Burnt tables and hurled furniture

Q. Do You Know The Way To San Jose? (A. 5:33pm Baby Bullet Caltrain)
Day 6, Friday
San Francisco to San Jose
Weather: Overcast to start, sunny half way through. Again!
Author: Craig

We were a bit sad about our last day in San Francisco, and a sleep-in made us miss the Huevos Rancheros breakfast at one of our fave veggo hippy places. But hey, the characters we saw on walk were great! Watching an old man with a cane have a verbal smackdown with an old man in a wheelchair –in the middle of an intersection – was just hard to leave. San Francisco just does ‘crazy’ better than anywhere back home.

After brekkie, we hit the streets. First stop was this awesome sculpture/installation that covered most of the outside of this building. It’s called ‘Defenestration’ (which means ‘to throw stuff out windows’ (look it up!))



And then we found Crystal’s Mecca! By total chance, we discovered San Francisco Flower Market, and for a soon-to-be-qualified florist, nothing could have been better! W00t!


We ended up back at Market Street, for a near-scamming by a MUNI-ticket-wielding scammer, then a COMPLETELY packed street car down to Fisherman’s Wharf. There we witnessed a guy getting really demanding about getting ‘house coffee’, not wishing to get any of that ‘fancy espresso stuff’. It was just as annoying as when WE want fluffy coffee, only in reverse. Coffee wankers of the world, UNITE! But anyway, time was tight, so we only really had time for a quick coffee, a drool at the lightsabers on sale at ‘Antiquities’, a quick photo of Alcatraz, and a filthy bag of lollies.


Things became a blur from then… a run to catch the street car back to town, a dash to buy more luggage for our burgeoning stuff, a disorienting sprint back to the hotel to grab our luggage, a mafia-style black Lincoln Town Car drive to the train station, then a train boarding. Phew. And hey, here’s a tip: if you’re dragging, like, 5 bags of varying sizes and incredible weights down a Cal-Train aisle, smacking people in heads and knees, make sure you listen when one of them politely says, “Oh, there’s a luggage car up ahead, if you’d prefer that.” Coz wow, bags on racks and comfortable seating sure beats the embarrassment we went through. Yegads!

So anyway, the polite and funny Cal-Train conductor balanced out the bit where I dropped our 58lb (26kg) suitcase on my foot, and before we knew it, we were in San Jose! Ole! We were there to hang with Hilary and Pascal (and Pascal’s swoit sister Bibi), some crackin’ friends we made through our Brisbane housemate, Jeff. Californians FTW! And Pascal made margaritas. Ole again!

Margaritas were followed by Mai Thai, preceded by beer, and followed by champagne. And that’s ALWAYS a good time to drunk-Skype Jeff back in Brisbane. :)


And by then, we were pretty much knackered. We woke up a little when some angel cake, which had fallen into the molten wax of a candle earlier, finally caught fire and set off the smoke alarm (and burned the table)...


... but after that, it was bedtime. We could feel the soul in the house, felt so much better than hotels. Oooh yeah.

And oh yeah, we talked about wedding plans with the recently engaged couple, and were relieved in some way that they are equally as disorganized as we are. Mutual inability FTW!