Be Sure to Wear Some Flowers in Your Hair

So the explanation goes like this: The Hitchhiker went to school with somebody (Charlotte) who is currently staying with somebody she grew up with (Jessica) who lives in San Francisco (city in Calefornia (State in America)), so we spent a few days with them. We got a tour of the city from a genuine resident and in return we left them the Hitchhiker and drove out of there before they realised we’d duped them.

We happened to be in San Francisco on the day of the Bay to Breakers run. This is an annual event that spans 12k across the city. There are a few people that actually run it but the majority stroll along part or all of the length in fancy dress generally getting drunk and having a jolly good time. The people we were with had decided on a theme of dinosaurs but we arrived with only a night’s notice so I went as a palaeontologist sporting jeans and a t-shirt.

We started off at a flat overlooking the ‘race’ and saw all the people passing by from the roof before descending into the crowd and walking part of the route. Some people construct floats, shove a generator on them and pump out music for people to dance to as they make their way. Sam and I helped out one float by pitching in to pull it up one of the hills as it had particularly good music and the guys currently doing the job looked knackered.

Later on in the day we had a tour of a good chunk of the city. We took a stop at Lombard Street which has eight turns in the space of one block to accommodate for the ridiculous gradient. We got a Geocache then I tried to slide down the hand rail of the whole street. I didn’t manage to do it in one but I think I did pretty well. The following night I drove the van down the street with surprising ease and crowned myself the king of San Francisco for doing so.

Since I was now the King I thought I should probably see some more of my land and meet some of the little people so we went to Alcatraz. It was nothing like I expected. There aren’t any rooms with rotating barrels that you have to run along to get a key or anything of the sort. There weren’t even any tigers that you have to dodge to get to Boyard’s gold. I didn’t see Melinda Messenger or any dwarfs running around either, it must have been their day off. There was actually a prison building of sorts that they have really let fall into disrepair. We were given headphones which gave us an audio tour of the place with instructions of where to walk and look etc. It gave some quite interesting history about the place including escape attempts which I thought was a little strange as it looked like all the prisoners had escaped. Unless all the prisoners were Chinese, allowed to carry cameras and walk freely around the island.


J.