Our visit to the other bay

Prior to this past week, the extent of my San Francisco knowledge came directly from the opening credits of Full House.

Now I've learned enough to know that the classic 80s sitcom wasn't even filmed there.

But I also learned that San Francisco is a pretty cool city, especially once you learn to stop fearing the hills.

We arrived on Tuesday and navigated our way on BART from the Oakland Airport to our home away from home, the Orchard Hotel. Located right on the Powell Street Cable Car line, the hotel's location couldn't be better. And the free internet access and breakfast sweetened the deal even more.

After a nice afternoon nap we ventured into Chinatown, just a block from the hotel. We expected to find some good food and prices but weren't overly wowed. It seemed more touristy than anything and Rich certainly lamented the lack of vegetables in our chow mein.

Wednesday, the Fourth of July, brought us a San Francisco City tour as well as our visit to Alcatraz. The city tour covered all the important tourist spots like the Golden Gate Bridge, the Painted Ladies/Postcard Row, a view from atop Twin Peaks, the Castro, Union Square, and a drive past what we were told was Haight-Asbury. (I considered a return visit to actually explore the Haight-Asbury neighborhood but my meager hippie tendencies, which really don't extend beyond my Birkenstocks, voted no.)

We finished off the Fourth with a dinner of dungeness crab, which I found to be surprisingly tasty. It's clearly not my beloved steamed crabs of Maryland, but the garlic sauce served as a satisfactory one-time substitute for Old Bay. If only we could get enormous crabs like that here and not have to sell off vital organs to afford it.

We reserved Thursday for our little jaunt down into Silicon Valley so Rich could complete his work component of our trip. I drove the sporty little blue Mustang up and down my carefully planned route so we could hit all the big tech companies like Apple, Yahoo!, Google, Intel, etc. (Note: I only opted for the Ford Mustang after the Corolla I reserved was no longer available and I had to choose between the cute sports car and a ginormous sedan popular among the over-70 crowd.) We ended Thursday by taking in Jersey Boys at the Curran Theater.

Friday was definitely the highlight of the trip for me. We took the cable car to the top of Lombard Street and wandered down the windy street, expressing far too much enjoyment as cars tried to navigate the windy path. We wandered down to Washington Square and watched people do tai chi (presumably) until the start of our food tour. I can't rave about that tour enough and I'll elaborate on it in my next post.

I miss San Francisco. I really miss the weather where we enjoyed temps in the 60s and 70s all the time. I won't, however, miss the street people who always have their hands out. But hey, at least most of the panhandlers in San Francisco try to offer some sort of service in return for a donation. In Baltimore they just rob you.

I'd like to return to San Francisco one day, maybe even as part of a future cruise. You can't beat the weather and at least the hills would help me walk off some of the food I gorged myself on.

And speaking of food, be sure to stay tuned for my next post featuring the glorious food tour of San Francisco. Mmmmmmm. Focaccia!!!!