![](\"http:\/\/photos1.blogger.com\/hello\/23\/2133\/640\/DSCF0032.0.jpg\")
<\/a>First things first in SF, get lunch!
![](\"http:\/\/photos1.blogger.com\/hello\/23\/2133\/640\/DSCF0033.0.jpg\")
<\/a><\/p>\nWhile once a hippie nexus, the street is full of cafes and vintage clothing stores now. We went to the Red Vic Movie House<\/a> and saw a documentary called 24 hours on Craigslist<\/a>. It was obviously low budget but you don’t notice because it had such hilarious content. It was the perfect way to feel like a local on a rainy afternoon. <\/p>\n What an amazing weekend. After getting off of work early, Ben and I had dinner at the Cheesecake Factory before seeing Swan Lake. Hmm, that merits its own post, so I’ll add that later. The next morning . . . San Francisco, California!(brace yourself for a lot of pictures) We took the BART into town […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4438","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","post-preview"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/eaumaison.us\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4438","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/eaumaison.us\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/eaumaison.us\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eaumaison.us\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eaumaison.us\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4438"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/eaumaison.us\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4438\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11648,"href":"https:\/\/eaumaison.us\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4438\/revisions\/11648"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/eaumaison.us\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4438"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eaumaison.us\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4438"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eaumaison.us\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4438"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}<\/a>
Sorry it’s blurry (I hate the way flash looks). Bento boxes started the trip.<\/a>
We quickly spotted our future penthouse apartment.<\/a>
Getting our bearings. We rode the bus everywhere. San Francisco has great public transit.<\/a>
Chinatown: window gazing and a vanilla cake snack (the puffy ones).<\/a>
Then onto North Beach. I liked that all the posts are painted this way.<\/a>
We decided to cut east to Lombard street. I was out of breath before the hard part!<\/a>
Great view from the top though.<\/a>
‘Nough said.<\/p>\n<\/a>
After the most amazing hot cocoa I have ever sipped, we went back to North Beach for dinner. Of all the Italian restaurants, we happened to pick the Mona Lisa, where I went with my family the last time I was in SF! I had a delicious artichoke ravioli with tomato cream sauce.<\/a>
Our hotel, the Stratford, was right on Powell and Market. Very convenient. A bit noisy at night with one begger playing Christmas carols on his violin, another banging plastic tubs and singing Rice-A-Roni, and a third banging Chinese drums in the morning with his friend playing a recorder. Add to that the cables churning underground, and it’s a good thing we were exhausted every day and didn’t have trouble sleeping. <\/a>
Small rooms, but clean and smartly decorated.<\/a>
The elevator was incredibly slow. One time we tried taking the stairs to our room on the 6th floor. Only one time.<\/a>
Cute breakfast room overlooking the street.<\/a>
The F Line streetcar was our favorite route. It was quick, convenient, and fun to ride the old cars.<\/a>
Ah! Look how relaxed these two strangers are.<\/a>
This is the farmer’s market on Saturday morning at the Ferry Building. So much wonderful produce!<\/a>
Ben’s new favorite orange is the cara cara, seen here.<\/a>
no comment<\/a>
At the wharf. We tried to buy Alcatrez tickets but they were sold out until Monday. Oh well, there was so much else to do, like seal gazing.<\/a>
At the Boudin bakery museum, Ben provided a little free tech support with their jammed printer.<\/a>
The vault with the MASTER MOLD!!!!<\/a>
Mmm, sourdough . . .<\/a>
We thought it was hilarious that there’s a GAP squarely on Haight and Ashberry. <\/p>\n<\/a>
Dinner was at Bangkok Noodles back near Union Square. Ben had Tom Yum soup that made him cry from the heat (very unusual for him) and I had yellow curry chicken. That’s a gardenia in my hair he bought on Haight after our movie.<\/a>
Ghiradelli still has the best sundaes.<\/a>
Oh! The visions of my childhood revisited!<\/a>
Sunday morning, the museum wasn’t open yet, so we wanted to hike up to Coit Tower. Unfortunately, the Tour of California had the same plan.<\/a>
We made it!<\/a>
Look at all the supporters cheering us on. \ud83d\ude09 They also gave us energy bar samples, how thoughtful!<\/a>
Such a beautiful day, we wanted to do more walking before going to the museum. This is back in North Beach at City Lights bookstore. <\/a>
Lunch across the street<\/a>
Cheesesteaks and garlic fries.<\/a>
In the Presidio neighborhood I found another sweet from my younger years.<\/a>
It’s amazing to see calla lilies growing all over.<\/a>
Change of plans: instead of the museum we walked all the way from the Exploratorium to Sausilito. This is halfway, on the bridge.<\/a>
Dang, that’s a long way to walk. Our feet are killing us and we didn’t plan for bringing water or snacks. But it was worth it.<\/a>
Remember this?<\/a>
Took a ferry and bus back to Union Square where we had Indian food, cheesecake, and collapsed into bed.<\/a>
It was a fantastic trip. I only wish we had another day or two to see more. We didn’t get to the Golden Gate park, any museums, Castro neighborhood, Cowhill shopping, etc. But it was a great and memorable birthday.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"