San Francisco, part 1
May. 22nd, 2008 03:47 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
mellymellIs it silly that I've spent time thinking about how I wanted to format my trip synopsis? I think it is, but I can't help it. Do I want to do a day by day, or break it up by subject (e.g. site seeing, food, beaches, etc.)? I think I've settled on a three part synopsis, breaking the trip up by the traveled segments basically. So, the first of three very long parts begins. . .
I hate flying. And it's not at all the flying part. It doesn't make me nervous, in fact I love the feeling in the pit of my stomach as the wheels leave the ground and you're suddenly speeding off into the sky. I even love the landing. I thought of J-9 on my way out to California and wondered if that excitement goes away when you fly on a regular basis or perhaps when you're in control of the plane. But no, what I hate about flying is all the hassle. The specialized packing, the security check, the showing up 2 hours early, the cancellations and delays, the feeling like herded cattle, the fact that economy class seats are just not comfortable even if you don't have a squirmy toddler on your lap.
Anyway, I awoke Wednesday morning to a storm that arrived a day early. I left the house later than I wanted by about 30 minutes, but thought it was no big deal. Surely on a rainy Wednesday morning there wouldn't be any traffic at 5:30am. Unfortunately I was wrong. There was an unbearable amount of traffic for this hour. Then I miss a turn going to Doug's house and it takes me 15 extra minutes to maneuver myself back to where I needed to be. By then, it's full on rush hour and there's probably no way I'm going to make my 7:40am flight. Well, good news, sort of, as I show up to the airport rushing trying to make final boarding by chance, my flight has been canceled due to the storm I'd been fighting across town all morning. So, rather than going through St. Louis, I'll be going through Chicago and I've now got an hour an a half to two hours to kill. Of course, the same storm that canceled my first flight delayed this second one. Unfortunately, the flight wasn't delayed until everyone had boarded and we were taxied onto the runway. So, I got to sit on a plane with Jonah for about an hour. Luckily the lady next to me was very nice. The guy in front of me though gave an annoyed look over his shoulder with every little bump to his chair. Finally we take off, 30 minutes late.
I get to O'Hare and go straight to my next departing gate. Lovely, the flight here has been delayed an extra 30 minutes as well. But every 5 minutes I waited there, they seemed to push it back another 15 minutes until it was another 30 minutes late and scheduled to leave at 1:30pm. Well, Jonah and I grabbed some lunch at a Wolfgang Puck Express nearby, then settled in for the wait. I got nervous when they didn't take care of standbys before boarding. For some reason they did that after boarding instead. In Nashville it was taken care of before. I got on the plane and messaged Brandy that I'd be in town at 4:30pm, a full 4 hours later than anticipated. Still though, I count myself lucky that I arrived the same day I was originally scheduled to. Unfortunately, I was seated between two people on this flight. The guy kind of warmed up to Jonah a little bit, but the girl in the window seat (I think she wasn't feeling well since she didn't have much of a voice when she spoke) I could tell was a little irritated. It's unfortunate when you're stuck on a plane for 4.5 hours with total strangers that don't understand that you can't always control every movement of every appendage of a very active toddler. All in all though I'd say Jonah did very well at keeping to himself and generally not being fussy. I can also say that if you think just using the bathroom in an airplane restroom is difficult, try changing a diaper in one. Count yourself lucky if the restroom at least has a tiny fold out changing table. On the United flight to Hawaii, I had to attempt to change him on my lap! Luckily the American flight out to California had a changing table of sorts.
I met Brandy and Mike at baggage claim and we all rode the Bart downtown toward the hotel. We were staying in The Serrano, one of the convention hotels. It was so nice, though the rooms were small, they were very comfortable and stylish. I can't say that polished granite tile is a great idea for a bathroom floor that tends to be slippery though. Poor Jonah had trouble one morning while I was showering and kept slipping and crying and I couldn't help him while I had shampoo in my hair. There was a wine sampling everyday at 5 or 6pm in the lobby which was nice. In fact, that's where Chris was sitting when we came in. I was really happy to see him. It had been two days we'd been apart at this point. I guess we're saps but I think 3 days is the most we've ever spent apart at once in nearly 8 years and I think total we've spent less than 10 nights apart.
We all went up to the room to unload and regroup and decide what to do for dinner. Magnolia Brewpub on Haight Street was the verdict. We walked up to Market and 5th and caught a very crowded 71 bus. With every stop it just got more crowded it seemed. We hopped off at Haight and Masonic and there we were. The pub was really neat, lots of gorgeous, detailed murals on the walls. The fish and chips Chris and I got were intermingled with squid and other miscellaneous local seafood. The beers were pretty good as well. Nothing just over the top but good. We were all tired by this point so we decided to call it a night. We caught the bus back up to Market and 4th and walked back to the hotel. Chris actually managed to go out that night and do more drinking with some of his conference buddies. It was quite funny to see all the Java One bags running around the Union Square area all week.
Thursday Chris, Jonah and I got up and grabbed a fast breakfast at the Sunflower Cafe about a block down the street from the hotel. The hotel actually had some pretty good coffee in the lobby every morning. I unpacked as I waited for Brandy's call. Since we could all use another cup of coffee, we met at The Coffee Bean to plan the rest of our day. After collecting ourselves and giving Jonah time to chase the pigeons, we headed up Grant Ave toward Chinatown.
I must say, the Grant Street part of Chinatown was kind of neat, if not a little redundant (in that a lot of the stores had similar merchandise), but walking a block over to Stockton revealed an amazing array of authentic markets. The whole street, block by block smelled like K&S. Fantastic looking produce, exotic dried ingredients, fish still flopping on tables and ducks dripping grease in windows. We kept walking up Stockton until all of the sudden in the same block we saw Asian characters fade into Italian flag decals wrapped around light poles and we were suddenly in North Beach.
We stopped off at an Italian bakery so Brandy could buy her mom some amaretto cookies for Mother's Day. Mike and I couldn't resist the amazing baked goods and had to try a couple. Jonah and I shared a fantastic raspberry pastry and Mike got a cannoli. From there we walked across Washington Square Park to a post office so Brandy could mail the cookies to her mom. Then we walked over to the park so Jonah could run around and play for a bit, but only after a quick stop off at a quirky hat shop. Jonah had a blast on the playground and probably got out a bunch of energy. Once he was done playing, we went on the hunt for some lunch. We found a neat little restaurant with outdoor seating where the servers spoke with Italian accents. It was called Trattoria Pinocchio. I think we all thoroughly enjoyed our meals. The pasta I had was completely green with fresh basil pesto. I thought it was green pasta until Jonah sucked all the sauce off some of it.
After lunch, we walked up to Broadway, then followed it to the bay, to Pier 7 exactly. We walked out to the end of the pier and caught a view of Brandy and Mike's home across the bay on Treasure Island. We questioned to ourselves regarding the Asian fishermen for catching anything in the bay for consumption. Seriously, the bay looks about as green and brown as the Tennessee River, but it's not just the color of the water that bugs me. The sheer amount of industrial traffic that runs through there. . . I just wouldn't trust it. Regardless, it was a pretty view and there was a comical scene where a seagull attempted to steal a fisherman's whole bag of bait. He managed to snag a single piece out and give up the bag as the fisherman ran yelling after him. I'm fairly certain the same seagull came back up after devouring the morsel he managed to boost and waited on a light post for another golden opportunity at a snack.
By this time, we were about ready to head back to the hotel to maybe meet up with Chris for the evening. He called while we were on our way to the Ferry Building to leisurely make our way back to the hotel. There were lots of neat shops in the Ferry Building. One that appeared to sell only orchids which were gorgeous and torture to look at knowing I couldn't get any. There were also chocolate and cheese shops as well as a caviar shop. We walked back outside and crossed the street back onto Market Street where there were little booths set up. It looked like mostly local artisans. All sorts of jewelry, some beautiful scarves, very neat handmade wooden pipes, all sorts of neat things.
We kept on up Market stopping off briefly at a Walgreen's so Brandy could get some hair dye to remedy the blond streaks she was sporting. She decided on black and since we had time to kill, she was able to dye it in the hotel room. We walked up to Geary Street then over to Taylor and down to O'Farrell to the hotel on the corner. Mike went out to get a bottle of wine while we waited for the dye to set in Brandy's hair. As kind of a neat, unintentional side effect, the black dye seemed to turn the blond streaks midnight blue. Jonah attempted to get a nap (or rather we attempted to get him to take one) but he resisted in favor of brief rest and more play. Chris was done soon after so we all went downstairs to the lobby for a drink at the wine hour. They had a mediocre beer for offer as well. I guess I can't complain too much since it was free. Incidentally, of all 15,000 people from all over the world that were at this conference, we were sharing a conversation with someone from Huntsville who travels to the Nashville Zoo about once a month with his daughter. Small world indeed.
Brandy wanted to go get a pair of jeans before going out to dinner, so we continued to entertain ourselves in the lobby. Once she returned, the request for seafood was on the table. She had a couple of recommendations for the Sunset area. We split a cab this time, since a bus would have taken forever to get out there. We stopped as far as he could take us, the last block on Noriega before Great Highway. We crossed the highway and walked out onto the sand to view the ocean for just a moment before turning around and heading towards the first of the two restaurants. It was far too cold to stand there much longer than we did. We walked about 15 blocks or so to what I think was a Vietnamese place that seemed to specialize in seafood. While the food looked and smelled intoxicating, the place was packed and there didn't seem to be anyone organizing the full waiting area of people patiently holding out for tables.
So, with the clock incessantly ticking and an uncertain wait time here, we decided to try a sushi place up one more block. The people there were so hospitable! Adorably so. The sushi was very good. We ordered a combo meant to feed 4 people and I really think it could have fed 6 rather well. Jonah devoured some teriaki chicken. As soon as we were done, we snagged a bus back up Noriega toward our hotel and called it a night.
Here is a map of the walking we did this day, not including the 15 blocks or so we walked to the restaurant from the beach. All tolled, it was around 4.5 miles.
Friday was not as packed a day. That's probably a good thing. Jonah and I got up and had a leisurely breakfast at the Sunflower Cafe again. Since we were leaving early the next morning and I didn't know what the rest of the day would be like, I packed up most everything while I waited to hear from Brandy. Once she called, she came and picked me up in her roommate's "child molester van" (think 1970's Dodge conversion van). We drove to the Mission area to grab a cup of chai at Philz Coffee. They do everything by the cup there. That was I think the most delicious cup of chai I've ever had. We wandered up the block and across the street to a taqueria for some lunch. I had the most massive burrito I've had since we were in Albuquerque! It was quite delicious.
Once we were done there, Brandy needed to do some grocery shopping for a dinner she was cooking that night to celebrate another roommate's birthday. I picked up a $30 bottle of beer that I prayed was worth it. Come to find out, I picked out a Deus, considered to be the champagne of beers. It was quite enjoyable, I must say. After the grocery, Brandy dropped me back off at the hotel and headed home to get started on dinner. We were to join them at 7pm that evening.
I tried to get Jonah to lay down for a nap, but was unsuccessful again. Instead, I managed to get a short one myself. Chris got done early with his sessions and had gone to Chinatown with some of the guys he had gone to the sessions with. When he got back, we decided to kill time taking a similar walk that we walked with Brandy and Mike the day before. This time though, we walked up the impossible hill on Powell taking a right turn on California Street and over a block to Stockton. From there we walked up to Columbus again, visited the same Italian bakery Brandy, Mike, Jonah and I had visited the day before and grabbed a cannoli and a couple of Nutella lattes and went on our way toward Pier 39, just to see what all the fuss was about. We walked past the Wharf and that's about as close as I think I want to see it. Basically seems like a mall on a pier and a rather crowded one at that. Lining the streets near it are cheesy t-shirt shops and such. From there we wandered up to Pier 7 again this time along the bay. After a brief rest enjoying the view from the pier, we decided to make our way to the Transbay bus terminal on Mission and 1st to catch the 108 over to Treasure Island and to Brandy's place. As we crossed The Embarcadero a couple handed us a pair of bus transfers that were good until about 8pm. Saved us $3 which was pretty cool.
Here's a map of today's 4.5 mile walk through town. Very similar, yet different from Thursday's walk.
Let me say, Brandy's got an awesome view! About the only pictures I got of San Francisco were from Brandy's back porch. She can see the whole city, Alcatraz, The Golden Gate, the Bay Bridge, the whole bay, all right there. Her roommates were all great. All very nice, hospitable and fun-loving. Brandy cooked a fantastic dinner. Unfortunately Jonah passed out and missed it. We hated to eat and run, but we had to get back to the hotel right after dinner with an early morning flight ahead of us.
I hate flying. And it's not at all the flying part. It doesn't make me nervous, in fact I love the feeling in the pit of my stomach as the wheels leave the ground and you're suddenly speeding off into the sky. I even love the landing. I thought of J-9 on my way out to California and wondered if that excitement goes away when you fly on a regular basis or perhaps when you're in control of the plane. But no, what I hate about flying is all the hassle. The specialized packing, the security check, the showing up 2 hours early, the cancellations and delays, the feeling like herded cattle, the fact that economy class seats are just not comfortable even if you don't have a squirmy toddler on your lap.
Anyway, I awoke Wednesday morning to a storm that arrived a day early. I left the house later than I wanted by about 30 minutes, but thought it was no big deal. Surely on a rainy Wednesday morning there wouldn't be any traffic at 5:30am. Unfortunately I was wrong. There was an unbearable amount of traffic for this hour. Then I miss a turn going to Doug's house and it takes me 15 extra minutes to maneuver myself back to where I needed to be. By then, it's full on rush hour and there's probably no way I'm going to make my 7:40am flight. Well, good news, sort of, as I show up to the airport rushing trying to make final boarding by chance, my flight has been canceled due to the storm I'd been fighting across town all morning. So, rather than going through St. Louis, I'll be going through Chicago and I've now got an hour an a half to two hours to kill. Of course, the same storm that canceled my first flight delayed this second one. Unfortunately, the flight wasn't delayed until everyone had boarded and we were taxied onto the runway. So, I got to sit on a plane with Jonah for about an hour. Luckily the lady next to me was very nice. The guy in front of me though gave an annoyed look over his shoulder with every little bump to his chair. Finally we take off, 30 minutes late.
I get to O'Hare and go straight to my next departing gate. Lovely, the flight here has been delayed an extra 30 minutes as well. But every 5 minutes I waited there, they seemed to push it back another 15 minutes until it was another 30 minutes late and scheduled to leave at 1:30pm. Well, Jonah and I grabbed some lunch at a Wolfgang Puck Express nearby, then settled in for the wait. I got nervous when they didn't take care of standbys before boarding. For some reason they did that after boarding instead. In Nashville it was taken care of before. I got on the plane and messaged Brandy that I'd be in town at 4:30pm, a full 4 hours later than anticipated. Still though, I count myself lucky that I arrived the same day I was originally scheduled to. Unfortunately, I was seated between two people on this flight. The guy kind of warmed up to Jonah a little bit, but the girl in the window seat (I think she wasn't feeling well since she didn't have much of a voice when she spoke) I could tell was a little irritated. It's unfortunate when you're stuck on a plane for 4.5 hours with total strangers that don't understand that you can't always control every movement of every appendage of a very active toddler. All in all though I'd say Jonah did very well at keeping to himself and generally not being fussy. I can also say that if you think just using the bathroom in an airplane restroom is difficult, try changing a diaper in one. Count yourself lucky if the restroom at least has a tiny fold out changing table. On the United flight to Hawaii, I had to attempt to change him on my lap! Luckily the American flight out to California had a changing table of sorts.
I met Brandy and Mike at baggage claim and we all rode the Bart downtown toward the hotel. We were staying in The Serrano, one of the convention hotels. It was so nice, though the rooms were small, they were very comfortable and stylish. I can't say that polished granite tile is a great idea for a bathroom floor that tends to be slippery though. Poor Jonah had trouble one morning while I was showering and kept slipping and crying and I couldn't help him while I had shampoo in my hair. There was a wine sampling everyday at 5 or 6pm in the lobby which was nice. In fact, that's where Chris was sitting when we came in. I was really happy to see him. It had been two days we'd been apart at this point. I guess we're saps but I think 3 days is the most we've ever spent apart at once in nearly 8 years and I think total we've spent less than 10 nights apart.
We all went up to the room to unload and regroup and decide what to do for dinner. Magnolia Brewpub on Haight Street was the verdict. We walked up to Market and 5th and caught a very crowded 71 bus. With every stop it just got more crowded it seemed. We hopped off at Haight and Masonic and there we were. The pub was really neat, lots of gorgeous, detailed murals on the walls. The fish and chips Chris and I got were intermingled with squid and other miscellaneous local seafood. The beers were pretty good as well. Nothing just over the top but good. We were all tired by this point so we decided to call it a night. We caught the bus back up to Market and 4th and walked back to the hotel. Chris actually managed to go out that night and do more drinking with some of his conference buddies. It was quite funny to see all the Java One bags running around the Union Square area all week.
Thursday Chris, Jonah and I got up and grabbed a fast breakfast at the Sunflower Cafe about a block down the street from the hotel. The hotel actually had some pretty good coffee in the lobby every morning. I unpacked as I waited for Brandy's call. Since we could all use another cup of coffee, we met at The Coffee Bean to plan the rest of our day. After collecting ourselves and giving Jonah time to chase the pigeons, we headed up Grant Ave toward Chinatown.
I must say, the Grant Street part of Chinatown was kind of neat, if not a little redundant (in that a lot of the stores had similar merchandise), but walking a block over to Stockton revealed an amazing array of authentic markets. The whole street, block by block smelled like K&S. Fantastic looking produce, exotic dried ingredients, fish still flopping on tables and ducks dripping grease in windows. We kept walking up Stockton until all of the sudden in the same block we saw Asian characters fade into Italian flag decals wrapped around light poles and we were suddenly in North Beach.
We stopped off at an Italian bakery so Brandy could buy her mom some amaretto cookies for Mother's Day. Mike and I couldn't resist the amazing baked goods and had to try a couple. Jonah and I shared a fantastic raspberry pastry and Mike got a cannoli. From there we walked across Washington Square Park to a post office so Brandy could mail the cookies to her mom. Then we walked over to the park so Jonah could run around and play for a bit, but only after a quick stop off at a quirky hat shop. Jonah had a blast on the playground and probably got out a bunch of energy. Once he was done playing, we went on the hunt for some lunch. We found a neat little restaurant with outdoor seating where the servers spoke with Italian accents. It was called Trattoria Pinocchio. I think we all thoroughly enjoyed our meals. The pasta I had was completely green with fresh basil pesto. I thought it was green pasta until Jonah sucked all the sauce off some of it.
After lunch, we walked up to Broadway, then followed it to the bay, to Pier 7 exactly. We walked out to the end of the pier and caught a view of Brandy and Mike's home across the bay on Treasure Island. We questioned to ourselves regarding the Asian fishermen for catching anything in the bay for consumption. Seriously, the bay looks about as green and brown as the Tennessee River, but it's not just the color of the water that bugs me. The sheer amount of industrial traffic that runs through there. . . I just wouldn't trust it. Regardless, it was a pretty view and there was a comical scene where a seagull attempted to steal a fisherman's whole bag of bait. He managed to snag a single piece out and give up the bag as the fisherman ran yelling after him. I'm fairly certain the same seagull came back up after devouring the morsel he managed to boost and waited on a light post for another golden opportunity at a snack.
By this time, we were about ready to head back to the hotel to maybe meet up with Chris for the evening. He called while we were on our way to the Ferry Building to leisurely make our way back to the hotel. There were lots of neat shops in the Ferry Building. One that appeared to sell only orchids which were gorgeous and torture to look at knowing I couldn't get any. There were also chocolate and cheese shops as well as a caviar shop. We walked back outside and crossed the street back onto Market Street where there were little booths set up. It looked like mostly local artisans. All sorts of jewelry, some beautiful scarves, very neat handmade wooden pipes, all sorts of neat things.
We kept on up Market stopping off briefly at a Walgreen's so Brandy could get some hair dye to remedy the blond streaks she was sporting. She decided on black and since we had time to kill, she was able to dye it in the hotel room. We walked up to Geary Street then over to Taylor and down to O'Farrell to the hotel on the corner. Mike went out to get a bottle of wine while we waited for the dye to set in Brandy's hair. As kind of a neat, unintentional side effect, the black dye seemed to turn the blond streaks midnight blue. Jonah attempted to get a nap (or rather we attempted to get him to take one) but he resisted in favor of brief rest and more play. Chris was done soon after so we all went downstairs to the lobby for a drink at the wine hour. They had a mediocre beer for offer as well. I guess I can't complain too much since it was free. Incidentally, of all 15,000 people from all over the world that were at this conference, we were sharing a conversation with someone from Huntsville who travels to the Nashville Zoo about once a month with his daughter. Small world indeed.
Brandy wanted to go get a pair of jeans before going out to dinner, so we continued to entertain ourselves in the lobby. Once she returned, the request for seafood was on the table. She had a couple of recommendations for the Sunset area. We split a cab this time, since a bus would have taken forever to get out there. We stopped as far as he could take us, the last block on Noriega before Great Highway. We crossed the highway and walked out onto the sand to view the ocean for just a moment before turning around and heading towards the first of the two restaurants. It was far too cold to stand there much longer than we did. We walked about 15 blocks or so to what I think was a Vietnamese place that seemed to specialize in seafood. While the food looked and smelled intoxicating, the place was packed and there didn't seem to be anyone organizing the full waiting area of people patiently holding out for tables.
So, with the clock incessantly ticking and an uncertain wait time here, we decided to try a sushi place up one more block. The people there were so hospitable! Adorably so. The sushi was very good. We ordered a combo meant to feed 4 people and I really think it could have fed 6 rather well. Jonah devoured some teriaki chicken. As soon as we were done, we snagged a bus back up Noriega toward our hotel and called it a night.
Here is a map of the walking we did this day, not including the 15 blocks or so we walked to the restaurant from the beach. All tolled, it was around 4.5 miles.
Friday was not as packed a day. That's probably a good thing. Jonah and I got up and had a leisurely breakfast at the Sunflower Cafe again. Since we were leaving early the next morning and I didn't know what the rest of the day would be like, I packed up most everything while I waited to hear from Brandy. Once she called, she came and picked me up in her roommate's "child molester van" (think 1970's Dodge conversion van). We drove to the Mission area to grab a cup of chai at Philz Coffee. They do everything by the cup there. That was I think the most delicious cup of chai I've ever had. We wandered up the block and across the street to a taqueria for some lunch. I had the most massive burrito I've had since we were in Albuquerque! It was quite delicious.
Once we were done there, Brandy needed to do some grocery shopping for a dinner she was cooking that night to celebrate another roommate's birthday. I picked up a $30 bottle of beer that I prayed was worth it. Come to find out, I picked out a Deus, considered to be the champagne of beers. It was quite enjoyable, I must say. After the grocery, Brandy dropped me back off at the hotel and headed home to get started on dinner. We were to join them at 7pm that evening.
I tried to get Jonah to lay down for a nap, but was unsuccessful again. Instead, I managed to get a short one myself. Chris got done early with his sessions and had gone to Chinatown with some of the guys he had gone to the sessions with. When he got back, we decided to kill time taking a similar walk that we walked with Brandy and Mike the day before. This time though, we walked up the impossible hill on Powell taking a right turn on California Street and over a block to Stockton. From there we walked up to Columbus again, visited the same Italian bakery Brandy, Mike, Jonah and I had visited the day before and grabbed a cannoli and a couple of Nutella lattes and went on our way toward Pier 39, just to see what all the fuss was about. We walked past the Wharf and that's about as close as I think I want to see it. Basically seems like a mall on a pier and a rather crowded one at that. Lining the streets near it are cheesy t-shirt shops and such. From there we wandered up to Pier 7 again this time along the bay. After a brief rest enjoying the view from the pier, we decided to make our way to the Transbay bus terminal on Mission and 1st to catch the 108 over to Treasure Island and to Brandy's place. As we crossed The Embarcadero a couple handed us a pair of bus transfers that were good until about 8pm. Saved us $3 which was pretty cool.
Here's a map of today's 4.5 mile walk through town. Very similar, yet different from Thursday's walk.
Let me say, Brandy's got an awesome view! About the only pictures I got of San Francisco were from Brandy's back porch. She can see the whole city, Alcatraz, The Golden Gate, the Bay Bridge, the whole bay, all right there. Her roommates were all great. All very nice, hospitable and fun-loving. Brandy cooked a fantastic dinner. Unfortunately Jonah passed out and missed it. We hated to eat and run, but we had to get back to the hotel right after dinner with an early morning flight ahead of us.
