Pub Crawls bring new friends closer

Last week was an absolute blast, Vincent turned into one of my best friends on the whole trip and with him had some really awesome adventures. We met Peter, Miranda, Gersende, Chloe, Cameel, Johanna and Luisa, all of whom were just some of the coolest people you could ever hope to meet. All these people have since moved on however, with Vincent being the last one of them to still be around but even he gone now too. The curse of travel.

I have had so many highs and so many lows on this trip. Hmm, actually, that truly is an understatement. No matter if I wrote the most vivid of writing nor took the most informative of pictures could I ever come close to expressing to everyone what being here has been like. The highs have by far exceeded just about any I have had ever had in my life... and that too can be said true about the lows. Knowing Vincent was about to leave, bringing to a close a really great week of great times and stability, was a low. Not an extreme low (far from it), but it was still disappointing. But it wasn't simply because of his departing, it was far more deeper than that, it's traveling for 2 and a half months solo now starting to take its toll. Whenever something great is happening you know it won't last long (because that's what travel is like, forever shifting), but you don't think about it at the time and you truly feel that (and want it to) last forever and when reality reminds you that it is all so fleeting, it can be shattering. Almost as if you are scared that it won't happen again.

The future is terribly unknown.

So once again I was on my own, uncertain of how long this would last or what my next step was to be. Little did I know at the time that despite the week I had just had, an even better one was about to begin!

When I think about it, I guess it all started the day before Vincent was to leave actually. In my hostel room I met Isabel (Portugal), she was super friendly and really cool, then not long after that I met Phil (Canada), a very easy to talk to guy. With Vincent still around I didn't really talk to either of them at the time for at least another day or two as I was still having the great week that I talked about in my last post. Wednesday nights is pub crawl night at our hostel, and after the three of us chatted away in our hostel room we figured it'd be a cool idea to give it a go, with Vincent coming to meet us later on for his last night in San Francisco.

And wow, what a night that turned out to be!

Beers were cheap and the laughter was a plenty, by the end of the night we were awesome friends.

Me, Isabel, some random creepy guy, and Vincent (not pictured; Phil and Mitch)

During the night there was an ongoing Paper-Scissors-Rock tournament, but we didn't really pay any attention. The beers and company were far more entertaining I'd say. Phil, Isabel and Mitch (a guy we met on the night. I couldn't find a picture of him) were really cool, it felt great to have a group to call friends again so quickly after the last one, especially ones to share a great night out and some beer with. After some late night pizza we all stumbled home at... some time in the morning.

Reminds me of times back in Australia really! Although none of these travel nights could ever really replace my friends and nights out back home =)

The next day I had mentioned to Isabel that I like to spend my days at Starbucks with my laptop, looking and applying for jobs while eating their awesome sandwhiches. She loved the idea so tagged along, cool. Amazingly we find Phil already there, great! I always love company.

So Phil lives in Canada but after a break up from his long term girlfriend he decided he needed a change so has come to America for a few months. Luckily he has a job that he can do from anywhere (damn him!) so he is free to stay with ease. He is actually wanting to find an apartment instead of staying at a hostel (sounds amazing!) so was to be spending his day emailing potential houses.

Isabel has been in America since January on a volunteer program working at nature parks (wow!) for the last three months, but has since finished that and is spending her remaining month trying to see as much of America as she can before returning home. She is very smart and actually manages to make me laugh a hell of a lot, a very cool girl indeed.

I had a feeling at the time, after the great time we had had at the pub crawl the previous night and the chilled hang out at Starbucks for literally the whole day, that this little group of ours was something special and that great things seemed to be in store for us.

I was excited on where this could lead.