[usa18] portland - san francisco

By 3am I've given up on getting any sleep and am gazing out the window at what I first think is the moon and then realise the train isn't moving and is actually a trackside lamp. The only other night-time entertainment comes from a guy who gets on unsubtley drunk somewhere after dark fell and is now consistantly heading downstairs for equally unsubtle cigarettes.

Just after 6am I head to the lounge car for breakfast and over my rice krispies begin chatting to a woman who used to live in San Francisco and lets me in on some sights to see. A large old guy down the car calls a hotline for up to date information about our journey... we're five hours late. We're heading through the mountains and lakes of southern Oregon and the old guy moves to the seat next to me to enjoy the view... only for the train to stop in a ravine and leave us staring at a rock face. "Well..." says the old guy "good ride for a Geologist."

Six hours later and twenty two hours into the eighteen hour journey I'm downstairs in the lounge car when Amber Rose asks if she can sit with me. She's heading to Martinez and then on by bus. We talk about differences in British and American culture and the journey. Amber says she wasn't all that hungry but came to the lounge car to escape the guy sat behind her. Its an old guy with a really gravelly voice who kept taking well into the night and beyond. She had turned round at one point to see who he was talking to and found that she was the only person anywhere near him.

After nearly twenty five hours the train finally reaches Emeryville from where it is a bus ride across the Bay Bridge to San Francisco. Here I meet Alexa and Sarah, two students from Nottingham University who have been on a placement in New York for six months and are now travelling the country. I can't help feel I did the wrong degree. As we take our seats on the bus an old guy sitting behind the girls begins talking away in a gravelly voice "I tell you I never went skiing, I don't tolerate the snow, but then way back in 68 I think it was..." It could be a long bus journey.

Once in San Francisco I help the girls find their hotel before setting off for mine, which I insist is only a couple of blocks from them, but soon discover is over a mile away. From the outside the hotel St Paul looks like a hole. In the heart of Chinatown, situated above an Indian Resteraunt and next to a Thai Massage Parlour. The surprise on the face of the receptionist when I claim to have a reservation is itself a worry. For all the signs leading to the contrary my room is great value at less than twenty pounds a night so I'm happy enough.

I've arranged to meet Sarah and Alexa to go for food at seven and I reckon I've enough time to go the scenic route to their hostel. Forgetting of course that scenic in San Francisco generally means uphill. After a couple of monumental climbs I eventually make it ten minutes late and we set off on foot for Taqueria on the corner of Valencia and 16th. It proves a monumental hike through the Tenderloin (think of any US film's depiction of a bad neighbourhood and thats the Tenderloin) but eventually we find it and devour an overstuffed burrito apiece.

Deciding to go for a drink we hunt down bar Zeitgeist recommended in Sarah's guide book. On arrival we realise that its the same bar outside which we saw a full scale fight on the way down and decide to give it a miss, taking a cab to the centre instead. We head to Tunnel Top on Bush Street, a tiny bar on the edge of the Stockton Tunnel, but recommended none the less. Providing my NUS Card as ID I face an interrogation from the Russian bouncer. Knowing San Francisco's reputation I am a little wary of having a huge Russian man talk into my ear and ask me my star sign, but hey, when in Rome. I order that most sophisticated of Californian drinks; a Newcastle Brown Ale and we find a spare piece of floor. By 10pm the effects of the train journey have set in and after one drink we're ready to leave. We push through the overpowering smell of weed emminating from the smokers outside the door and head our seperate ways