California (Post #1 of 3)

Posted by Andy Geoghegan, on August 10th, 2008 Leave a comment

I last blogged on the London to San Francisco flight and was showing off the wonders of my phone as a blogging tool. The intention was to find some of California’s numerous wireless networks and post a blog every couple of days. Unfortunately, two days into the trip my phone screen smashed and here I am trying to cram the last 12 days into one massive posting!

And what a 12 days it’s been. It’s certainly been one of the more eventful holidays I’ve ever been on from the ever predictable flight sadness, the very unpredictable flight upgrading to the legendary wine tasting!

So, to begin: our itinerary for the trip was supposed to be as follows:
Wed 30 July fly from Manchester to San Francisco (via Philadelphia)
2 nights in San Francisco
2 nights in Morgan Hill
4 nights in Santa Cruz
1 night in San Francisco
8 August fly from San Francisco to Manchester (via Philadelphia), arrive home 9 Aug.

As always, things went wrong but instead of the usual (lost luggage, closed airports etc) we were told a day before that we’d been bumped off our flights as the plane that was due to take us was being replaced with a smaller one. Thankfully Col the travel agent gave us the heads up and Stuoobs was well prepared once the airline called. We were due to fly Wednesday morning and had treated ourselves to business class flights. The airline had offered us by way of an alternative economy via Frankfurt. Stu & I have one experience of Frankfurt and the only way to describe it is the ONLY airport that Stuoobs has refused to shit. Stuoobs held his ground and got us on a better flight from Heathrow first thing in the morning, this meant that we had to get to London that night and a few calls to people and some panic packing meant that we were all on our way to Manchester Airport to fly to London where we would be put up in a hotel (all courtesy of United Airlines).

Getting to London was easy enough but once there we had no idea whether we were in the Renaissance or the Radisson but after a few calls we headed to the Radisson and made haste to the bar.

It was the following morning where we thought the wheels had well and truly come off as we got to Heathrow Airport (the modern day ‘Bermuda Triangle’). The problem was that US Airways (who we were now flying with) had upgraded their computer system overnight and seemingly told everyone except the one bloke checking us in. He was totally useless and it took him the best part of an hour to check us in. We were all issued with business class boarding cards but we were not sat together.

A few gins and a bloody mary in the lounge and it was time to head for the gate where we could bypass the queue. Pezza was first and the chick at the boarding gate scanned her boarding pass which was greeted with the ‘negative buzzer’ sound. We thought we were doomed until the lady handed us all new passes with the words ‘First Class’ scrawled across the top.

This was an unexpected bonus (especially for Karen B & Easty who had no idea we were flying at the front anyway) and we celebrated our fortune with gin.

A very comfortable nine hours later we landed in San Francisco (not San Fran, not ‘Frisco’ – the locals hate it apparently). We had a bonus night in San Francisco on the basis that our flight landed several hours earlier than our original flight was scheduled to. As with any transatlantic flight the efforts to get rid of the jet lag are always tricky and the best thing to do is find something to keep you entertained. As we were early we hadn’t foreseen it being necessary but after some serious flagging at about 7.30pm we went hunting for some bars. Wednesdays in San Francisco are clearly not buzzing but we stumbled across a gem of a place called Maggie McGarry’s. By an unbelievable stroke of fortune they had their inaugural karaoke night. This was not just any ordinary karaoke night with a tv screen, old mic and fat DJ, this was ‘M&S karaoke’, if Carlsberg did karaoke etc etc.

They had a live band and a selection of songs they knew with a music stand on the stage with the lyrics. You would hand your song request to the groupie, get up and rock! It was, without question, the greatest karaoke I have ever experienced and we need to get this sort of stuff going in the UK. I did Mr Brightside and Stuoobs followed suit with a cracking rendition of Summer of 69

He got his first real six string…

Day two and time for a stroll through the City and finally meeting up with the Fodens who we hadn’t seen since Foe’s series of leaving dos. It was a brief meeting as they still had a few last minute bits and bobs to do before the wedding but we had arranged to meet them later and we went off sight seeing on bikes around the city. All this really involved was riding a bike over the Golden Gate and enjoying a beer 8 miles away in Sausalito before getting the ferry back (with great views of Alcatraz)

(1) Four ‘bicyclysts’ (2) Stuoobs about to climb up to the bridge (3) On the ferry back to Fishermans Wharf (4) Alcatraz

We were then straight on it and met the Foden party (males) in Hooters for the start of what ended up as Foe’s American Stag Night. We tried our best to get him to jack it in and come to Vegas but I think he was too drunk to understand. We ended up in Lefty O’Doul’s, a restaurant/bar named after the legendary baseball player. This is the bar that Stuoobs, Foe, Easty & Dunc frequented two years ago and is home of the brilliant pianist, David Seaman who is an all-request piano party dude. This was one a fabulous night and I’m glad that we gave Foe a night he wont remember.