Our flight to San Francisco left Toronto on Friday night at about 8:30pm. I’d walked to the hospital to meet Glen at five and then we caught the train out to the airpot. There’s a recently opened “express” train from Union Station, downtown, to the airport. It takes 25 minutes and costs something like $27 one-way.

For Glen and I to make use of this service, it would take us at least 45 minutes (to get from our place to Union St) and then cost a total of $30. Compare this to taking the subway and bus for $3 from our place and taking 45 minutes, it’s definitely not worth using this “express” service. I can’t imagine many people using it though. Who lives near Union Station?

We got to the airport much earlier than we really needed to and then went through security without any hassle. We scrounged around for some food. Glen had a cheeseburger while I had a pizza type thing. Perhaps we should have brought food with us.

Our flight departed on time. It was less than half full so I abandoned Glen as soon as the doors closed and stole the row of three seats in front of him. I was very pleased with all this extra space. Less pleasing was the incredibly bumpy five hour flight to San Francisco. I haven’t been on such a turbulent flight for years. It was not pleasant.

I watched the third season of Rev, a British comedy about a reverend that I’d seen in Australia (but only the first two seasons), and then curled up to get some sleep. I’m not sure if I actually passed out or not. I could have done with a pillow.

We landed in San Francisco at 11pm, walked through the airport to the taxi rank and set off for our hotel in the city. There was a shuttle bus available but I figured that at $19 each, we wouldn’t spend much extra on a taxi and at least this way we’d get dropped off at the hotel. I watched the meter closely, though at times though I’d must have blacked out because it jumped up in such large increments. In the end it cost us $50 (which included the tip) so it wasn’t all bad.

I’d booked us a room at USA Hostels, which was one of the nicer places I could find that wasn’t ridiculously expensive and was well positioned within the city. In the end it still cost as much as we’d spend on a hotel elsewhere (which gives you some idea of how expensive San Francisco is). I was a little worried about the location as it was situated on the edge of a part of the city called the Tenderloin.

We’d been warned about this place and told not to venture down its streets at night. This fear mongering fed into the apprehensions I already had about San Francisco and the warnings that it wasn’t a safe place. The drive through the streets revealed a lot of drunk and homeless people on the streets and sidewalks. We didn’t see any violence so I didn’t think it was as bad as I was expecting. It’s still not an attractive sight and a bit of an indictment on poverty in America.

We checked into the hostel and went up to our private room with ensuite. It was pretty good, the room large enough and both it and the bathroom were clean. There was even a TV (which we didn’t turn on) and a fridge and microwave (despite the sign saying no food or drink allowed in the rooms). As it was about 2am in Toronto at that time, we decided it would be best to go to bed and try to get some sleep.