Choice bro airlines

Well folks, its been a long time coming but the first blog is here (I know that you haven't been able to sleep in anticipation). I'm currently in South Carolina, having got here last night and having the biggest night on the turps for quite some time, but more about that later, I need to update the trip so far.

Had about as good a flight as you can have traveling between hemispheres. My good cousins at Air New Zealand made the flight so much better, no matter how many times I hear them talk I can't help but snigger, hey cus??

I got to San Fran around lunch time Friday and made my way into the city on the train (called the BART for all of you light rail freaks playing along at home). I popped up in the centre of the city and straight away was bombarded with some of the craziest shit that I have ever seen and some of the most classic Americanism. Within the space of 5 mins I had given money to a disabled homeless Vietnam vet in a wheelchair, was asked if I wanted to "buy any weeeed" by a black gangster rapper with some crazy arse silver capped (and engraved!!!) teeth, there were some people playing chess for Jesus on the sidewalk, some hommies break dancing for money and a huge screaming match between a couple of bums. It was like holly shit..... all the stuff on TV is true!!!!

I couldn't put my bags anywhere, thanks to the removal of all public lockers post 9/11 (the fucking terrorists have won if you ask me) so cruised around a little with all my shit until I found a park and sat down in the sun for a while which was a nice change from Adelaide weather. From there I hooked up with my mystery host Albert and headed to his apartment. After all of the speculation Albert turned out to be a really nice guy and ended up putting up with me for my whole stay in SF (cheers heaps bro).

The next couple of days I checked out various parts of the city and have decided that I could easily live there, plenty of cool people, cool shops and a bit of street art/stencil stuff going on. The homeless situation is probably the biggest draw back. I think that the locals are a bit desensitised to it but you guys know me, I'm both a sucker for people with a sob story and a freak/weirdo magnet, both of which play against you.

One of the biggest highlights was the Haight Street fair. The Haight area is the birth place of the Hippie culture and the site of the first ever public performance of electronic music (thanks radio national). The street fair involves closing the street (about a km) with two stages at either end and then in the middle have a huge amount of stalls and food, with people just walking around smoking spliffs. There where a few stalls with beer and stuff on tap but with a bottle shop on every corner people just had massive cans of beer in brown paper bags. For some strange reason almost everyone was drinking Fosters so a though I better have one as well, ended up getting a can that had about a litre of beer in it. I got some great shots of the craziest cats drinking fosters and some corker Vice do's and don't style shots (mainly don'ts of washed up tie died hippies).

The other highlight was the Museum of Modern Art, some good stuff but the best bit was Jeff Kooms Michael and Bubbles porcelain statue, freaky and creepie, yet strangely mesmerising. I tell ya I don't know much about art but I know what I like.

Well that pretty much brings me to the deep south. Got in last night and met all the in-laws over pizza at the "freaky mushroom". Then headed out with a couple of geezer mates of my brothers. We went to a few joints around town with the english and Australian accents in fine form. Ended up at a bar were they throw the peanut shells on the floor, a few of us ended up staying after they closed to keep drinking and next thing the suns coming up and I feel like shit (hence the poor form on the typing).

Well my brother (the one not getting married) gets here soon, with the other one hopefully a few days away. A big g'day to everyone and also a big sorry to the Onka crew for dropping you in the shit with all my work (cheers Callum, will sort ya out when I get back). Talk to y'all again soon now ya hear!!!