San Francisco Birthday Adventures

I told you we went to San Francisco for my birthday last weekend, but I only talked about the Golden Gate Bridge adventures. Sorry for reusing this picture. I wanted something iconic.

Here's a look at the entire weekend, and all its glory.

We arrived pretty late on Friday night. We knew where we were and we knew where the hotel was, but we didn't know where anything else was, so we maaaaay have walked the wrong direction once or twice before we figured it out.

BUT WE GOT THERE!

And because the hotel knew it was my birthday, they had a bottle of bubbly and some fruit and chocolate waiting for us.

The bubbly is Martinelli's, by the way, because I had also told them that I'm pregnant. On the ball, those folks.


That night we wandered around a bit looking for a place to grab a snack or late dinner, but pretty much everything was closed. We found a bar called The Irish Bank. We had 15 minutes before they stopped serving food. So, we got some french fries and hubs got a beer and we relaxed before heading back to the hotel for the night.

In the morning, we got out of the hotel around 930 and went straight to the Ferry Building. In keeping with A & T San Francisco tradition, we found a spot on a bench looking out at the Bay Bridge, each had a coffee, and split a loaf of bread and some Mt Tam cheese from our favorite spots.

The first selfie of the weekend. It was very bright.

Cowgirl creamery. I die.

I dropped my coffee. It was almost traumatic, but only a little spilled and we got me a new top and straw.

Then we started walking. Walking walking walking.

We bought some sunscreen at Pier 39.

Briefly watched them make turtle shaped bread at Boudin at Fisherman's Wharf.

We made a stop at Ghirardelli Square to split a sundae and call it lunch. We were having a really healthy day so far. Obvs.

A neat view of Alcatraz. I took about a zillion pictures of Alcatraz. Had to make up for not being able to go there - even though hubs said its boring.

Then more walking walking walking... until we got to the Palace of Fine Art and I said "wait... is this... is this where Nick Cage convinced Sean Connery to come back to The Rock?"

and he said "yep".

And reenactments ensued...

Also, this face... favorite face. Accidental on purpose photo bomb.

Fast camera family portraits. Cropping? What's that?

Then more walking walking walking. Lots of breaks were taken. Stops for photos and such. Like this one.

You already know about our journey to the GGB, so fast forward through this part...

It got cold and windy and my shirt kept blowing up and/or open. Fun times... not really.

On the walk back, much fewer pictures were taken. The walk just went on and on and on. Our feet were so tired and achy.

I was determined, though, to stop by Boudin and pick up one of the turtle loafs I'd seen before. How could I not?

Our plan for after that was to grab a Lyft back to the hotel and get cleaned up for dinner.

... but Lyft was all like, "hey dudes, we're gonna put a 200% tip on your ride to encourage more people to drive right now" and we were all like, "b*tch, we are not paying $30 for a 1 mile cab ride. I don't care how much my feet hurt."

So, we kept walking...

and then we took a break and I thought this spot was pretty, so I took a picture. Just makes you want to have a picnic.

We made it back to the hotel around 6:30 with an 8:15 dinner reservation - plenty of time to relax and leisurely clean ourselves up and rest our poor tired toeses before cabbing it to dinner.

Oh! We also managed to snag a few steamed pork buns - from a place that touted Bill Clinton had eaten there - on the walk through China Town. Gotta be a tourist. Got to, Got to.

Dinner was a few miles away from the hotel, on Market at Zuni. The menu, which changes daily, looked fantastic, but there wasn't much I was allowed to eat. I ended up with fresh lemonade, a salad, and the duck.

Our table faced the open kitchen so we could see the chefs prepping the dishes as they went out.

and because it was my birthday dinner, we had to get dessert - an almond tart with creme fraiche and nectarines... and a little candle for my birthday.

On the way out, I asked the hostess to take this...

and we caught a Lyft back to the hotel (with a reasonable tip suggestion) and then made one last trip out for coffee before calling it a night.

Sunday morning (my actual bday) we'd planned to hit the hotel gym... but it was teeeeeeeny tiny. One treadmill, two ellipticals, a small mat with some free weights, and two people already in there. So, I left T to the weights and went back up to the room, where there was a yoga mat in the closet. I rolled out the mat and got in about a half hour of stretching and flow before it was time to hop in the shower and tackle the day.

First stop...Coit Tower...

BUT WAIT! The cafe where they served the first espresso on the West Coast was ON THE WAY! Scratch that! First stop, Caffe Trieste!

For espresso and a croissant. I love lattes served in small glasses. I think the glass makes them taste better.

It was stuffy and hot in there and the high walls were covered top to bottom in old black and white pictures of people I think I'm supposed to have recognized.

THEN on to Coit Tower...

We ended up deciding not to go up to the top because of how hot and crowded it was inside. The line wrapped all the way around the building, and we kinda thought "how much different could it be? we're already at the top of this hill."

So, we did a bit of exploring - really having no idea where we would end up. Thank jeebus for Google Maps.

I giggled at this sign... sorry someone is stealing your NY Times, dude. Read it on the internets. It's magical and new fangled.

More wandering before ending up back on Market to catch a cab to take us to the Mission District for burritos. Too bad we didn't know at the time we could have just hopped on Bart and saved some mullah.

Taqueria San Francisco is said to serve the "purists" ideal Mission Burrito. I found it on a list of the 10 best burritos in SF, ranked #1. So, we went there. It's just a little taqueria on a street corner in the Mission. They serve chips they buy in bulk and salsa in those reusable containers you see at Chinese restaurants that they keep in the fridge with the sodas, but their burritos are a-freaking-mazing.

Also giant. Very very giant.

I get points for not picking out the tomatoes. If there was ever a bite that looked a little heavy on the tomatoes, I just gave it to hubs.

We walked about a half mile down to the Bart station and Barted back to Market.

We had a bit of time to kill before heading to AT&T Park to watch the Giants play the Dodgers. So, we changed into our orange and black and meandered toward the stadium.

We decided to stop at a "pop-up Beer Garden", which is a whole lot less fun when you are not currently drinking, but I still enjoyed this sign.

We arrived at AT&T in plenty of time to get our free orange sunglasses.

Hubs got himself a cocktail. I pretended to ride a trolley car.

Once at our seats, the nice people behind us agreed to take this. (Thank you)

Despite Buster's HR, the game was a little bit painful. Two errors by the same dude, and how many wild pitches?

I did get to show my Ginger Pride and do some rooting for Hunter Pence. That's him up on the score board.

The crowd Boo'd Brian Wilson when he came out to pitch for the Dodgers. Weird.
There were some annoying Dodger fans in the seats near us, but they weren't annoying because they were Dodger fans. They were annoying AND they were Dodger fans.

On the walk back to the hotel, we stopped at a Thai restaurant called Osha. It was delicious. T had a beer and I had a strawberry/guava mocktail.

We also thought it was appropriate that we eat at a Thai restaurant since the first meal we'd had together in SF was at a Thai place - Valentine's Day, 2009.

We didn't have calamari at Fisherman's Wharf the day before so we decided to have some as our appetizer.

For dinner, I had pumpkin curry and hubs had Pad Thai.

We were going to order dessert - it being my birthday and all - but the server just brought us our check, so we decided to go back to the hotel, open up the Martinelli's, and enjoy some of the chocolates I'd been hoarding over the course of the weekend - two truffles each from two chocolate shops, plus the bar from the hotel.

Then we called it a night.

In the morning, we packed up and had breakfast next door to the hotel.

Organized our things, swept the room, checked out, and headed to l'aeroporto.

It was such a fantastic weekend.

... even though 3 days later, my feet were still killing me. ;)