i know everyone says it’s cold and rainy and windy, blah, blah, blah. well, turns out, they are lying! really, i know this to be true because i went there and it was perfect! and it’s also, pretty and fun and bustling and creative…
which leads to the obvious conclusion: everyone that lives there is lying through their teeth about the weather as a means to keep the entire country from moving to their city!! secret is out.
okay, so now that that is cleared up, here is the recap of our trip, mostly in pictures, with some words in between.
FRIDAY
we kicked off our weekend by taking virgin america for the short, one hour flight, to san francisco . virgin is pretty hip. they have mood lighting (as shown) and screens at every seat with music, games, online ordering of food, a map tracking your location/altitude/speed, satellite tv, etc, etc. and you can IM people all over the plane based on seat number. not that i did… but i could have, and that is the point.
when we made it to san francisco and to our hotel – the intercontinental in union square, which was very new and very big and very nice – michael saw the clean room with the big, white, smooth, untouched comforter, without a wrinkle insight, and he immediately did this:
he is 26. in case this made you wonder.
SATURDAY
since we had, literally, only 48 hours to see the city, we got moving fast. we were out of the hotel room by 8:45am and on the move.
first stop: chinatown
i’d read about a fortune cookie factory that you can find by going down a little alley in chinatown. i really, really like seeing things get made, especially things you can then eat, so we obviously had to go.
we found it, we saw it, we bought the cookies.
surely the freshest fortune cookies we will ever eat. very crunchy.
michael got a fortune advising him to focus on the color purple to bring him luck.
mine said to be frugal.
i’m pretty sure the fortune cookie gods got our fortunes swapped on accident.
next up: cable car ride
we caught a cable car in chinatown , rode about ½ a block, then came to an incline, and then the car broke and came to a complete stop. so we sat in a stationary cable car, in the middle of the street, for about 5 mins until a big truck came and literally pushed us up the hill! the truck driver got us to the top, gave a little friendly two pulse honk, and off we rolled down the hill. i’m not sure if getting pushed by a truck made the ride more or less authentic…?
broken or not, our ‘special’ cable car got us here:
and then it was time for breakfast. adding to my obsession with michael’s iphone is its ability to yelp on the go. (yelp= user restaurant reviews) you can type in ‘breakfast’ and ‘near current position’ and lo-and-behold there’s a very highly rated little café just 3 blocks from where you’re standing, on a street you probably wouldn’t have wondered down had yelp not guided you do it. now replace all of those “you’s” in the previous sentence with “we’s” and that is what we did.
so, we found pat’s café and had this for breakfast:
after breakfast we were off to firsherman’s wharf, with a view of alcatraz island, and to hang out with the sea lions.
after the wharf we made our way to the golden gate bridge. we wanted to walk the bridge but didn’t want to do it twice, so we walked to the half way point and back. good enough for me.
by the way, i read that it’s the most photographed man made structure in the world (i don’t think I believe this, and michael definitely doesn’t believe it, but that is what my fodors book told me) and just in case you’ve never seen a photo of the golden gate bridge (you have!), here it is:
and in case you’ve never seen a photo of us in front of the golden gate bridge (you haven’t!) here we are:
(just ignore that really ugly chain link fence. this just happened to be the view available when we found a single girl that we deemed to look trust worthy enough – and frail enough to outrun and tackle if need be – to hand our camera to take our picture)
next we headed the the golden gate park just to wander around and around…
and look at nature…
and finally, after alllll of this, we were completely exhausted! so we went back to the hotel for a rest. buuuuuut first we grabbed a sandwich to split (of avocado, goat cheese, celery, watercress, and walnut pesto– so good) at wichcraft on the way.
After a nap and some tv we were ready to head back out to meet my friend melanie (we went to school together and she’s now living in san fran) for dinner at Citizen Cake, which was our third, and final, very good meal of the day.
……… stay tuned for the exciting conclusion of our 48 hours in san francisco.
(this just already a really too-long post. i’ll be back with sunday’s recap tomorrow!)
