“You’re off to Great Places! Today is your day! Your mountain is waiting, So … get on your way! – Dr Seuss.
Oh blogging world, how I’ve missed you! I’m not gonna waste my time doing *another* ‘I’m back’ post because, let’s face it, I’ve done too many of those already! I could give a whole load of excuses but basically I’ve barely had any free time, and any time I did have was spent doing absolutely nothing. I honestly can’t cope with this whole working full time thing.
But finally, after a year of saving (some of this time spent working at least 10 hours a day, pretty much 7 days a week), I went travelling! It’s not quite the backpacking through the jungle trip I originally imagined, but over the past year I’ve come to the realisation that there are lots of ways to see the world. So my my first trip (hopefully of many over my lifetime) was a road trip across the United States! And to be quite honest, there was a lot more hiking and camping on this trip than I anticipated! As I write this, I’ve actually finished the trip entirely and am now sat at home wishing I was still road tripping. I stupidly thought I’d have enough time to write while I was travelling, after all, we did spend a lot of time on the road. However, I actually spent most of the bus rides either reading or sleeping. Mostly sleeping if I’m honest. So I just had to note down anything I thought was important, and then write it all up when I got back. So, without any further rambling here we go:
08.09.2017
Day 1: London to San Francisco.
I had to wake up at a ridiculous hour of the morning (3.45 am to be precise) to make sure I got to the airport on time. That was a struggle, as I barely managed to sleep I was so excited. I wont bore you with any of the travelling details, as my journey was pretty uneventful but basically fast forward 24 (?!) hours and I had finally touched down in San Francisco. Honestly my first thought was “F*ck San Francisco is majorly hilly.” Don’t get me wrong, I had kind of known this before but photos of the place really do not do it justice. You honestly feel like you’re on a roller coaster driving up and down those streets. When I finally got to my (slightly gross) hostel I was absolutely shattered, so all I did was crawl straight into bed. The time was about 8pm, and I slept through solidly to about 7.30 the next morning.
09.09.2017
Day 2: San Francisco
I was so excited to start exploring that I jumped straight out of bed and walked my massive rucksack about 15 minutes down the road to the hotel my tour started at. I wasn’t able to check in until later, so I dumped my bag in the storage room. Then I faced the momentous decision of how to spend my one and only full day in San Fran. Naturally I made my way to a McDonalds to get breakfast do some research. While I was there I Facetimed my sister as I knew she was missing me already, and due to time difference she was already home from school. Calls to the family done, and San Francisco fully researched, I started exploring.
Apparently San Francisco is famous for it’s old fashioned Cable Cars, which are among the oldest in the entire world. The first thing I did was wait in a queue for 45 minutes to get on one of these bad boys. It took us all through the streets of San Fran, up and down the massive hills, feeling even more like a rollercoaster than my taxi ride the night before. The best part of this was the moment we came over the top of the hill and you could see all the way down to the bay with Alcatraz Island in the distance. Once I jumped off the cable car, I walked down Lombard Street, also known as ‘The Crookedest Street’ towards Coit Tower, where a fellow cablecar passenger had told me I could get the best view of the city. Boy, was he right. When I finally got to the top of this old tower (which honestly did not look that high from the bottom – I’d forgotten that it was on the top of a massive hill), I was blown away. You could see the entire city, from Golden Gate bridge in the distance all the way past Alcatraz and a 360 view of the entire of downtown and the financial district. On a side note, a picture from the top of that tower was the first of my many, many Instagram posts of my travels.
After the tower I tried to get tickets to Alcatraz, but tickets are fully booked a couple of weeks in advance. Instead I just walked down Pier 39, grabbed some food and then headed back to the hotel. By this point it was late afternoon, and the welcome meeting for my tour was at 7. When I got back to the hotel I checked in, and found out the name of my first roomate – Mia. Whilst I was excited that the hotel was a million times nicer than the grotty hostel I’d stayed at the night before, I suddenly got a bit nervous. Who knew what sort of weirdo I was about to have to share a room with. Whilst I like meeting new people, I also get very anxious about it. Going on a tour where you spend basically 24 hours a day with a group of 20 strangers for 3 entire weeks was incredibly daunting for me. I am so glad I did it though, as it pushed me out of my comfort zone, and I’d like to think I made some friends for life on this trip. Anyway, luckily, as soon as I met Mia I knew there was no need to be so anxious. We got on straight away even though she was way more adventurous than me. Although, she is even more scared of spiders than I am which I discovered later on the tour (more about that in a later blog). Getting on so well with Mia gave me hope for the rest of the tour, and at 7 we made our way downstairs to meet our tour guides and the rest of the group. There I met some people who became some great friends as the trip went on. We all went out and grabbed some food before crashing into bed pretty early, as everyone was either jetlagged or worn out from exploring. Also, we had the first of many early starts the next day.
I’m going to end this post here, as the next day was a whirlwind of driving, getting to know a bunch of strangers and loads more.
Until next time my angels,
Aimee x
If you’re interested you can find more posts about my trip here.
The Life of an Aspiring Writer 