Jan 22, 2013

I left my heart in...


San Francisco!


Last week Michael and I got away for a while (no kids!) and our first stop was the fun city of San Francisco.

It was a quick trip there but fun...and freezing. It was only 38 degrees in San Francisco when we left there for a warmer destination (more on that tomorrow). Michael had never been to San Fran before and I hadn't been there in many, many years. Of course, our trip involved a couple baseball stadiums. It's become quite a tradition for us in January. (here are details about our trip in Seattle last year, and LA/San Diego/Phoenix before that)

We stayed at a hotel smack dab in the middle of downtown (gotta love Name Your Own Price on Priceline where we got this hotel room for $70!!). This was the view from the 12th floor where, shockingly, our balcony doors opened and seriously made me afraid Michael would fall out of the building since there wasn't much of anything to keep us in!! Do they not have building codes in San Fran?? Scary! Although it really was a gorgeous view!
View ahead and to the right of our room:
View to the left of our room:
View inside our room when I was having a mini heart attack that he was going to fall out the door!
Standing at one end of our hotel building you could see these views:
Outside:
Inside: This picture seriously doesn't do the hotel justice. The lights looked like they were raining down from the upper floors. It was stunning! And the glass elevators that you can barely see in the upper left were the main feature in the movie Towering Inferno.
We had one full day in the city to see as much as we could. The first item on the agenda was a baseball stadium tour but we had some time to leisurely walk through the city a couple miles on our way to the stadium. We found this adorable little spot with the yummiest food and coffee ever!!! A serious MUST see if you're downtown SF. La Boulange.
Once we got to the stadium we walked around for a while and found funny signs to take pictures of:
And even funnier outfits!
Here's the stadium:
We had tried to do a tour of the Oakland stadium too...but they don't do tours. We drove by it (it wasn't much to look at) and also drove by the new football stadium location for the 49ers. The stadium is half-built so far and is more by San Jose than San Francisco.

Near AT&T Park is a fantastic restaurant that specializes in grilled cheese! My kind of place! (I'm a huge fan of grilled cheese sandwiches!!) Delish! It's another spot I'd put on the 'must see' list.
We were blown away by the people in San Francisco! I have never met nicer people just walking down the street...seriously. The people were amazing and helpful to us, the crazy tourists who must have looked completely lost and in need of help. :)

Although...we did have one scary situation. We left the grilled cheese yumminess and got on a cable car to try to see Candlestick Park where the 49ers currently play. It was SCARY! We got into a really bad area of town and there were some 'interesting' people on the ride with us. One man (probably in his 70s) stood next to me and pulled out a switch blade as he and some of his 'friends' talked about strange things. YIKES! We decided to forget about the stadium and head back toward downtown. Wise decision!

On our way to the big feature of the day (the Golden Gate) we drove on Lombard Street. When we started out at the top of the hill I asked Michael to take a picture. He was not excited about that and wanted to experience it without being behind a camera. So, no great pics. The experience will live in our memories...too bad you can't look into our brains to see it in picture form! 
Here's a real picture of Lombard Street via:
Then it was on to the Golden Gate. It's a pretty fantastic bridge...especially if you're married to someone who designs bridges for a living! You get a new perspective on it when you hear about the 'technical' parts of the massive structure. Michael said that if this bridge was built using today's technology, it wouldn't last nearly as long because they're not allowed to 'over-design' and make bridges as beefy as this one is. Interesting, huh?
The view from the bridge: You can see downtown on the right and Alcatraz is the little island near the middle.
As it was getting dark, we made one last stop at a park to see the 'Painted Ladies'. 
Then we were off to a hotel close to the airport. We had an early flight out to Hawaii the next morning! More details on that tomorrow...

1 comment:

  1. Never been to San Fran! What a fun day and such an amazing hotel you got!

    ReplyDelete

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