City By The Bay

After Reno, we headed West to San Francisco.   En route, we stopped at a coffee shop and tried to figure out where to stay.  We ended up finding an apartment on airbnb and put in our request.  Then we waited.  Three hours later, we arrived in SF and parked and walked around the Ferry Building area.  We still had no word on our airbnb request, and the flood of Giants fans around 5pm made me sad, realizing that the opening day game in the city was TODAY.  We had planned to scalp some tickets the next day.  For the day game.   Damn.

I was trying to get over my schedule mistake when we finally heard from the owner of the apartment, who was in an airport getting ready for an overseas fight.   A quick call and a handful of texts later, we knew what to do and the place was great.  Safe neighborhood.  Big space (for the city). Reasonable parking garage and meter rates nearby.  And...on-demand tv.   This seems funny to even type, because Kasia and I aren't big tv watchers.   But after road-tripping for a couple weeks (plus road tripping at home to visit family before we headed West) a little downtime sounded awesome.   Our first evening included 2 episodes of Scandal and we loved it.

We weren't sure what we were walking into... 

The next day, after a nice walk and checking out the Golden Gate Bridge,  we headed to the super touristy Pier 39.   It's crawling with people and high prices, but it has the seals, and it was something we wanted to see. They were fun to watch.   

...but we walked out with some swag and advice. 

We had about an hour to kill before meeting our friend, Josephine, who we met in Costa Rica, and we happened to park a couple blocks from Pier 39 across from a dive bar called Red Jack Saloon.   A beer later, we had free t-shirts, free drinks and a list of "should see/do" from the bartender and every patron who was in the bar.  Even as new people came in, they were asked by our friendly bartender to participate.  What unexpected fun.   

Even with that, the highlight of our day was dinner with Josephine.  She's awesome, she was a gracious host, she took us for an awesome seafood dinner, and she bought us chocolate.  Shit! We just showed up empty handed and excited to connect with her.  She didn't seem to mind, and it reminded us of how much fun we had with her and Alex and Sara in Costa Rica.

It was such a joy to see Josephine.  We loved it! 

Shady on the outside...

Before we left San Francisco, we hit a hole-in-the-wall sushi joint near Golden Gate Park.   It was scary on the outside, but the food was fresh and delicious.   Who cares if the only drinks are water or tea?  Who cares about the strong smell of weed in the air? Was it the sushi chef? The table of burly men next to us?  I'm not sure, but those really were the only 2 options.   Judging by the numerous plates on that nearby table, I guess it was the big dudes.

...awesome food inside. 

San Francisco was fun and low key.  We did the Alcatraz tour and a couple other SF things several years ago, so it kept us from having that feeling that we must squeeze everything in.