Life, The Universe & Everything

Hello again!

I realise that i never actually finished off my last trip. i do have a partially completed draft called ‘The Journey Home’ but it’s not the most interesting part of the trip anyway.

However, I have unearthed this blog once again (after only 11 months instead of 11 years this time) as I am off and travelling again.

As I type this I’m sitting in seat 1A of the Boeing 737 I’m taking to Brisbane, before changing planes and heading to LA. I’m doing the same as last year, albeit slightly shorter – about 2.5 weeks. After a day in LA, first up in the Future Problem Solving Program International Conference, once again at UMass Amherst just like last year. After that I’m hoping to have a relaxing week down in Florida.

I’m glad I managed to get the upgrade to Business on this flight, I didn’t think I was going to – it was only confirmed about 4 hours before take-off. But the business lounge and more legroom, not the mention the better food makes everything a bit better! I’m not looking forward to the 13+ hour flight to LA, especially as it’s on an A330, but I did pay for an exit row so I’ll have the leg room at least.

That’s all for now, but stay tuned if you want to hear more about my travels, including my first time travelling with a Qantas club membership…

It was a slightly unusual end to my trip as I had a full day before I left for Perth, my flight left LAX at 10.50pm. My initial plan was to be in LA, with a car which would have given me a lot more freedom to spend the day being a tourist. However, now I was in San Francisco. Apart from getting to LA I had the San Francisco Pride Parade to contend with. I found out during the Wine Tour that it was happening on the Sunday and it was running past the street perpendicular to the one my hotel was on. And it was absolute chaos.

But I’m getting ahead of myself. I knew a couple of things I wanted to achieve and the first was to try the Strawberry Açai Refresher at Starbucks. There was one just down the road so I placed my order for that and a pumpkin loaf. The drink was nice, but incredibly sweet, so I think you’d have to be in the mood for it. The pumpkin loaf was fantastic, almost as good as the pumpkin scones my Nanna used to make.

Following that I finished packing, did a final check of my room, checked out and stored my luggage at the Mosser. Given the chaos of the parade, I though the best thing to do might be to head to a library (some are open in SF on Sunday), spend a couple of hours there and then give myself plenty of time to get to the Airport. I tried at least 3 different routes to get to the library and every one was blocked by parade. I did almost 16,000 steps that day and I reckon half of those would have been trying to get to the library. After I finally admitted defeat, I went to a nearby park and then shopping mall where I sat and read for about 2 hours.

Having now seen the chaos of the Parade first hand I decided that I had better give myself plenty of time to get to the airport, which was a good idea. I headed back to the Mosser and ordered an Uber. The first two drivers cancelled on me. The 3rd driver stuck with it, but it took 45 mins and me walking almost 1km to meet him. The traffic was bad for the first but til we got out of the parade, but the rest of the trip to the airport was relatively smooth. Good think I allowed extra time! In the end I got to the airport about 3 hours before my flight.

That’s a lot of text. I think I’ll end this post here and then pick-up again at the airport.

Well by Saturday I was pretty exhausted so I slept in and had a lazy morning. Probably a waste of precious time in San Francisco, but I was tired. I’d had a busy few days and even though COVID was done, my energy levels were still low. Trying to decide what I wanted to do with my limited time left I decided it had to be the Golden Gate Bridge. I wanted my photo dammit! It wasn’t perfect, but it was a lot less foggy. I tried to pick the middle of the day – hopefully time for the morning fog to clear, but before the evening fog arrived. There were still some wisps of fog around but I got a few decent photos. You’ll see at least one when I do my SF photo dump. I also use the opportunity to buy some gifts at the golden gate bridge gift shop / information centre and learn a bit more about that.

Golden Gate park was on my to do list, but it seemed like a lot to do. I also had to get to a library because Qantas had told me that I had to print out the confirmation of my upgrade to an exit row seat. (As it turned out I didn’t need it, but that wasn’t something I wanted to risk.) So I found a library branch open on Saturday and without too much trouble I got the necessary paperwork printed. By this time it was almost 5pm, so I headed back to the hotel. I was thinking I would go out to dinner, but as it turned out there were no restaurants nearby that I could easily find that I felt like. That was one of the big disappointments that the restaurant attached to the Mosser was temporarily closed. So I got Uber Eats – again! My final night in the USA.

Ok, here’s one photo – one of the very few I took with me actually in it!