After a fun last dinner with close friends and a franctic morning of last-minute packing, I made it to Rotterdam Centraal just on time to get the 12:51 train to catch my flight to San Francisco at 15:00. I hadn’t really thought through the logistics of carrying a large duffle, a surfboard, a backpack and a small handbag by myself, let alone walk around the airport. So getting from the airport to a hotel in San Francisco was going to be a fun challenge. It was a long eleven-and-a-half-hour flight, uncomfortably squished between two relatively fat men, but after two hours of turbulence, we finally landed in San Francisco at 17:30.

As some of you might know, I had a bit of visa issues before leaving, so I was a little bit nervous about passing through customs and immigration, but everything went very smoothly. It didn’t take very long for my duffle to appear or for my boardbag to show up at the oversized baggage belt, so I was at the BART (the SF version of a metro) station in no time. It took a bit of arguing with the ticket vending machine and the credit card I forgot to activate. Eventually managed to buy my ticket, squeeze through the narrow gates and BART doors with all my belongings. I got out at 16th St Mission and started looking for my $55 per night hotel around the corner.

The hotel itself is probably the least fancy hotel I’ve ever stayed in, and I have stayed in many crappy hostels and hotels. However I decided to book a private room over a hostel this time because I had all my belongings for 6 months and a surf board, not ideal if you’re in a hostel room with 11 others. Anywho, it would do for now as I really wanted to stay in SF to explore the city and had quite a busy planning ahead. Impressively enough, I actually made it from the airport to the hotel in less than an hour, and had to be at my first viewing in the Duboce triangle at 20:00.

Evening (Attempt 1)

Never really vlogged before, but I thought I would give it a go. If you’re too lazy to read, check it out.