather cheap form of accommodation for a downtown location and, as such, did not attract the most savoury of types. As we entered, an old man shouted at us to ‘GET THE FUCK OUT OF THE WAY’ whilst we stood nervously at reception, the receptionist attempted to calm us by simply saying ‘don’t mind him’. Following him down the stairs came the most stereotypically dressed ‘pimp’ one could imagine. With a forced smile and wavering gusto we soldiered on to our room, fearful of any other patron we came across. The room itself was absolutely fine, it was certainly no Ritz but for $15 each a night it had what we needed: twin beds and a sink. At this point, our spirits were buoyed once again. As long as we kept our encounters with the rest of the hotel to a minimum we would be fine. Then we were brought crushing down in an instant. Back down to fear, back to anxiety and a relentless desire to escape that hotel. In the room adjacent to us we heard, clear as day, the sound of a man screaming. In a furious yell he gargled out ‘ARRRGGGHHHHH’ followed by ‘fuck’, a hellish baritone who wasn’t in the best of moods. After getting stunned into a terrified silence by what we heard, fifteen seconds later we hear it again. ARRRGGGHHHHHH FUCK. From the first night this did not stop, he was doing it at 10pm before we went to a bar, 3am when we returned from the bar and then again at 9am, waking us up. Our instant, worst case scenario response was to think it was a really violent sexual encounter, possibly rape. As it went on and on and on we figured it might have been a man going cold turkey or suffering from Tourettes. Regardless, it did not make the best soundtrack to our stay. The experience in this hotel we just had to see as character building, you could not get much worse, and at least I now know that in the future it will take a lot from a hotel to put me off.

There’s a hell of a lot to do in Frisco, not quite on the levels of NYC, but we tried to cram as much in within the time we had. The main tourist activity we wanted to do was visit Alcatraz, which was completely worth it. As much as it was frustrating not to have the complete freedom to explore the island, the amount open to the public was more than I had expected and the audio tour was engaging and well executed, allowing you to wander round by yourself and at your own pace. You get the feel for how the prison teased its inmates by being so close to humanity with the bright lights of Frisco only a mile away, yet having them so isolated and exposed to the tough elements of the bay with no hope of escape. The views back towards the city are quite something and you could imagine what a taunt this would be for those inside. Particularly intriguing was the information on the Native Indian seizure of the island during the late 1960s, which I had no idea even occurred. Their messages for equality for Native Americans still remain on the walls of the complex, making you feel like you’re standing within an important modern historical site, or even on a set of a film in some cases (ahem, Michael Bay’s The Rock). The abundance of obnoxious tourists does drag the experience down, but that was an inevitability. It was also rather satisfying recognising locations from the Alcatraz level on Tony Hawk’s 4, bringing me back to my misspent mid-teens.

We catched the third baseball game of our journey in Frisco, watching the San Francisco Giants against the Colorado Rockies. Probably the coldest sports event I’ve ever been to, and this is amidst a Californian summer, a testament to Frisco’s distinctive climate. The game was particularly entertaining as we got to see the Panda work his magic, the Giants’ 17 stone, 5’11” hitter. I just don’t understand why he doesn’t just lose weight?! It baffles me. California is also pretty famous for its burritos, so in the name of the “best veggie burrito in San Francisco” we walked for about an hour to the Mission neighbourhood and, to be fair, the burrito was amazing. The area itself is the traditionally Hispanic district of San Francisco but, as in many American cities, the young, white people moved in, initiating gentrification, raising housing and rent costs and driving out those families that have lived there for so long. Although the area does keep much of its Latin character and many Hispanic people migrate to the area from neighbourhoods further out.

One thing I did notice about San Francisco was its plethora of homeless people, and it was on this walk to and from the Mission when it became even more apparent. There was more than I’d ever seen in a city before (yes, more than Vancouver) and when you see it first hand it really opens your eyes to the gap between the rich and the poor, and much more importantly the gap between the welfare of white Americans and black Americans. The homeless in San Francisco, and in many urban centres that we saw in the States, were almost entirely black and it is sickening to witness. It seems as if much of the American black population is stuck in a downward spiral of poverty that is so difficult to break. I’d go into it in more depth, but I feel that it is a tangent for another day.

Whilst in Frisco we had the opportunity to meet up with three of our friends from back in Canada: Connie, Emma and Holly. They were staying ludicrously close to our hotel and it was great to see fellow travellers that we had not seen for a month, share stories over a drink or two or three. Their hostel provided us with somewhere a little more comfortable and safe to hang out too, in comparison to the Europa. We engaged in some more traditional tourists activities as we went on a bike ride over the Golden Gate Bridge. Just our luck, however, that the infamous Frisco mist shrouded the bridge in a thick cloak, restricting our views of and from the bridge. The ride itself was enjoyable, not quite as extensive as our Vancouver ride but it’s always fun to bomb around a city you don’t know on two wheels. It was frustrating that our money restrictions created time restrictions on how long we could use the bikes, so as soon as we crossed the bridge we had to come straight back to avoid extra charges. We would have liked to have made it as far Sausalito. I hear there’s lots of Italians there in Sausalito.

Our leaving of San Francisco was fraught with textbook panicking. The way we had worked it out was that our last journey on our Greyhound Discovery Pass would be from San Francisco to San Diego. We planned to catch the last bus leaving on the last day of our pass to San Diego, skipping out LA, then going back to LA after San Diego with separate bus tickets. The idea was that we would travel the furthest we could whilst it was “free”, then pay for the shorter journeys from San Diego to LA and then from LA to Vegas. What we hadn’t considered was that Discovery Pass may literally finish at midnight on the last day it was valid, we assumed that as long as we had the ticket issued before midnight then it would be fine. How wrong we were, and after a couple of phone calls to Greyhound we realised we had to leave Frisco right then, in order to get to San Diego before midnight. However, we thought we’d give it a try and book a place on the last bus of the day, to see if there was some inconsistencies in Greyhound policy. We were in luck. The woman at Frisco bus terminal put all our details in, looked confused at her monitor as the transaction was rejected, then assumedly altered the dates that she entered for the passes to make the transaction viable. She then handed us four overnight tickets to San Diego, but not before giving us a huge discount on luggage storage during the day. Somehow money karma was behind us on that Frisco afternoon. We gleefully left the station feeling like we had stuck one to the Greyhound corporate machine and earned ourselves another full day in the city. Bonza.