San Francisco

This past weekend found me visiting Tara in San Fransisco. No, Oakland. No, actually I think she lives in Emeryville.

Anyway, it was a good time.

(Warning, this post is pretty darn long. If you need to go somewhere or do something soon just be prepared to stop reading. You can always pick up where you left off later.)




Thanks to a suggestion from Amanda, Tara and I found ourselves at Zachary's Pizza. It looked a little like this:

So we walk in, and the first person who greets us starts telling us about the place and the menu. We look it over and ask if we can do half and half. She says, "Yeah, but we have a policy here and we can't guarantee perfect halves." We just stared at her.
Then I said, "So, you've had a problem like that in the past?"
She looks at us and says, "Where are you guys from?"
We tell her.
She replies, "Oh. Well, this is North Berkeley, and people like exact halves."

Good tip, I think.

We are told we can pre-order, so we go up to the counter and place our request. The guy says, "Okay, but we have a policy here and we can't guarantee perfect halves."
We assured him it would be quite all right, and then we were led to this table:

The table with the only old-school chairs.

I guess we just got lucky.


After dinner we went downtown and what did we find?! The Berkeley Public Library! I was sooo excited, I wanted to rush right in. But for some reason they were closed at 10 on a Friday night.

I asked Tara if she had been in it yet, and apparently she has been too busy starting school and looking for a non-ghetto/shady grocery store to bother going to the library.

Whatev.
The next day we ventured into the city where I hoped to be able to ride as many things as possible. We started with the BART, then hopped on a cable car. I was very impressed with our conductor's boots. Check 'em out:

We then found our tour bus. I had decided I wanted to take a ride on a tour bus, to see all the sights I would want to see without the hassle of parking. I found a double-decker open air hop on hop off bus. It was brilliant. You could hop off the bus at any of the stops, wander around, and then come back and hop back on the next bus that comes your way and finish the tour. Tickets are good for two days. It was excellent.

While on the bus, I noticed a few other transportation options but felt pretty good about my decision with the open air bus.

Once on the bus, we were instructed as to appropriate riding methods. No standing allowed. It is suggested that you ride with your legs crossed, or perhaps with one leg lifted.

The tour started next to this billboard for the wax museum, and I felt pretty good about my decision to never go there. Is that suppose to be Will Smith in the corner?

The tour took us to North Beach, Wells Fargo museum, China Town, Union Square (where people like to sit), Asian Art Museum, Herbst Theatre, The Painted Ladies, De Young Museum, The California Academy of Sciences, Golden Gate Bridge, Palace of Fine Arts, Chestnut Street, and Ghirardelli Square.


Unfortunately, we started our tour too late in the day to do any hoping off, because the last tour was soon to follow, and we might miss hoping on again.

That would be a problem.

I really want to go back and check out some museums and explore Golden Gate Park with the Japanese Tea Garden.


And here we are, Union Square, where apparently people just sit.
I don't quite get it, nor do I quite understand what kind of wonderful flowering trumpet bush tree thing that is in the middle. Does anyone know?

You know, the tour was a lot of fun, but it kind of felt like I was taking a tour of the back lots at Universal Studios. I mean, I've seen all these places in movies and such, it's almost like they aren't real. It was a strange feeling.

Anyway, the "set" of Full House:

One thing I certainly didn't expect to find in San Francisco but was pleasantly surprised to discover was bocce ball!

That was the best picture I could get. I was on the top of a moving bus for crying out loud.

This next picture is just to show you how tall this bus really was and how we were forbidden to ever stand up, for good reason.


Going over the Golden Gate was very windy. I've included a little video to show you just how windy it was. That video is around here somewhere... I think at the end of this post.


After the excellent bus ride, we went to a few shops on Fisherman's Wharf, where we found this great shop where it looks like you could buy a used mini fridge, microwave or a leopard print fleece.

We also found these mugs, which was a relief, because I've been looking for a mug for my friends Tea and Secretary.

After wandering through the shops, we ate dinner at the Rain Forest Cafe. It could be summed up in this one shot that I snapped while waiting in line in the ladies' room, but I wanted to share two photos.
So here is Tara following the directions to "Follow the green footprints to the second floor."

She did a smashing job, really.

And YOU did a smashing job, making it all the way through this post.

Nice work.


I'm narrating this video a little bit, but it's hard to hear (the wind) so all you need to know is that we crossed the Golden Gate and the video is of going back across it. That is what the pointing is all about.