Julie and I arrived in San Francisco yesterday morning. What was supposed to have been an unconscious overnight bus-ride, had quickly become a nine-hour-long fight, uncomfortably restricted to three feet of seat with uncomfortably-economized foot space.

The bus was filled with a typical set of passengers: An array of ex-convicts, single mothers, and families of immigrants. We were the odd-people out, joined by a Norwegian woman who was making her way across the world spending just $25 per day. Considering the bus ride cost $32.00 per ticket, there probably wasn’t much left in her budget for food that week.

Halfway through the bus-ride (at about 2:30am) we stopped for 20 minutes at a typical rest stop town. To call these places towns is an exaggeration, they can be more accurately described as corporate hot springs. During the gas-infused 1960’s, Burger Kings, McDonalds, Best Westerns, and Seven-Elevens sprouted up all over the US along the freeway routes. Some of these name-brand oasis’s evolved into larger versions of the same – but they all focus around select demographics, namely : Truckers, ground bus passengers, and lost tourists.

A quote by Charles Kuralt always comes to mind whenever I find myself barreling down one of these twelve lane public race-tracks: “Thanks to the Interstate Highway System, it is now possible to travel from coast to coast without seeing anything”. Unless taking the 101 or other considerably slower, older highways, this is, sadly, very much the truth.

At 5:25am, the bus rolled into Oakland and three quarters of the bus deboarded. A quick chat with a local outside told me that, even though many people live in the city, a walk to the BART station was faster than taking the greyhound across the bridge. This made sense, and as we are staying in Oakland, I was tempted to do the same thing. However, all of my directions and maps were based starting from within the city, and I had paid for a ticket to San Francisco. Instead of deboarding, we relocated to a previously occupied seat – offering significantly more leg room (a deficiency of our seat we had carelessly overlooked when boarding).

When we did arrive in San Francisco, it didn’t take me long to realize I was, in fact, lost. My maps and directions – I began to understand, with increasingly flushed cheeks - were based off of the location of the Greyhound corporate offices, not the Greyhound station. Thanks Google Maps.

A quick exchange with a local (who looked to be just the sort of local one would expect to be walking around at 5:45 in the morning) of the city, revealed a BART station just two blocks away. The station was indescript and marked only by a small sign with the word “Metro” printed on it. An escalator offered a way up, but not down. Under normal circumstances, we would have been glad for the encouraged opportunity to walk – but in this strange and un-restful world, this was an irritating obstacle.

The ticket-purchasing kiosk was utterly baffling. I am a firm believer in daily, weekly, and monthly passes for public transit. As a heavy user of buses and subway systems, I typically save a lot of money with such passes. The blue and white digital display before me offered no option resembling “unlimited” anything. Everything was based on amounts. Different fares were available for different distances. Dazed and confused, I submitted and purchased two tickets for $20 each. This scared me a little. I didn’t have this sort of money to spend on a simple “ticket”.

Within a few moments, I understood. The gate requires a scan of your “ticket” card upon entering and exiting. If a card is scanned through the “in” slot at “Embarcadaro” station (the station we started at), and scanned through the “out” slot at the “Rockridge” station (the station we ended up), it will deduct $3.20 [<CHECK PRICE] from the card’s amount. I assume the bus sytem is slightly different, though I have not yet tried it.

My God-sister (yes…God-sister…no that doesn’t mean a nun) picked us up at Rockridge. We were irritable and zombie-brained, but I managed to generate some halfway decent conversation subjects as her Toyota Prius hurtled town the freeway. The air had been cold and crisp outside. This temperature, coupled with our body’s diminished, sleep-starved heat generating power, resulted in a lot of shivering, and it was nice to be inside a warm and compact space. Enjoying being in any sort of vehicle is an extreme rarity for me.

My God-sister’s place was as cold as the air outside, and Julie and I walked around passively – keeping our jackets on – as we were shown the intricacies of the kitchen, alarm system, and (most importantly) the internet connection. As soon as we were dismissed, we fell into bed. I was asleep the moment my head hit the pillow.

Six hours later, we awoke. Somehow, our bodies are attuned so that if one of us wakes, even with no movement, the other one will wake as well. I crawled out of bed to do some work, and Julie went back to sleep. It was already 3:00pm and I had a full day of writing ahead.

Rebeccah, my god-sister, has set her internet connection set up in a loft above the rest of the house. Aside from the unfortunately-placed sloping ceiling beams (the position of which have resulted in about a hundred smacks on the head, even after only one day) the loft is extremely cool. A sharp-cornered desk is embedded into the wall, and once the heat from the sun is evacuated via the skylight, a day of work can be passed quite pleasantly within the white-walled space.

Around 7:00pm, I heard stumbling footsteps on the stairs leading up to the loft. I turned my trance music down and a hairy head appeared around the corner. Julie was up.

We decided to go grocery shopping at the Safeway down the road. I picked up a savings booklet full of two-for-one deals. An hour later we emerged with six shopping bags each. Using bulk-deals and coupons I had saved a collective $30 on a whole three-weeks worth of groceries. One of the things I enjoy about staying a specific location for longer than a week is that the bulk purchases of preserved food ads up very quickly to major savings.

We had managed to stuff the fridge by bed-time, and I for one was looking forward to reaping the rewards of my carefully planned two-for-one ice-cream purchase.

While falling asleep for the second time in less than twelve hours, and feeling the warmth of my sleeping partner beside me, I thought to myself with a hint of a smile, “Life is so wonderful now”.