San Francisco

The weekend of the annual birthday trip had been chosen for almost a year. What we didn't know was where we were going to go or what we were going to do. It came down to the wire, but Terra and I are in San Francisco for a couple of days. (Tara, aka Curly Sue, wasn't able to make it because she had to go to Pittsburg for work this week.) My friend Dawn from the singles group I joined earlier this year has joined us. She is a TON of fun and we all seem to be traveling well together.

We are staying at a hotel near SFO, because it is cheap, and using public transportation to get around. We don't have any real plans, except a vague idea of the places we want to go and a rough idea of how to get there. I am just glad Terra and Dawn are patient with me while I figure out how to get where we want to go and change my mind a million times as I try to figure out the best way to get there. LOL!

Yesterday we WALKED from the BART Civic Center/Union Square station to Japantown, where we had dinner. From there we walked to Haight & Ashbury. We walked all the way to the East entrance of Golden Gate Park. We then decided to take the bus back to the Bart to get home.

It was SO much fun. We walked through SO many neighborhoods where the environment, people and vibe of the city changed in each one. Haight Ashbury was by FAR the most...um...interesting. Some neighborhoods were nice and clean and quite. Others had people everywhere, CLEARLY older buildings, and construction.

I lost track of how my pools of vomit/pee we walked past ESPECIALLY in Haight Ashbury. To be fair, we were in Haight Ashbury after the sun went down, but I don't know how much of a difference it would have made. We only walked past one pool of blood. THAT was a little unsettling. The number of smoke shops didn't surprise me, but the volume of trendy stuff did. There was a couple of trendy clothing stores, to the point that I was waiting to see the Ambercrombie & Fitch any minute (we didn't). We did get ice cream/sorbet at the Ben & Jerrys on the corner of Haight and Ashbury though.

Today we are heading to Fisherman's Warf, with a stop at a cafe Dawn learned about on the plane ride here. Should be a good time. :)