There is a long line of people waiting to talk to the gate agent here at SFO gate 70, and I'm listening to them announce the conditions that led to being more than 26 people oversold for this flight. I enjoyed my weekend getaway with Jess in San Francisco this weekend, but SF's not PDX, and I'm grateful that in an hour's time I'll be in a confirmed seat on my way home.
Jess is on her way to Denver as I type this - we're both returning to our respective towns with sunburns and cupcakes from a shop at Ghiradelli Square.
We arrived at our hotel near Union Square late Friday night (due to delays on the Bart because of a switching problem) and it was a scramble to find a place to eat - most of the kitchens had closed already. After dinner we hit up an Irish pub with an older man (who reminded Jess of Peter Griffin from Family Guy) sitting at a piano, singing (poorly) songs everyone knew but haphazardly inserting sexually-suggestive lyrics. At some point after we made it back to our hotel Jess tried to read the map aloud to me and suggest places to visit the next day - but I kept falling asleep as she was talking.
It was incredibly hot in SF on Friday - 91 degrees - and the city had soaked up the heat; we slept with our 5th floor window open and the city noises woke us early on Saturday morning. I went for a run. FYI San Francisco has a lot of hills.
Saturday promised to be a warm day, too, so our overarching goal was to get closer to the water. We set out down Powell to Market in search of food and transit, and after bagels and coffee we wound up walking down Market to the Embarcadero, where we were greeted by a sweet farmer's market. We bought boysenberries grown on a farm in Fairfield and watched a cooking demonstration. (They were making blueberry custard tarts. And giving out samples. Yum.)
We took the F-train down to pier 39, took the obligatory photos of Alcatraz, and kept walking past the Fishermen's Grotto and the Boudin factory toward Ghiradelli Square, where we discovered a small beach and sat in the sun.
Jessica's friend Ryan met us for lunch, and was kind enough to act as our tour guide for the rest of the day. We walked up and down the steps on Lombard street, got gelato in North Beach, and walked through Chinatown and Nob Hill. Later, we had dinner at a Thai place Ryan recommended and then headed to Divisadero street - Frightened Rabbit was playing at the Independent, and maybe it makes me a groupie but as soon as I learned that I bought tickets. Jess was sweet in her willingness to be dragged along, though I think she liked the show, too. (Mostly the same set list as Thursday night's Portland show but three times the crowd size the band members were really excited by that.) We made some new friends at the show, Sandro and Jerod, and together Jerod, Jess, and I took a cab down to Mission District to get drinks at the Elbo Room (on a solid recommendation from Lauren O) - Sandro headed to get his bike but never did meet up with us, but it was fun to hear why Jerod loves SF so much, and he helped us get a cab after they turned on the bright lights in the bar.
Today the weather was much cooler, but we wanted to spend the last hours we had here near the water again, so we headed back to that beach we'd found across from Ghiradelli and sat right on the sand, trying to keep warm. We hit up a cupcake shop we'd meant to visit yesterday and picked In N Out Burger over fish and crab for our last SF meal. Mmmm. We flashed our Muni passes at the F-train driver one last time and made it back to the hotel late enough to warrant cabbing it to SFO.
It was a fantastic weekend, and a great way to catch up and spend some one-on-one time with and old friend and make some new one. Cheers to that!
(And, we're finally boarding. Photos soon.)
glad you had fun & glad you are glad to be back home!
Posted by: lauren_the_jewess | June 23, 2008 at 01:36 PM
SF is one of my favorite cities. Usually June is the coldest month but there was some Jet Stream issue over the entire state of California this weekend so instead it was HOT!. Dad and I celebrated our graduations in SF in 1977 (wow)and drove from there to SD over the next two weeks. The rest is history because we knew we had to get to CA for good someday after that vacation. We always stay at the Sheraton in Fishermans Warf when there and we will go back again some time. Glad you got to see it and had a good time as a tourist.
Posted by: Mom | June 23, 2008 at 06:37 PM
Sounds like it was a great weekend. I would so love to go to SF for a weekend (or longer).
Posted by: Krystin | July 08, 2008 at 02:26 PM