Last weekend, S took me to San Francisco so I could experience it for the first time. It was awesome. But, I've really got to get this part off my chest first: San Francisco is cold. Now, I realize I was there during a freak "heat wave" but I was still freezing! And I also realize that Mark Twain once said something to the effect of "The coldest winter I ever had was the summer I spent in San Francisco." Seriously, it felt like October on the East Coast. Maybe early November. Brr!
But, nevertheless, the trip was great and I'm looking forward to checking out the city again. S and I left early Friday and drove up the coast on the 101 to his mother's house. It was great meeting her, as she's really a pleasure to talk to, which made going out to dinner with her and S that night a lot of fun. She also has a gorgeous garden and the two of us chatted about the beautiful gardens my mother has created in the past.
The moon from her backyard.
The next morning, S and I got up early and headed further up the coast into SF. It sort of looks like New York from a distance, though the first thing you'll notice is that the streets are
steep. There were a few hills S took me down where I actually screamed. Forget roller coasters. Try San Francisco in a stick shift.
Before meeting up with the friends at whose the house we were staying at, he took a slight detour so I could see the "painted ladies."
By the end of the second day in SF I realized there are a lot of "painted ladies" homes in that city.
This is the view from the house where we were staying.
After saying hello and picking up the keys, we jetted off to Napa to see a car show that featured classic and Italian cars. We drove over the Golden Gate bridge, which was, naturally, covered in fog. Though the landscape was dominated by grape vines, I did manage to snap a photo of one of the few areas that wasn't.
Well, it turned out that the car show had been canceled, which was disappointing, but I had gotten to seen Napa and experience the golden gate bridge and for our troubles the nice people at the wine place gave us a $15 wine tasting card. We scooted back to the city and made it to the Haight by 2ish.
The corner of Haight and Ashbury is where Timothy Leary supposedly made LSD in his bathtub, and these days the Haight is jam packed with vintage clothing stores, hippies, and a pair of legs that must belong to the same body as the tongue on Philly's South Street.
After a little bit of shopping and a quick jaunt through people's park, in which there is a really spectacular carousel I didn't take any photos of, we caught out night cruise out to Alcatraz. By the way, the boat's sign for "wet zone" really meant it. Everyone who stayed outside on the back deck got drenched. S and I narrowly escaped getting waterlogged.
This bird was being very rude and squawking through the guide's lecture.
If you go, you've got to listen to the audio tour. You'll look like a dork, but it's worth it.
The view from the top.
This is a banana slug. I thought it was cute. S wanted to touch it. No S! Noooo! He touched it anyway. I don't think it liked it. Sigh.
We capped the night with an incredible dinner at a Cal-American restaurant near S's old house. I think we spent three hours there over a bottle of wine (and of course a bottle of fancy water), and dishes of steak (him) and mahi mahi with avocado curry and rice (me) enraptured in conversation. The next morning I had the loony idea to go through the park across from where we were staying to get coffee. The view was outstanding...
...but the way back was painful and mostly uphill. This is me at the top. The hill didn't like me.
The rest of the morning was spent at dim sum eating ourselves silly on dumplings, chicken feet, and sesame balls. I like two out of the three of those things. Then we took the car over to Lombard street.
Next stop was the Mission, an area of SF that reminded me of Royal Oak or the East Village with its edgy boutiques. The area had some great murals.
After more window shopping and one purchase, we stopped by the Castro to have a quick Burmese appetizer since dinner wasn't until 9 and we were bound to get hungry before then. Dinner was downtown, but we met our friends E and M out in Russian Hill and wandered down to North Beach, which is the Italian district. There were tons of cute bars and restaurants, and we popped into one for a quick drink before dinner. I loved the jukebox that was filled with big band and opera.
The night was spent at a Moroccan resturant where the chicken bastilla was perfect but the entrees too soupy and at the Bigfoot lounge where great music (Nine Inch Nails, old Ministry, Dead Kennedys, etc.) streamed over the speakers. After a hearty French breakfast the next morning, and a quick stop at S's old house, we made our way back to the city of angels.
