*sigh*
I haven’t slept properly since I got on the plane yesterday (NZ Time) and that’s why I think I’m feeling all weird.
My flight to Los Angeles made me a bit nervous with all the turbulence at the beginning but I took a little anxiety pill and it made it all better. Plus the lady next to me was really nice to me the whole time. She was with her husband and they were visiting NZ and Australia from Canada. She stayed with me till I got off the plane at LAX and then we lost each other when it was time to sort out visas. I never got her name.
When I got to the visa line, I made friends with this girl called Angelique (I saw her passport haha otherwise I’d never have gotten her name). We waited in line to get our fingerprints and eyes scanned for nearly 2 hours. I was fretting I was going to miss my connecting flight to San Francisco and she was off to New York so we were in the same ‘hurry up’ boat.
Once we got through, we got our bags together and then fast walked to terminal 7 (we both had the same airline) which was like a 10 minute walk through LAX.
I felt so gross when I finally checked in because I’d been on the plane for so long. I thought I was going to be late but the United Airlines lady at the desk was really helpful and put my bag through to me and showed me how to get my boarding pass on the computer etc.
Then it was off through the body scanner and into the boarding area to take my flight to San Francisco.
When I was all settled in my seat on the plane, I started talking to the passenger next to me who was called Karmin. He was telling me all about San Fran as he travels there all the time for work and also mentioned how I was very brave going in this trip by myself!
However I wasn’t feeling very brave when my plane left New Zealand the previous day haha.
When I landed at San Francisco Airport around 4.30pm I had to wait for a shuttle and didn’t get to my hostel until after 7pm.
There’s a baseball game on tonight at the A&T stadium so there was heaps of traffic driving into the city.
As I was taking a shuttle, I had to wait as we dropped each passenger off one by one and I ended up being the last one! 😐
Even though it felt like it took forever, I did have a nice shuttle tour around the city of San Fran and the driver explained quite a lot of stuff to me.
When I eventually got to my hostel in San Fran, the guy at the reception ended up making me so irritated. He was so slow at talking which was making me frustrated which in turn probably made me come across as impatient and rude.
I just wanted my key and to be shown where my room was so I could take my heavy bag off and have a shower to wash my sweat off me! I even said to him “sorry my bag is just really heavy from carrying it up the stairs and my necks hurting” and he’s like “so we have breakfast every morning, we have bagels and cream cheese and jam and nutella and there’s also some butter to use and the juice is just over there and we also have eggs you can make throughout the day. You can also use the fridge if you want to store any of your perishable items blah blah blah” 😠😠
Once I finally got to my room, I had a shower and rummaged through my stuff to find something new to wear. When I was getting ready I met one of my room mates who seems friendly but she was just about to head out for the hostel Pub Crawl so couldn’t stay to chat long. I didn’t go because I’d just hopped out of the shower and didn’t think I would be ready in time.
Kinda gutted coz after I was ready there was like 1 group of people at the table in the common room playing cards and talking but they didn’t really seem like they wanted to socialise with new people so I headed off down the street to get some dinner and check out the area which I was staying in.
I decided on a slice of Hawaiian pizza from a pizza parlour for dinner and sat all by myself! (The start of solo travelling haha)
I wasn’t there for very long, I left as soon as I’d finished. I really would have loved to walk around San Francisco tonight but the area where the hostel is in is very stripper friendly and i didn’t feel super safe walking by myself with so many seedy guys around. I went back to the hostel instead.
I ended up heading back to the common room (which is a set up at the hostel with tables and chairs and couches near the kitchen). A couple of guys from Italy invited me over to their table and talked to me for a little bit but I didn’t hang around for too long. I’m feeling all strange and new at the moment, probably to do with nerves of starting my trip and I haven’t had a proper sleep in 2 days. I didn’t eat anything on the plane either up until I had my Pizza slice so I’m running on low energy.
I’m going on a SF tour tomorrow morning with a company called Dylans Tours. We’re meeting at fisherman’s wharf so I’m going to pack my bag and cuddle down for some sleep time. It’s just after 10pm here so I probably need to get with the sleeping time zone anyways.
Overall, my day has been a 4/10 as I’m tired and haven’t had a chance to be settled quite yet.
I love San Francisco so far, I just need to explore on my feet instead of from the inside of a shuttle car haha.
X
ThePassportPrincess 