San Francisco

Okay, it's a quarter to 11pm, and I finally got these pictures onto the computer... 

Damn...I'm tierd..  Well anyways, last Saturday was an adventure...

After getting a little lost following the instructions I had printed out the night previous from Mapquest, I finally made my way to Pier 39, where I parked the van in a very low ceiling parking structure.  It was a Saturday, and of course, I ended up on the very top floor of the structure.  I really didn't mind.  I much prefer parking on top, then parking in those really low ceiling clastrophoic, and dark parking places.  I always feel like the walls are going to tumble down on me in there, and being in San Francisco in itself, and constantly reminding myself of all all the predictions of the next "BIG ONE"  (earthquake) I was quite content parking at the very top, which had a beautiful view of the city's skyline. 

It was a very busy day at Pier 39...  Lots of people, walking on the Pier, speaking an many different languages..  I love being in places like those.  I don't know why.  May be that is why I love being in airports..  I don't know.  Of course, it's always fun to be with people who has never experienced being in a certain area, and you get to share the whole experience, and learn to see things differently, in other way.  Tania was thrilled.  She had always heard about, and dreamed of being in San Francisco one day, and there she was!  

We decided to go to Bubba Gumps for lunch.  I have this thing for Forrest Gump.  It really is a long story, and I'm not going to go into it right now.  There was a long wait for a table of course.  I don't know how I did it, but I somehow got us all a table in a matter of minutes...and I wasn't even being annoying or obnoxious.  I guess I was just at the right place at the right time.  We were greeted by who else, Forrest as we got to our booth.  Wow, I thought...  It just doesn't get better than this...  But, it does..  I got to actually sit on the bench with the guy.  Of course, this guy was no Tom Hanks, but he was better than nothing...

One place that Tania really wanted to go was Chinatown.  I had the idea of taking a cablecar to the place, but after seeing a hour long wait to get into a packed cablecar, the thought of getting in one of them with a stroller and a 2 yr old after a 1 hour wait, did not sound appealing, so we walked from Ghiridelli Square all the way to Chinatown. 

Do you know there are TWO Chinatowns?

Yeah, there is.  And the cablecar man was wrong.  It wasn't 8 blocks from Fisherman's Wharf..more like 16 blocks.  We found the REAL Chinatown first.  The sidewalks were packed, and busy, full of activity....perhaps too much for all of us.  We nearly had to plow ourselves through with the stroller to walk by.  I'm not a fan of Chinese food, and regretably, I hate to say it, but the smell of dried sea horses, mushrooms, and dried fish heads have not made more of a fan of Chinese cuisine. 

We then walked through a tunnel that must have been 1/4 of a mile long (a little scary with the cars whizzing by only a few feet away from our feet).  This tunnel took us to the financial/shopping district, but making a left we found the "touristy" Chinatown.  By the time we got there, the "thrill" was gone.  Yes, there were some really pretty stores full of large, oversized chandeliers, and greek statues...  Lost of souviner shops, and brass "crickets"... 

Once we got out of Chinatown, we ran into the Italian side of town.  I wish we weren't so tierd, because that side of town, was full of cute and chic, trendy little Italian restaurants, with a lot of tall (yes, tall) Italian men speaking all gangster..  I felt like I was on the street set of the Sopranos...  Very cool..  I want to go back there one day. 

I think by the time we reached our car, we must have each walked at least 5 miles that day.  The only one not complaining of the wind and tierd feet, was of course Nicholas who enjoyed being in the stroller, being carted by Ruben.  I was worried about how he was going to be on this adventure, and he of course, acted like the perfect angel.  Two year olds are so unpreditable.  Poor thing was overdue for a diaper change, but after a new change of diaper and clothes, he was ready for another adventure.  I was thrilled that I only had to pay $18 for parking! 

So, off we went out to the Golden Bridge.  Once the grand structure came into sight, Tania was in complete awe.  It was cute to see how excited she was to be on this bridge, and once we got out of the car, despite the freezing cold, we had a lot of fun taking pictures out there on the observation point.  Afterwards we drove down to Sausalito----(beautiful city, right at the water......I wish I had taken pictures of the coastline....beautiful city....did I say that already?  We finally found a parking space near a small coffee shop, so we stopped there where Ruben treated us all with hot chocolate and crumb cake and brownies.  The girl behind the counter boasted that the crumb cake was voted best "crumb cake of the west coast" so we had to try it.  It was okay..nothing special...though. 

We made our way out of the city around 8pm...  It was a truly a nice day of adventure.

I'm really tierd now..it's a quarter past 11...  I'm beat...