Today we drove from Salinas up to San Francisco in order to say goodbye to California and visit Seattle, Washington (State). Neither the Bear nor I have been to Washington (State) before and I am particularly excited as Seattle is the birthplace of my beloved Pearl Jam and has been home for the last 25 years for Eddie Vedder.
I am fully aware of his address and intend on at least being able to go there for a photo opportunity. If the Bear allows me to get away with that I will be surprised however I will give it my best shot. Best case scenario is that I will be arrested and therefore forever tied to Eddie Vedder in the eyes of the media. Do I love the man? Yes I do.
To get to Seattle we drove to San Francisco in order to board a flight to Washington. This was just awesome as we LOVE San Fran. It is truly one of the most beautiful cities in the world with the most iconic attractions. We were fairly keen to leave Salinas, as it really is a nothing town with no personality. Very un-Californian. We also wanted to make sure that we got to the airport in plenty of time, given that our flight was full and San Francisco Airport is such a busy place. We didn’t wish to jeopardise reaching the flight on time. As it turned out, we arrived with plenty of time to spare so we were able to afford a bit of time, to drive half an hour north of the airport, right into San Fran. This gave us the unexpected opportunity to visit the water front to take in sights such as the Golden Gate Bridge and Alcatraz. The rain of the last couple of days gave way to blue sky so we had a beautiful and unobstructed view. We took in another trip down the most crooked street in the entire world, which we have done before, however I wanted to do just one thing there that was new for us. Given that Robin Williams died since we were there last, we decided to visit the house that “Mrs Doubtfire” was filmed in as I had read somewhere that fans had flocked there to leave loving messages on rocks outside the residence upon hearing of his death. Sure enough, there were hundreds of rocks out the front bearing writing from strangers united in grief.
The house itself was part way up one of San Francisco’s famous steep roads, and in order to stand in front of it, we had to park on street and walk down to the house. The street would have to be on a 30% gradient (at least….although it dead set felt as though it was completely vertical) which would be testing on even the most committed fitness junkies. Do you know how an avalanche collects more snow and debris, whilst picking up speed the further it goes? Well that was me x 100. To make matters worse, as we would be catching a flight, I wasn’t wearing joggers. It would have appeared to any bystander that I was trying to prove both the theory of velocity and acceleration AND Newtons laws of motion however I would have been able to guarantee that this was not something I did voluntarily. The fact that I was rolling down that hill with more emphasis than an Acme anvil dropped on Wylie Coyote however turned out to be the least of my worries. I had to get back up the rotten hill. If there had been a cable car passing that I could have caught to take me the 10 metres back to our car, I would have.
Once at the airport we jumped through all of the usual hoops that are required when flying anywhere. Unfortunately it meant taking our place in the kilometre length line and subsequently had to wait a fairly significant amount of time to get through security. The half an hour it took us, seemed like a day as I had one of my legendary heartburn attacks, and had no water or antacids on me. I am thinking this would have been because it was after lunch and we had yet to eat. Once we were through, we found we had only a short amount of time before we had to board our plane, however as we were hungry grabbed a quick bite to eat. And when I mean quickly I mean totally shovelled the food in. When I suffer heartburn quite often I can actually be sick and unfortunately this was one of those times. Hurrying to the plane I had to make a stop in the ladies room to throw up. Our flight was going to be called soon however there was nothing that I could do to prevent this particular call of nature.
I only just made it into the ladies, where I managed to say goodbye to my whole lunch whilst I strained to hear if our flight was being called. I straightened myself up and went to flush the toilet. Hmmmm this was an automatic flushing toilet. I have had massive troubles with these stupid things on previous trips however have never had the need to throw up in one. I waived my hand vigorously over the toilet bowl however there was no response. I waived two hands over the toilet bowl yet still nothing. I threw my sandaled foot up onto the toilet seat hoping that would trigger a sensor however the toilet remained silent. The more desperate I became to flush this toilet, the more violent my movements came and before I knew it I was doing a German “thigh slapping dance” in a ridiculously confined space. I am almost positive that there would have had to be a manual flushing button somewhere however couldn’t be 100% sure as I hadn’t brought my glasses into the loo. I blindly fumbled around the back of the toilet bowl and the wall behind it but all that achieved was me worrying that there would not be a strong enough disinfectant in the world that would kill the germs I was picking up. I toyed with the idea of just simply leaving the toilet as it was, but my conscious wouldn’t allow that. And then it dawned on me. Sit on the damned throne and get back up again. Bloody hell I am thick. So I sat down on the toilet, fully dressed, and got back up again. Voila. Good lord.
Racing outside it turned out our flight was boarding so the Bear and I had to pick up the pace to get to the gate and we climbed on board the United Airlines 737. Interestingly we were not greeted at the door by a flight attendant which seemed odd however that point seemed mute at this time. Domestic airlines in America are similar to the budget airlines in Australia. You pretty much pay for a ticket in order to get from A to B. If you want a drink onboard you need to buy it, and there is no “entertainment”. In the USA however you will still expect to pay a premium price though. If you pay for an expensive first class ticket though, you will be privileged enough to get a soft drink in a plastic cup and a small packet of chickpeas. When we have flown domestic within the USA previously we still have received service with a smile, which, when you are in a foreign country, goes a long way. This was not the case today. The bush pig of a Customer Service Manager (head flight attendant) had the personality of a toilet brush. She was rude, abrasive and totally full of shit. She made everyone’s flight a miserable one, and managed to somehow do that despite reading the paper during the whole flight. She had the manner of a bulldog and looked like she should have been turning tricks on Hollywood Boulevard. Fortunately for me, I fell asleep pretty quickly and spent most of the hour long flight throwing up Zzzzzzzzzzzzs. I am surprised she didn’t throw me out of the plane over Oregon for making noise or drooling on my shirt.
Racing outside it turned out our flight was boarding so the Bear and I had to pick up the pace to get to the gate and we climbed on board the United Airlines 737. Interestingly we were not greeted at the door by a flight attendant which seemed odd however that point seemed mute at this time. Domestic airlines in America are similar to the budget airlines in Australia. You pretty much pay for a ticket in order to get from A to B. If you want a drink onboard you need to buy it, and there is no “entertainment”. In the USA however you will still expect to pay a premium price though. If you pay for an expensive first class ticket though, you will be privileged enough to get a soft drink in a plastic cup and a small packet of chickpeas. When we have flown domestic within the USA previously we still have received service with a smile, which, when you are in a foreign country, goes a long way. This was not the case today. The bush pig of a Customer Service Manager (head flight attendant) had the personality of a toilet brush. She was rude, abrasive and totally full of shit. She made everyone’s flight a miserable one, and managed to somehow do that despite reading the paper during the whole flight. She had the manner of a bulldog and looked like she should have been turning tricks on Hollywood Boulevard. Fortunately for me, I fell asleep pretty quickly and spent most of the hour long flight throwing up Zzzzzzzzzzzzs. I am surprised she didn’t throw me out of the plane over Oregon for making noise or drooling on my shirt.
I woke up just as we were descending into Seattle and I am so glad I did. Seattle is just stunning from the air, although I can honestly say that seeing Mt Rainier was just something really special. Mind-blowing. It overlooks Seattle and completely dwarfs the city. It is an absolutely mammoth snow capped mountain that it just short of 15,000 above sea level. It is honestly spectacular. Looking down on Seattle I wondered which one of the houses was Eddie’s. I was getting SO excited at the thought that I would be in the same town as he as I do know that he is at home at the moment. #imnostalkerimjustafan #lovemyeddiev #pjrockmyworld
Tomorrow is going to be a GREAT day!
