Irish bars, Pouria, Archie, Haight and Racist 5

Wednesday 14th July

Leaving the hostel we headed to meet our couchsurfing host for the next two nights, the bus was numbered 38 and took us West about half an hour outside of the city centre. I hope everyone will forgive me the sycophancy and I write this knowing that he'll be reading it soon enough but our host(s) couldn't have done a better job in looking after us.

Pouria is same age as us and waiting to start a law degree in August at a cost of $60,000 a year! He has only been in his apartment a few weeks but seemed to have learned the 'ins and outs' of San Francisco pretty quick. We went for a lovely Korean lunch just around the corner followed by a bit of a hike up to Golden Gate bridge. It was nice to get some of the touristy stuff out of the way early doors, we saw Alcatraz from afar but bookings were full so we had to 'bat on'.

For some reason Phil thought it would be a good idea to enter a convenience store in a very poor part of town (near the hostel from day 1) to purchase some batteries in order to operate his camera. Apparently they only sell them individually, seemingly unperturbed by this revelation he proceeded with the transaction offering the full asking price of 50 cents each times four. 6 hurried photos later we were back to square one frustratingly leaving some idyllic moments uncaptured forever.

Pouria then properly introduced us his house mate Archie who lived up to his billing as a decent guy, he works from home during the day but took the opportunity to come out for what turned out to be our one and only 'drinking night' in San Francisco. The guys are into their comics and whilst it probably isn't really our bag we enjoyed the trip to the store, followed by what I can only describe as a 'posh pub dinner' in the district of Haight. We returned to the vicinity of the guy's apartment and attacked the local bars. It was an entertaining night that featured a dominant victory for GB at darts, some 'off the wall' karaoke (not me for a change) and meeting a few locals. We were introduced to a brew called Racer 5, so disgusting did I find it that I was to soon rename it Racist 5 and storm off (after downing it in protest).

After commenting that Irish bars in the US were a massive cliche and that we weren't going to any more for the entire trip we were soon convinced by some local girls to attend an establishment called The Bitter End (as Irish as St Patrick basically). From there it all gets a bit hazy unfortunately but needless to say the signature dance probably got a bit of an airing....

Thursday 15th July


The next morning we wanted pancakes and thanks to our host that is what we got, they were great and the staff were excellent banter. Shortly after we spent a couple of hours trying to fix my busted laptop and it did look as though that might be an early end to the blog but sadly you'll all have to pretend to have read it now as it was fixed bizarrely just by removing the battery.






For some reason the next step was a kids science exhibition, we paid $15 each to walk around awkwardly for an hour and to this point I'm still not sure why. I did get a coolish photo out of it though.

Onwards we strode to the first game of our trip at the home of the San Francisco Giants. As we approached it went a little something like this;

"You know we only have one option for dinner tonight don't you Phil."
"Corn Dogs" he replied
"Well I was thinking Hot Dogs but yeah, anything in that ballpark."

We paid $20 each to sit in the clouds but still had a pretty great view in what was a magnificent place, it overlooks the bay so for the really big games people will hang around in kayaks outside waiting for the home run balls to land in the sea so they can paddle over to get them. It's supposed to be the very best stadium and I would be surprised if there were many better, the only thing it lacked was a little roughness in the atmosphere to give the game an extra edge. The plan to get a few beers in to get the party started fell flat on its face when we saw the price of $9 each and that's just not cricket so a big nothing done from us.


The Giants beat the Mets 2-0 and Lincecum pitched a complete game but I don't suppose any of you really care about that. Fortunately we managed to negotiate the journey home without any real issues though you do forget at times just how rough parts of America can be, I was very on my guard tonight much to Phil's amusement and perhaps frustration. My view is very much that any sort of mugging incident would seriously hurt the limited budget at this point and that we can't be too careful, I was also wearing my 'British Shorts' so any attention drawn was surely not going to be positive.

We're off to pick up the hire car early in the morning, drive 8 hours along the Big Sur and then meet Ronald (our next host) in Anaheim.

Update in a day or two...