This morning, we woke up at 6 o’clock at a Heathrow Travelodge so that we could make it to the airport on time. Right now, I am writing from a hotel room in San Francisco. It is 8:15 p.m here. I have been awake for over 22 hours.
The decision to come to the United States of America for two weeks, travelling from California to Arizona through several national parks, was prompted by my parents’ recent 50th birthdays and my mother’s lifelong desire to be a cowboy. Given the recent political upheavals, I will admit (and I say this with only a trace of irony) that packing our bags yesterday felt quite like we were about to set off on a jolly old road trip across 1930s Germany. But the US is a big place, Trump is a very small man, and at the end of the day, the logic goes that if it’s all going to fall apart soon, Mum better fulfil those cowboy dreams while she can.
This is the first time in my twenty-one years of life that I have travelled to the United States. I’ve wanted to come here ever since my understanding of America developed from an exuberant fantasyland existing only on the television to a real-life nation that exists and can be visited. Now that I’m here, I still struggle to comprehend that what I’m seeing is real and that the city of San Francisco is a living, breathing place rather than a movie set. That sounds like a setup for a catastrophic disappointment, but in fact it’s been a delight. We have seen such sights in our half-day here that I feel like it’s absolutely necessary to keep a diary of what I’ve seen and continue to see on this trip, even if each entry is brief and written in varying states of exhaustion. I promised my girlfriend I’d keep a journal, so I thought I might as well upload it to the blog, too (especially given my expectedly lackadaisical attitude to blogging since January).
The plane was fine. Airport security had it out for me today – I got my bag checked twice and my entire person thoroughly swabbed – but British customs officers are so genial that it wasn’t much bother. The 11-hour flight sort of condensed into a smaller block of time, so I couldn’t tell if my lack of tiredness once I arrived was legitimate or just a bloody-minded second wind. Nothing much to report flight-wise save for the irritating German child who kept poking his face between the seats in front. I was very excited by the sight of Greenland ice flats out of the plane window, though. First time seeing terrain like that in my life, even if it’s thousands of feet below me.
We arrived at San Francisco airport and passing through immigration was about 100x less stressful than expected. Dad identified our taxi driver as a “brother” by the Canto-pop he was blasting in the car. Then it was onwards to SF proper, and wow. What a city. I’m not sure if it’s just because I’m travelling, which heightens the novelty of everything you see, but by the time we got back to the hotel we had made a whole list of things that made us say ‘oooh.’ Guys on stilts, tiny yellow go-kart tour buggies, a Cybertruck (hilariously illegal in the UK), famous winding Lombard street, rickety old trams, a pair of shoes hanging from an overhead wire. As we walked around Fort Mason, we saw dogs gambolling about, people lounging amidst beds of wildflowers, buskers playing jazz, all with the scarlet towers of the Golden Gate Bridge as a backdrop. I was expecting to be overwhelmed by a big American city, but in fact I felt oddly at peace (and not just because I had been awake for nearly 20 hours and was beginning to drift into a semiconscious trance). It was as if the city knew it had visitors and was performing the role of a serenely quirky idyll for our benefit.
Our wandering took us down along the beachside promenade, and I was momentarily bewildered by how the sea smelled of Britain. On reflection, it should have been no surprise that the sea would smell like the sea, but that particular mix of salt, algae and seagull dung reminds me of family holidays spent on the coast of Devon or Northumberland. It seemed strange that such a homely smell could exist over here. I’m not sure what I thought a Californian beach would smell like instead. Barbecues, root beer and plastic, maybe.
We rode the tram to Chinatown. In what felt like rather a death-defying move, the sibs and I hung off the side as the tram rattled up and down the undulating slopes of San Francisco’s main roads. We ended up in the massive Chinatown district and had some food for the soul in a Hong Kong café. It feels quite serendipitous that Cantonese is a majority language here. Dad was thrilled by how much food on the menu was the kind of stuff he used to eat back home. My grandad always used to tell me that a childhood delicacy was condensed milk on bread. Dad ordered the Hong Kong equivalent: condensed milk with deep fried buns. He told me that he used to crack open both ends of the tin and pour it onto the buns like a gravy boat. I can’t fathom how that’s more efficient than just using one end, but it’s some nice insight into my dad’s upbringing.
We walked home, Chinatown bleeding into North Beach with its cocktail bars and pizza joints, the bustle of a Chinese high street flowing seamlessly into old Italiana. By the dusklight, all I wanted was to sit in the street and drink a margarita with a stranger. The city was alive and so was I. Twenty-two waking hours felt like nothing. That was until I stepped into the hotel room and immediately dissolved into bed. I’m writing this dog-tired and red-eyed. Eloquence is impossible in this state, but I know enough that travel is for me, whenever and wherever I can do it.
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