|
|
:: D R. K E R S T I N K U N Z E ::
:: curriculum vitae ::
research :: |
:: TRAVEL USA::
:: HA - DEN ::
DEN - SF ::
SF - LA ::
GC & LV ::
LA - NOL ::
NOL - CHI ::
CHI - HA ::
11.02.02It's still quiet in the hostel at 7 am, when I eat my breakfast. There were only another two ladies in my six bed room. When I wanted to check out it was interesting. The man at the reception knows, that I should get 10 dollars back for the key. So he was calling for a woman, who has a key for the desk. Opening the desk they were looking desperated, it seems that the cash box didn't offer such an amount. They start to discuss in spanish and slowly I imagine, that I either will loose my train or my money. Then the woman came to her mind, that she has 10 dollars in the pocket of her jacket. I was lucky...So I went to the union station along all this parking slots, wich were empty the day before, but now close to 8 am it starts to get crowded. I arrived at the union station shortly after eight. The train was announced to be one hour delayed, so I was feeling like home;-) In the middle of the hall there was an empty counter and a sign left for coaches and right hand side for sleepers. In front of the table there was a long queue of luggage I was wondering about. I took a seat in ony of the huge banks (the leans are even higher than your head and your feeling like a small child) and was waiting. One hour later the train really arrives and than I understood the system of the luggages. The people put their suitcase in the queue and were sitting down instead of waiting in the line. Now they are in the first. When it was my turn I get a small paper for my ticket, written EMY on it for Emeryville, my last station and the number of my coach car. Having this paper I was standing in another line waiting to go to the platform. The staff is very friendly and they explain everybody very patient, where he has to go to. Few minutes later we are allowed to go to the platform and instead of a big running everybody is going very calm to the train, one behind each other like we were staying in the queue before. The attendant in front of the train welcomes us and told, that we can choose our seat whereever we want, but the lower level of the car is reserved for handicaped persons. So I try to find a seat in the upper level, but because I wasn't sure wich seat was taken, the attendant helped me. I even find a nice room for my backpack at the end of the car. There is plenty of space to put luggage. The young lady next to me proposed to change the seats, so I could get a nice view out of the windows. This nice offer I cannot offend;-) I only travel few times first class in germany, but this coach class is even better than this. Even when you try, you cannot reach the next seat with your arms or legs. The window offers me a great view outside. Slowly we are leaving the station and I have the feeling, that you can walk next to the train, so slow it is. I'm asking myself if it was really a good idea of taking the train in US. But after we left Denver the train accelerate and one hour later we started to climb the Rocky Mountains. The train has to go several s curves in order to gain height, so we have a nice view back to the flat plane and Denver. Shortly later the train enters a tunnel and when it leaves 10 min later we are in the middle of a skipark. The view of the mountains and the snow will dominate the next 24 h.
I had to get used with the american smalltalk first, but later on I like it. In the evening Amtrak also showed some video films in the sightseer lounge but I didn't follow the film, because I was speaking with a man from Salt Lake City (thanks for the nice evening, Howard:-)
12.02.02During the day we are leaving the Rocky Mountains and are coming closer to the civilization again, we are passing towns and villages. Every small town has its own scrapyard, sure somewhere they have to put all the old cars...We left Denver with one hour delay, but in Emeryville we were arriving almost one hour to early. The bus to San Francisco is waiting next to the station. Again I learn the american way or the Amtrak way of service, the driver enumerates all the bus stops in San Francisco and asked if everything is alright, maybe he should increase the ventilation or better the heating?
I get off the bus at the first stop in San Francisco: Ferry Building. My hostel is just few blocks far of the stop, but the blocks here are much smaller than in Denver, so I went much to far. Then I make a loop around the block, because I didn't find any sign of the hostel, there is only a small sign at the ring. They told me to go to the fourth floor, a little bit exaggarated, they counted every halflanding. But the service was great, after I enter I already was offered a tea:-)
13.02.02I found a flyer in the hostel about "Walks in San Francisco", offering 6 routes through the center of the town. So early in the morning I start the first one in chinatown. It was amazing, you had the feeling to be in asia. Everywhere you saw chinese faces and you could buy strange things, at least strange for me, the chinese seems to like it and bought a lot of it. It was 8 am but a lot of persons on the street. I went to the tourist information in order to get some maps and proposals what to do the next two days. But they didn't open before 9 am, so I had to make another tour of my guide. Then I took some extra maps of SF and information and went along the coastline or better along the wharfs to the Fisherman's Wharf, a famous tourist area. From a distance you already could hear the noise of the seals. At the time of my visit there where around 300 animals, but at peak times they even count more than 1000 in this small area! I don't know, why the seals are liking this place in the middle of the harbour.The Golden Gate Bridge seems to be very close, even though my map is telling me, that I might need one hour to go there. But also the starting rain couldn't stop me going there.
On the top of the bridge it was cold, wet and heavy wind. So I just went to the middle of the bridge. Under the bridge a ferry boat was going and behind a seal tried to follow.
The day is almost over, so I was looking for the supermarket I saw the day before. Seeing the prices I ask myself how the americans can afford all this stuff... Buying some pasta, a sauce, 6 bagels and a joghurt (1 kg was the smallest package;-) I paid 10 dollars...
14.02.02I had another two walks left of my flyer. So first I went in the morning on the Telegraph hill. Around there I only saw active persons, jogging, making aerobic, thai-chi, ... everything you could imagine. Among them are a lot of older people, especially chinese. I'm much to early on the hill, the tower opens first at 10 am. I don't like to wait 2 hours, so I went to market street, taking a cable car ride to fisherman's wharf.
Alcatraz is owned by the National Park Service and there we were told at the arrival on the island, that it's not allowed to smoke, eat or drink anywhere except at the ship. It seems, that the penalty is quiet high, because I didn't saw anybody violate the rules. I came right in time to get a free ranger tour, explaining what happened the last century on alcatraz. For the prison itself you automatically bought an audio tour, when buying the ticket for the ship. This tour leads you were fast through the building. Probably it's necessary during summer, when there are a lot of persons, but now it was quiet empty.
The rest of the day I went to Japantown, even it was signed as a nice place in my map it wasn't too interesting. When I went back to the financial distric again I didn't saw any bench. In front of the Civic Center I finally saw a park and where looking forward for a seat. But the only benches there were fenced and a small sign was telling, that adults are only allowed inside, if they are accompanied by children. Strange world;-) Probably they wanted to keep out the homeless people. So those were laying on the grass, because this wasn't prohibited;-) |
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
