Winning so far in San Francisco

It's just after 8pm and I've been awake for 21 hours, hooray me! This is something of an achievement, as I was anticipating crashing out and possibly just curling up and crying in the lounge of Hostelling International City Center, if I even made it that far.

I've yet to eat since getting off the plane 5-and-a-bit hours ago, and it's looking unlikely now that I will before I go to bed. My entire body is confused and I'm too tired to make decisions as complicated as what food to order. I just about managed to buy a snapple in the 7-11 with some of the dozens of quarters the BART machine gave me in change for my tickets from the airport.

Actually the journey was really quite straightforward. Almost too much so. At Heathrow I pined a bit for the days when visiting an airport was so exciting I wrote poems about it (this was in primary school by the way), and mused about how it sucks that growing up means you stop seeing life for what it really is - whether it's the miracle that Clare has actually got eyes, or the ridiculous marvel of a machine that launches you thousands of feet into the air and half way around the world.

Eleven hours on a plane is really longer than is sensible, though. The slightly too-friendly Irish man next to me introduced himself as "James" at the start of the journey and complained about the lack of legroom, a problem which he dealt with by frequently invading my own space.

I passed the time with British Airways' "High Life" entertainment selections (which meant the theme tune to the early nineties Scottish BBC sitcom of the same name was in my head for much of the day).

First I chose A Beautiful Mind. I had a vhs of it somewhere that I'd been meaning to watch for ages, and so it seemed like something to tick off my "to do" list. Intellectual point no.2 for me. (Point no.1 came with my purchasing the Economist at Heathrow, although I've only read one article in it, about the growing population of Africa and how it might be good, but might be bad... or something like that.).

2 seemed like enough intellectual points for the day, and so my next choice of movie-themed entertainment came in the shape of Zac Effron (and alternately Matthew Perry) in the wonderful "17 Again". When my life feels like such a big unknown at the moment, there's something very comforting about watching a film that's so mind-numbingly predictable. (And I'm convinced that every twenty-something has a secret crush on Zac Effron.)

I interspersed the idiot box with a few wanders around the plane, making sure to make the most of the free British Airways alcoholic beverages and snacks. My favourite part of flying across the Atlantic, however, has to be staring at Greenland.

Greenland is just ridiculously, stupidly desolate, hostile and beautiful. Anybody who starts talking about how perfectly suited the Earth is for mankind to live in it should take a look at Greenland. I know the normal projection of the map exaggerates its size, but it's still pretty damn huge, and there's almost no sign of life at all - not human life. Greenland is just not fussed that humans exist - it's too busy being hardcore with all its glaciers and mountains. According to Wikipedia it has a population about half the size of Stockport, but I reckon they must all be huddled together in a tiny corner like penguins.

Anyway, somehow my flight went, we had a beautifully smooth landing at SFO, and I made it through the ordeal of border control (after an 11-hour flight I find their interrogations so intense they make me so confused that I start to question whether I really do deserve entry into the country... and perhaps I have been involved in espionage... I can't remember... and where was I between 1933 and 1945...?).

Cursing my ridiculously heavy suitcase, I walked from the Civic Center BART stop 5 blocks north on Larkin (see how I'm like American already?), past a whole host of questionable characters with shopping carts full of blankets like you see in the films, and eventually found the hostel. Guy on the desk is v.v. gay and reminds me of one of the characters in Milk- which fits, I suppose, given that we are in San Francisco 'n' all. It's all friendly and nice, and I showered enough to wake myself up and decided to go and brave a walk downtown.

I made it all the way to the Ferry Port, where there was a nice view of Bay Bridge, and then caught the Cable Car back up the iconic steep streets. Somehow managed not to pay for the $5 ride - I think the ticket dude thought I was with this middle-aged couple who waved their passes at him. Ah well.

Righty-ho. I'm expecting my body to switch off very suddenly in the next few minutes, and I've not even made my bed yet. I hope none of my roommates snore.