Although $300 was a such a lot to pay for a room, I was very glad to be there. At about midnight the vomiting started. I've never vomited up lettuce before and let me tell you it's just as revolting as any type of vomit, and it clogs drains!! For some stupid reason I thought it would be more comfortable to throw up in to the hand basin rather than kneeling over the toilet bowl with my dodgey netballer's knees and so at 1am I am standing there scooping the devil from the handbasin in a glass to the toilet, almost vomiting with every scoop, not sure if I'm more distraught about the idea of someone having to come and clean up after me or the bill I might get for blocking their drain. Woe is me. Where's my beautiful nurse Nina when I need her? The night dragged, I was awake every hour on the hour. I enjoyed a shower at about 3am. I just kept hoping by check out time I would feel halfway human and well enough to move to a cheaper place. At about 5am I started googling alternate accom and had a short list ready to phone a bit later. I was thrilled to find out check out time was 12pm. Surely I'd be okay by then.
By 12 the vomitting had stopped. I just felt woozy, exhausted and the headache I had was threatening to go migraine. I dosed up with my last panadol and checked out feeling semi human. The cabbie was quite chatty so I asked if i had only one day in SF what he would recommend. He suggested seeing the sights of the city but explained tour buses didn't go a lot of the interesting places as the hills were too steep and some of the corners to windey, the best way to see it was in a cab. He wasn't doing the hard sell, he thought I'd meant I wanted ideas for the next day. But I thought, he's nice enough, a good communicator and knows the city well, and really I didn't have the time or the energy to organize much else so I asked if we could do that straight away. So for the next 2.5 hours we drove around the city that he obviously loved, and we chatted about the prices of homes etc and I felt like I got a really good picture of SF from him. He pulled over regularly to let me take pics and even offered to take a few of me too. He even offered to sit down and have lunch with me but I seriously didnt trust my stomach. I think I was lucky this guy picked me up. Again, I may have paid a high price but I felt it was justified. I just really wasn't well enough to be doing anything else than be chauffeured around and it would be such a waste to be sitting in my hotel room feeling sorry for myself.
I checked into my cheaper digs, and they were fine, except I had to try three rooms before I could get the wifi. Traveling on my own, my iPad has been an absolute blessing for things like finding alternate accom, and doing research and it's great company. I turned the tv on briefly last night, it seemed every channel was loud hosts and the studio applause of reality shows, American idol, biggest loser, so you think you can dance, dr Phil, etc etc. No thank you, very happy to have me time with my kindle, music and blog. But I do look forward to meeting Merryon in LA in 5 days and traveling with a good friend. I'm over the lone traveling. There, I said it.
- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad
That's the worst about travelling on your own isn't it? All these lovely sights and you just want to poke someone in the ribs and say - ooh look at that? En that lovely? But then again you don't get to meet as many people maybe when you're travelling with someone. And you get to do what you want to do when you're on your own. I'm sorry you were so sick Tracey. I wish I could have been there to mop your brow and pass the toothbrush and toothpaste...but then again I probably would have barfed as well - barfing by association and all that :)
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