San Francisco

San Francisco. I'd never been to California before, and it's something I'd say was on my bucket list. Technically, my first time in California was along the border of Lake Tahoe, but it was San Francisco where we spent four nights. We walked around near our classy hotel and found that the residents of San Francisco are quite a diverse group, and my feelings toward San Fransisco are as diverse as the people we saw. It's a tourist destination, and we heard many people speaking other languages. There were classy, rich looking people, walking into stores that we didn't even feel fancy enough to step into. There were people with tattered clothes, muttering to themselves.

We went to the Farmer's Market in the Ferry Building held on Saturdays. We bought homemade sourdough bread, fresh cherries, farm made cheese, giant strawberries, salmon spread, and juicy peaches. It was one of my favorite bits of the trip, home grown goodies all piled together for us to take back to our hotel.

We drove around San Fransisco, popping into little shops, paying WAY TOO MUCH for parking, taking on Lombard Street and the general, crazy hills, crossing the Golden Gate Bridge just after sunrise, and wandering through the Haight-Ashbury District. Like all tourists, I'd recommend the Golden Gate Bridge and Lombard street (go early, because there was no one on it when we went down at 7:00, but later we passed it and it was bumper to bumper), but if you're looking for my non-touristy recommendation, in the Haight-Asbury District, we found a Goodwill.

The thing about Thrift Stores is that ANY thing can be in ANY thrift store at ANY time. Different people have different daydreams, but when I find a thrift store, I always daydream that I'll find Legos or American Girl dolls for cheap. In the Haight-Ashbury District Goodwill, I found Molly (an American Girl Doll) for $1.99. Magic.

I'll do a whole post on the San Fransisco Zoo, but the other notable experience we had in San Fransisco happened on the last full day we spent in California. Because of the lack of parking, we were paying $47.00 a day to have our rental car valet parked with our hotel. We called ahead on the last day for our car, and then went downstairs to wait for the bellhop to hand us our key. After an abnormally long wait, he approached us, a little less than his usual, charismatic self, "We're having just a small problem with your car. Your car is safe! No problem there! It's safe and in the garage! ..... You don't happen to have a spare key, do you?" The answer to his question was, unfortunately, no, and we lost five hours that day while we worked out what was the best method of getting us back on the road (with Charlotte's carseat locked in the car). It was a hassle, of course, to lose so much time and be inconvenienced, but in the end, it saved us $200.00 in valet charges, so we're taking it as a gift. Plus, Brian Regan was on Comedy Central once we went back to our room to wait, so, nothing lost.