Spring Break 2010: Day 1
I'm currently lying down on the top bunk in our hostel room--9:20am but feeling so wonderfully awake. Besides the slight annoyance that just about every move my body makes gets amplified 10x by the squeaking of the bed, our room in the hostel is actually quite nice. The showers were amazing, the hot water and pressure much better than those in new dorm, and it's in it's own little room where you can lock the door and not be worried about sketchy people hanging around the shower.
But I'm skipping ahead...so yesterday morning the eager travellers, Sonia, Cherilyn, and myself, made our way to the Providence bus terminal, thanks very much to some friends that dropped us off. Basically conked out completely until getting to South Station, where we jumped off and headed to the Silver line--where the machine at my dollar coin and called it a quarter! Now thinking back, it probably was one of those new weird quarters, but thanks to Cherilyn, who talked to the worker, I got a free ride out of it :)
Over to Logan airport we went, everything still nice and very low stress...and then well, let's just say airport security is a very interesting part of life...
But we made it to our flight on time, with all of our stuff, and the three of us conked out again as best we could, catch up on sleep and be ready to explore when we got to SF. Once out of the airport Sonia immediately noted, so many Asians! Which is ture, of course, it is California after all there are so many people in general! Anyway, we navigated to the BART (NorCal's version of commuter rail) thanks to a nice Asian lady, and of course I find the directions to the hostel afterwards. But no matter, we were on the right track. We got off at Powell Street, and found ourselves smack dab in the middle of San Francisco's Union Square. Shopping everywhere you turned, cable cars, and most importantly WARM WEATHER.
Then, awesomeness to the tenth degree, Chuck came and became our local tour guide. I can honestly say without question that the San Francisco part of this vacation wouldn't have been as amazing if he didn't meet up with us and show us all the beautiful parts of the city:
1) Fisherman's Wharf/Pier 39 - Touristy place, but funny shops and great views of the ocean; sea lions just hanging out, and this great little donut shop...yummy :)
2) Chinatown - The REAL Chinatown (sorry NYC), but this place takes the cake.
We ate a cute restaurant hole-in-the-wall, stuff ourselves silly and then went shopping in store after store looking at jewelry, souvenirs, art, clothes...there were these really cute hanging earrings
I might be idealizing them now, but they looked kind of like this except the main stone was more pearl-like, the lady told me $15 and would give it to me for $10, but Sonia and Cherilyn were done shopping and were impatient for me to haggle down more--Sonia claimed the quality was bad and Cherilyn said I should ask for lower, but when people are paying attention to just me I get a little flustered, so I put them back and thought I could buy earrings like that anywhere and I probably already have a pair, but as you can see 2 days later I'm still thinking about them =\ lost opportunities
By the time we got back to Union Square where our hostel was, it was time for the 10pm Rock and Roll party with Free Booze (they actually advertised this way), so we plopped ourselves in the oddly empty lobby next to a bunch of European male students drinking lots of different kinds of alcohol, and we thought it would have been rude just to ask for some and run, so we tried to enter their conversation, but they were very much into themselves and we got a little weirded out...until we found out, the party was in the basement! Imagine if we had actually just gone up to those guys and taken some beer while they were talking in French...another close call!
So Cherilyn and I found the actual party, where we people-watched all these random groups of people chat around in little circles, play pool and card games...some of these people had been staying at the hostel for weeks already, quite interesting, I'm sure...but we weren't up for socializing that night. So we just made our way back up to our room, met our 4th roommate for the first time, and then everyone got ready to sleep--I took a shower in a surprisingly well-designed shower room, your own personal room with a lock, lots of hooks, soap in a pretty dispenser, great water temperature and pressure, all in all a very good shower experience :)
And that is how I'll end this post about our first day of Spring Break :) More to come, for sure!
But I'm skipping ahead...so yesterday morning the eager travellers, Sonia, Cherilyn, and myself, made our way to the Providence bus terminal, thanks very much to some friends that dropped us off. Basically conked out completely until getting to South Station, where we jumped off and headed to the Silver line--where the machine at my dollar coin and called it a quarter! Now thinking back, it probably was one of those new weird quarters, but thanks to Cherilyn, who talked to the worker, I got a free ride out of it :)
Over to Logan airport we went, everything still nice and very low stress...and then well, let's just say airport security is a very interesting part of life...
But we made it to our flight on time, with all of our stuff, and the three of us conked out again as best we could, catch up on sleep and be ready to explore when we got to SF. Once out of the airport Sonia immediately noted, so many Asians! Which is ture, of course, it is California after all there are so many people in general! Anyway, we navigated to the BART (NorCal's version of commuter rail) thanks to a nice Asian lady, and of course I find the directions to the hostel afterwards. But no matter, we were on the right track. We got off at Powell Street, and found ourselves smack dab in the middle of San Francisco's Union Square. Shopping everywhere you turned, cable cars, and most importantly WARM WEATHER.
Then, awesomeness to the tenth degree, Chuck came and became our local tour guide. I can honestly say without question that the San Francisco part of this vacation wouldn't have been as amazing if he didn't meet up with us and show us all the beautiful parts of the city:
1) Fisherman's Wharf/Pier 39 - Touristy place, but funny shops and great views of the ocean; sea lions just hanging out, and this great little donut shop...yummy :)
2) Chinatown - The REAL Chinatown (sorry NYC), but this place takes the cake.
We ate a cute restaurant hole-in-the-wall, stuff ourselves silly and then went shopping in store after store looking at jewelry, souvenirs, art, clothes...there were these really cute hanging earrings
I might be idealizing them now, but they looked kind of like this except the main stone was more pearl-like, the lady told me $15 and would give it to me for $10, but Sonia and Cherilyn were done shopping and were impatient for me to haggle down more--Sonia claimed the quality was bad and Cherilyn said I should ask for lower, but when people are paying attention to just me I get a little flustered, so I put them back and thought I could buy earrings like that anywhere and I probably already have a pair, but as you can see 2 days later I'm still thinking about them =\ lost opportunities
By the time we got back to Union Square where our hostel was, it was time for the 10pm Rock and Roll party with Free Booze (they actually advertised this way), so we plopped ourselves in the oddly empty lobby next to a bunch of European male students drinking lots of different kinds of alcohol, and we thought it would have been rude just to ask for some and run, so we tried to enter their conversation, but they were very much into themselves and we got a little weirded out...until we found out, the party was in the basement! Imagine if we had actually just gone up to those guys and taken some beer while they were talking in French...another close call!
So Cherilyn and I found the actual party, where we people-watched all these random groups of people chat around in little circles, play pool and card games...some of these people had been staying at the hostel for weeks already, quite interesting, I'm sure...but we weren't up for socializing that night. So we just made our way back up to our room, met our 4th roommate for the first time, and then everyone got ready to sleep--I took a shower in a surprisingly well-designed shower room, your own personal room with a lock, lots of hooks, soap in a pretty dispenser, great water temperature and pressure, all in all a very good shower experience :)
And that is how I'll end this post about our first day of Spring Break :) More to come, for sure!
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