Seeking An Extraordinary Life - A Travel Journal

I wake at half seven on the dot having had about three and a half hours sleep, gummy-mouthed and dizzy and wondering whether my new ability to wake up without an alarm is really worth it. Definitely not feeling like any strenuous activity I shower, fetch a chai and a sausage breakfast muffin from Starbucks and spend the entire morning chilling on a couch in the living room, chatting with friends and watching the hostel crowd come and go until it's time to finish packing and head out, the familiar weight of my rucksack settling across my shoulders.

Whenever I'm leaving somewhere I say it gets harder, but it's more true here than ever. I've been in this hostel for almost a month and a half, and it really has felt like a home to me. For all its aggravations and difficulties I've become used to hostel life, its sociability, the constant bustle (and drama) and most of all sharing a space every day with people who've become more than friends to me, more like family. Leaving is overwhelmingly emotional, and I'm almost in tears by the time I get round hugging everybody and saying goodbye.

The BART ride to the airport gives me my last glimpse of San Francisco, the bright early-afternoon sunlight pouring over the hilly streets and red roofs of what has become my favourite city in the world (so far - plenty more to go!) The BART runs directly into San Francisco International airport, and it's a short monorail ride to Terminal 1 from which my flight departs.

My flight is slightly delayed and I sit in the packed gate area eating a criminally overpriced garden salad (fifteen dollars with a bottle of Sprite) and playing on my laptop until it's time to board up. When the plane leaves the runway with that delicious shock of acceleration and my stomach lurches as we bank east, I begin to feel the joy of travelling again.

We cross the bay, over the sprawl that is Oakland and the east bay area, and then we're above the clouds and it's already getting dark. When we drop below the clouds over Vegas the city is an endless network of tiny orange lights against perfect black - we turn, dip and maneuver back and forth to line up for the runway, then come back in from the pitch dark of the mountains and over that neon prayer rug. The Strip stands out a mile, a string of vast complexes and towers dwarfing the almost-flat cityscape around them.

At baggage claim I am greeted by Deidre in a black knitted hoodie, a huge grin and a new caramel-and-cream hair colour under which her eyes glow with joyful madness. Hugs and luggage dealt with we walk out into a shockingly warm night - having watched San Francisco make the transition to a beautiful autumn, I've flown straight back into summer again.

Our first stop (after some navigational complications) is the University of Nevada, for an art show by Deidre's friend Bekah Just. It's a retrospective of her ex-boyfriends with a satirical baseball theme, and is titled "Three Strikes, You're Out". Afterwards we sit outside in the warm evening and drink beer and munch frankfurters, candyfloss and Crackerjack and chat.

Then it's a long drive down the Strip, and I finally come face to face with Las Vegas in all its insane glory. I had always assumed that the Vegas I'd seen in movies and TV would be an exaggeration, but in fact they come nowhere close to capturing it. On the screen you see the casinos in isolation, in real life they are one inconceivably vast complex of overlapping towers, frontages, courtyards, fountains, walls of neon and glass, endless display screens, plus the crazy scenery of pirate ships and pillars and trees. It seems to stretch forever, unfolding new avenues and gateways from every angle. Reno looks like Blackpool by comparison.

When we finally reach the point where the neon peters out and begin to head out to the house Deidre shares with her mum and her boyfriend, I feel like I'm coming out of complete sensory overload and exhaustion is starting to catch up with me. But by the time I've dropped my gear, met Mark (a big, jovial man with a shaved head, earring and little rectangular half-frame glasses who is just finishing a recording session with a client in his garage studio) my energy has returned, and the three of us spend a very pleasant evening in a nearby Irish bar with a couple of pints of (in my case) really-not-bad Murphy's draft, chatting and catching up.