Neither of us were keen to get up, it was our last morning in a foreign country on our trip. We didn't want it to end.
We showered and completed our packing where we exchanged our clothes items, checked out of the hostel and placed our luggage in the security lockers. We took a bus to Alamo Square to view the Painted Ladies, a series of colourful painted houses surrounding the square. There was a huge great dame walking with her owner. I was in the middle of removing my final camera film from my camera and she approached me slowly and peered into my bag. She sniffed around and wandered off. My last photograph taken was of a tree with red toilet brush flowers resembling an ohia lehua tree.
The houses that we saw weren't incredibly spectacular so we walked down the road to wait for the number twenty four bus. We waited for about 30 minutes, maybe more. Two buses went in the other direction but none came in our direction. So, on consulting the map, Ian directed us to walk to the other side of Alamo square to get on another bus which would take us directly to Union Street, our destination, and not six blocks away as the number twenty four would. As we walked we passed some nicer looking houses than on Alamo Square.
At the beginning of Union Street we saw a nice looking, popular cafe, and it being lunchtime we decided to dine there. It was very busy and we squeezed into the corner. Although we were in America, in this instance I didn't expect my smoked salmon and creme fraiche with scrambled egg pizza to be very big. I was very wrong! It was huge and barely fit on the plate! It was totally loaded with smoked salmon.
We walked the length of Union Street which seemed to be mostly eateries, not the advertised shops as indicated on the tourist map. Then we hopped on another bus to Van Ness Avenue where we boarded the California cablecar. Just as we began to move a woman approached the cablecar hopefully, then slowed down her approached and hesitated. The cablecar driver said 'come awn, jump awn, come awn, we ain't going that fast!' to which she did and we laughed. To request payment of fares he said 'I need to see a pass or I need your cash.' The woman sitting next to me offered him USD 1 for the USD 2 fare. He replied 'your pocket change? That ain't going to work, I need USD 2!' We rode the entire length of the cable car section of California Street which provided excellent views towards the bay. I was encouraged by Ian to stick my head out of the cablecar to appreciate the exquisite scene. At the terminus, Market Street, we found yet another part of San Francisco deserted which we find peculiar for Saturday. We walked to the Embacadero Centre, passing a couple of old ladies and a young man. One of the ladies had fallen or been knocked over and her face had been cut. The young man was helping them.
At the Embacadero Centre there was little interest to us. However, I was keen to take a birthday present home to my Mum and spent 25 minutes in Nine West trying to select a pair of shoes for her which was made difficult by not knowing the American size equivalent. The assistant was very helpful and I tried some on in my size to check comfortability and eventually reached a decision. Ian was waiting patiently outside when I exited the shop, satisified with my purchase and hopeful that the shoes would fit my Mum.
We took the bus home to Union Square and collected our luggage from the lockers. We had to do a small amount of repacking as I had been carrying around an extra bag for the cameras and waterproof jackets. We crossed the road onto O'Farrell Street to see a homeless man holding a paper cup and saying 'I'm looking for miracles, it'll be a miracle if anyone puts some money in my pot.' I smiled at his sense of humour and feebly muttered 'sorry' to him and we walked to Powell Street station. By the cablecare turnstile we asked a man to take our picture while we were loaded with luggage in such a fashion as we were.
I gave way to a woman at the top of the escalator who said 'no, after you, your load is much heavier than mine,' then we travelled down to the station, with her asking me if I have had a good time. 'Oh yes' I replied. Absolutely excellent. It is very nice to be spoken to by strangers. San Franciscans are friendly people. Yesterday in a sports department store we were greeted by a man saying 'how're you guys doing? How's the holiday?' The sunglasses and camera were a bit of a giveaway to our tourist status. I replied 'good, thanks, but it's come to an end.' 'Just when the weather's turned nice too,' he replied, 'I'm sorry it's ended.' 'Me too' I said sincerely.
San Francisco public transport is very good. We took the bart to Colma station where we waited a short while for the bus to San Francisco International Airport. It was a long enough wait for me to shuffle some items around in my backpack to make my hand luggage a bit lighter. I was already feeling nervous about the next 24 hours.
We checked into the United Airlines ticketing desk where there was no queue. Although we had arrived 3 hours prior to the flight departure the flight was full and the airline had taken it upon themselves to preassign seats. Unfortunately, we had been preassigned seats that weren't together so my initial request for a window seat so I could see London as we approached was completely dismissed. I was gutted by this. The clerk suggested that we speak to the attendant at the gate to see if we could be reseated. We passed our luggage through the x-ray machine that catapulted everything out the other end rather violently. The security woman was completely unreceptive to Ian's joke about the machine. Yet another American without a sense of humour. We loitered while Ian's holdall was searched. Because it was locked we had to wait around to present the key and have it returned. Ian's theory that his bag was searched only because it was locked has so far held true. It's the third flight we've taken since we bought the bag and this is the second search. The staff at Honolulu International Airport didn't search it but then they were friendly and efficient there the second time we departed from there.
With the key returned and the bag of coffee relocked we walked along to the departure gate beyond the duty free shop. There wasn't much open in the way of shops and there weren't many places to sit or eat either. As we passed the duty free shop I ascertained that I would be able to buy some purchases which was good.
We had been preassigned seats 25E and 26E so we were seated one behind the other. I was upset by it. How do airlines manage to seat a travelling group separately? Our surnames may differ but we booked together. Why must an airline preassign seats before people check in just because it's a popular flight? Seat allocation at the point of check in works for all of the other flights so why should this be any different? When we arrived at the gate there were a few people already seated waiting to board, 2 hours early. We chose to return to the duty free shop as there wasn't an assistant at the boarding gate to speak to about getting reseated.
We made some purchases and sat at a table outside a cafe. The airport was full of Britons. Ian related it to a flight from Benidorm! Only all of these people were northerners! I set up bao and got my journal out in preparation to record the day's events so far. Ian bought some drinks and went to fetch a paper with his carefully selected coins adding up to USD 1, the price of the paper. He was a little irritated to find that tax was added to the cost of the New York Times thus requiring more coins to be found! Then I spotted that he had also purchased some secret muffins for us to eat...
We played five games of bao while eating muffins and Ian reading the paper and we took it in turns to win. Ian won two games and I won three. It soon became time to return to the gate so we could try to get reseated. However, many other groups of people had also been separated from their partners and now that the gate was attended lots of people were sitting by the gate and many others had applied to be reseated. The clerk took our boarding passes and said that there was nothing she could do at the moment. We seated ourselves amongst the crowd and I moaned about it. I was upset that I wouldn't be able to sit next to Ian for our final flight of the trip, our flight home.
When we were sat down I totalled the figures for Hawaii and San Francisco and provided the figures to Ian to record on the budget sheet. When the aircraft started boarding it was like a scene from Luton Airport when Easyjet call for boarding. It was obviously a busy flight although it was hard to believe that all of those people standing were on the rows being called. We were still without boarding cards when the last people were invited to board. We waited patiently, unkeen to board the plane at all, we just didn't want to take the final flight! In the last few minutes before boarding we were called to the desk to receive our boarding cards. We hadn't been reseated. I asked Ian if we earned compensation if we offered our seats. I really didn't want to take the flight. He didn't think that we would. I was so tempted to offer our seats!
We boarded the aircraft and asked where we should go to reach our seats, which side of the aircraft. We knew that we were didn't have aisle seats but were in the centre section and were unsure of which side, the seating varies on different airlines' aircraft. We were asked which row number, we thought that that was irrelevant. We moved down the left hand side of the plane, with me mumbling. I was upset. But I told Ian that at least we could enjoy the fact that we only paid USD 125 for this 9 hour 30 minute flight! As we walked through the aircraft I wanted to get off, too reluctant to take the final flight.
When we found rows twenty five and twenty six it all became apparent. Seats E are in the centre of the last four rows in the first half of the coach class seating. We stowed our luggage overhead and excused ourselves as we disturbed two couples to get to our seats. There were a further two couples the other side of our vacant seats. The couple that moved for me were quite large and the lady said to the lady of the couple the other side of me 'it's okay, she's only a little 'un, we'll let her off.' Both ladies either side of me were instantly chatty which took my mind off my current situation. They had both just completed a Pacific cruise which started in Tahiti and terminated in Hawaii. It appeared that the scheduled flight was purely to accommodate the cruise ship's passengers! My seating companions had flown from Honolulu to San Francisco on the earlier UA954 flight. They had had quite a wait at San Francisco. Most of them, if not all, were then to fly directly on to Manchester or Leeds Bradford once they landed in Heathrow. They will have been travelling for over 24 hours by the time they get home but will have had two nights disturbed sleep.
Our flight departed at 19:05. Fairly early into the flight we had some dinner, the window shutters were closed and we settled into watching 'About Schmidt'. It was a good film and brought on a tear from me.
Being sat in the middle of the section made providing service to me a little confusing. I was being offered food and drink from both aisles. Although the flight was very smooth I was unable to get any sleep throughout the flight. We were quite cramped on seating too. I continued reading the book I acquired from Chiang Mai. In the 5 minutes that I closed my eyes to try to sleep Ian had got up. An hour later I wondered what had happened to him. He obviously couldn't have gone far but I thought he had only gone to the toilet. I managed to get out of my seat and went to the toilet myself. There wasn't a queue so he couldn't have been waiting all this time. When I emerged I wandered around the cabin to stretch my legs and found Ian perched by the rear emergency exit reading a magazine and drinking red wine. When he saw me he gave me a big smile. He, like me, found it a bit awkward having to ask people to move every time he wanted to get up or sit down so spent 3 hours 30 minutes stood at the back of the aircraft!
One of the flight attendants spoke to us about a female passenger who had spent some considerable amount of time stood up by the toilets. Her neighbouring passenger was a four hundred pound man who took up more than his fair share of seat and some of hers. When he started snoring too she couldn't stand it any longer. It transpired that this guy's partner was also horizontally challenged and as a result they couldn't sit next to each other as there simply wasn't enough room! The flight attendant, who was American, simply said 'only in America!' in a light humoured tone as she walked off into the cabin to serve water to dehydrating passengers. Ian and I looked at each other and burst out laughing.
I returned to my seat and completed reading my book and immediately began reading the next one that I had exchanged on Pulau Perhentian Besar, passing the completed book to Ian on his return to his seat.
At this point I was feeling rather sad and wanted nothing more than to sit with Ian and hug him.
Copyright 2003 Helen Fuller. All rights reserved.