San Francisco!!!!

Link to Pics! http://picasaweb.google.com/christina.keffer/California2007

Just recently I visited my future home. I didn't know at the time of my arrival that it would be my future home, but after about six seconds in the fresh, sun drenched air, I figured that out right quick.

Barry, Sarah, Jacob and I traveled across the country via airplane to go to an event in LA for business, and we made a three day detour to San Francisco to visit Eli who now lives in the Palo Alto area. (Palo Alto is about 30 minutes away from San Fran.)
The first day in CA was spent in Palo Alto wandering around the shopping district there. The temperature was between seventy and seventy five, the breeze was gentle and cool, and all around a sense of laid back peace pervaded. We ate lunch with Eli at Zao's Noodle place which was incredible, not only because of the ridiculously good Thai fusion food, but also because of the ambiance. The building, like so many others in the area sported a HUGE sky light and gigantic street side windows. It was like eating outside, and although the building was small, it seemed much bigger because of it's architecture. We spent the rest of that day wandering around Palo Alto waiting for Eli to get out of work so we could hang out.


That night we had the best Sushi EVER. I'm not sure whether there was a placebo effect in evidence, but the seafood in CA in general tasted far superior to what I can get at home, even at our favorite place in the Strip.


The next day (the 22nd) we took the caltrain into San Francisco and spent the day walking around Chinatown, which was amazing. They had everything in these huge warehouse-style buildings. Seriously... everything from brocade dresses and beautiful Asian dinnerware to bobble head dolls. I bought a Charles Dickens Action figure and there was a toy called the avenging Narwhal, which picture you can see here. We ate dinner at an awesome sushi place called the Sushi Boat where the sushi was served on a conveyor belt made of little wooden ships floating around on water. The sushi was amazing, and reasonably priced. The price depended on what pattern was on the dish it was served on, just like the system they have in Japan at their sushi shops.



After dinner we wandered up to a really interesting place further toward Fisherman's Wharf. I say interesting because it was peculiar to me that a city of San Francisco's size could support such a HUGE red light district as the one that we found ourselves in. The strip joints were huge and advertised unabashedly with giant animated neon lights. It was hilarious.

We met up with Eli and after searching around for a bar, we ended up at the San Francisco Brew Company. It was sort of a dive but too dimly lit to let you really appreciate the shabbiness. They had good beer so we got a table and started drinking. About one or two rounds in, a rat skittered out from behind the clock that stood against the far wall and ran along the crown moulding. It was soon followed by another. The bartender found this amusing as did we all (it WAS around two rounds into the night) and we decided to stay anyway. One rat was dubbed Paul after a late regular of the bar, and the other we named Fema for obvious reasons.

After the bar, we went to a hotel called the Andante which was located right in the downtown area. I had found it before we left and made reservations. The rooms were amazing, each had it's own theme and hand painted murals on the walls. Our bathroom was literally as big as our bedroom, and all the amenities were top notch. Everything was spotlessly, sparklingly clean. And the kicker? Only $93 after taxes! Can you believe that? Right in the middle of San Francisco!!! It was a wonderful place, and I will go back there to stay every time I'm in San Fran.

Anyway, it wasn't that late at the time, and we wanted a pub or someplace to go. I called down to the front desk and the incredibly helpful guy there told us about an Irish bar that was down the street about two blocks. He also told us to stop by the desk so he could tell us where NOT to go. It was at the front desk that I discovered our close proximity to the Tenderloin district. That's the place where there are roving bands of transvestite/transgender/who knows- prostitutes and...whatever wandering about the streets. It was about two blocks east of us. But we saw neither hide nor hair extension of those unsavory characters when we took our stroll down to the Irish pub which was called Lefty O'Douls, and was amazing. Sure the guy at the piano bar couldn't hit his high notes, but the beer was good enough that no one really cared.

As we staggered back up the hill to our hotel, the neon glow of all night diner heaven caught our eyes and we went in for some breakfast...or something. I don't remember what I ate but it was good. Unfortunately i remember neither the name or the ambiance of said diner, but that goes along with the drink.

The next morning we woke up and took a walk up to the nearest cable car stop, pausing along the way at a wonderful grocery store for water. One of the things that stuck me as peculiar (in a good way) on our walk to the cable car was that EVERY single building that lined the streets had a bay window. I guess it's the easiest way to make a small apartment a bit bigger so that the tenants don't remember how paying $1600 a month for a 400 square foot apartment is insane every day they wake up and take the two steps from their bed to their "kitchen." It made for very attractive streets though, that's for sure.

We took the cable car downtown, which was also beautiful and so incredibly clean. We were meeting up with Eli, Barry and Sarah at Pier 39 at Fisherman's Wharf where we had been instructed by several friends that we HAD to lunch on the clam chowder in sourdough bread bowls that they serve there. We walked from the end of the cable car line to the tram line that ran along the bay. After waiting through three cars that passed us by because they were over crowded, we decided to just walk up to Pier 39. The weather was sunny and a stiff breeze was blowing off the ocean to our right as we made our way up the shore of the bay.

We ate lunch at a small offshoot of the famous Boudin bakery on Pier 39. It was absolutely delicious! The sourdough was milder than we had expected, and the clam chowder was so good that you just had to pause after the first mouth full and look at whoever sat next to you with raised eyebrows. After we were finished we took a walk on the busy tourist trap of a boardwalk that they had created around Pier 39. There was one worthwhile stop though, a fruit stand that had huge figs as well as several other fruits that would be considered exotic here in Pittsburgh, but were standard fair in Cali. Several figs later, we were summoned to the foot of the Pier to meet everyone.

We all walked over to the wharf famous for it's collection of Sea Lions. We spent an amused three quarters of an hour watching their antics from the overlook. They were playing "King of the dock" and pushing each other off and generally stinking and making a lot of noise. The seagulls in this area were also precocious. One especially brash or hungry one literally stole a snow cone out of the hands of a man standing about 20 feet away from us. It swooped down over his shoulder, bashed his head with its wing, and knocked the snow cone from his hands into the bay where it then proceeded to get food out of it. Not the smartest seagull I've ever seen. I wanted to ask the guy how it felt to be mugged by a bird, but I thought that might be in somewhat bad taste so I refrained.

After that we got in the car that Eli was quality testing and drove all up and down the hills of San Francisco including the famous switchback Lombard Street, which was just as steep and curvy as you'd imagine.

We made our way up to Telegraph Hill and Coit's tower which sits on top of it and took some beautiful pictures of the surrounding city and bay. Then we drove over to Saulsalito and made Eli's Volkswagen very unhappy driving up the impossibly steep and twisting roads to get some of the most amazing views of the bay and San Francisco imaginable. I think that if I was nuts enough to buy a house there, I could wake up every single day and look out my front window and never tier of the stunning scenery that I would see, even if I lived to be a hundred years old. Eventually we made our way back down the cliffs and had a wonderful chill drink at a bar on the bay open to the outside. The Sangria was great, the service sucked, but at least they gave us free rounds to make up for the inconvenience of having to ask for the drinks we already ordered. We discussed housing prices and the cost of living all with a subconscious undertone of "what do I have to do with my life to AFFORD this?? Surely there is a way!" while looking at the sailboats bobbing around in the bay.

After drinks we headed back over the bridge to pick up Nicole (Eli's girlfriend) after work. We crammed back into his car and drove over to Japan Town on a quest for Udon Noodles which Jake had been lusting after since before we even left for California. We found a wonderful noodle house in a larger building that housed many other shops that were all mostly closed up and had ourselves a dinner of udon that was indistinguishable from that which I had in Japan. It was wonderful. We then wearily crammed back into Eli's car and drove back down to Palo Alto where we all pretty much passed out. We had an early day the next day because we had to leave with Eli to pick up the rental car we were getting and to regretfully take Sarah to the Airport. We ate lunch at the airport which was, ironically, the first place we really felt we had been gouged price-wise, and began one of the best legs of our journey.

In a burst of pure genius, we had decided to drive down to LA along the Coastal Highway. My dad had forewarned me that if we stopped at every single overlook we'd never make it to LA, and cautioned us to remember that for every beautiful overlook, there would be another four or five down the road within a mile. I didn't really take him seriously because I know myself, and I'm not a serious photographer by any means....but sure enough, we found ourselves stopping at every single place. The first place was amazing. It was a state park beach right where we got onto Route 1. We screwed around there for a good long time taking silly pictures and stuff. After that we found ourselves stopping more often than we probably should have, but everything was so steeped in beauty it was hard to pass by.... Jacob took tons of pics out of the car. I really can't describe it, you'll just have to check out my Picasa pics.

It took from noon till around 11pm to get to John and Emily's in LA and that was with several very long stops, including a wonderful dinner we had in a restaurant on with one of the most beautiful views ever.

John and Emily are friends of ours who graciously put us up for a few days in their amazing North Hollywood apartment. We were pretty tired that night, but we still went to the neighborhood diner where I almost fell asleep at the table. The next day we awoke and decided to go to Santa Monica. My first taste of driving in LA was being stuck on the freeway for over an hour. Go figure. The scenery was nice though, and we were catching up with John. Emily had to go to work, so couldn't make it. When we got to Santa Monica and found parking for $7 for the whole day, we wen ton a quest to find a good Mexican restaurant. There was a lovely promenade lined with boutiques and shops that had a directory and we just looked for any restaurant that began la or el. We walked five blocks to the name we decided on and it ended up being expensive and Italian so we took a random road that Barry suggested back to the promenade and there it was, Border Grill. John made the smart assumption that it was probably not the Canadian Border that they were alluding to so we went in and had one of the best Mexican meals I have ever had. We started out with chips and four different kinds of salsa (all homemade) The waiter stopped by and asked if we would like some Guacamole in a way that implied it was gratis so we agreed. It ended up being pretty expensive guacamole, but it was tasty and had at least four avocados in it. (mmmm avocado) It was a bit overpriced, but I had expected that from it's location. After lunch we wandered up through the shopping promenade and then made our way down to the beach which was dirty but expansive. We walked down to Santa Monica Pier where they had an arcade, carny rides and other things you'd expect from a boardwalk area. We stayed there for a while and admired the view on the pier and then walked back toward shore. We had coffee at an outdoor cafe that reminded me so much of Europe it was amazing, and people watched for a while then began to shop in earnest. There were expensive stores and also some that were really inexpensive. I got things at the inexpensive ones and window shopped at the expensive ones.

It was after dark when we decided to go back to John and Emily's. I was pretty set on the idea of getting changed and going to a club that night, but when I got back and did some research, one of the pervading things I found was that women would get in quickly but guys might not get in at all. The idea of going to a club and not being able to get Barry or Jake in sucked, so we decided not to. Barry, Jacob and I also had a pretty early day the next day because that was the beginning of the event that caused us to go to California in the first place: Freestyles Session. John and Emily eventually convinced Barry to go to this awesome strip club called the Peppermint Rhino or something like that but Jacob and I were so exhausted, we opted for sleep. So we basically had a chill evening in the apartment and drank John and Emily's Stella Artois which they didn't like anyway so we were actually doing them a favor. Really.

The next day was a typical event day. Get up early, load car down with RETARDED amounts of DVDS and go to the venue, which was really really close to where John and Emily lived. We got there at ten, set up shop and proceeded to COMPLETELY PAY FOR OUR TRIP WITHIN THE FIRST HALF OF THE DAY!!!!!!! That's right. That's what we did. There were hundreds of Japanese people there and they all bought like there was never going to be another breakdance DVD ever again.

Barry hobnobbed and we all took turns seeing what was going on at the actual event. And we sold. Oh man did we ever sell. And the best part was, we were out of there at exactly eight o'clock. So we drove back to John and Emily's and found an AMAZING Italian place on Ventura Blvd. I had the best Alfredo ever with three different kinds of mushrooms in it and Jacob had an excellent if rich tortellini dish with saffron and sage sauce. Everything was wonderful and nothing but the wine was over 20 dollars. It was an incredible meal, and afterwards we all went into a nice food coma all night.

We were at the event at 10:30 the next day and did a brisk business pulling in anyone who had not bought from us the previous day. Even those who didn't get anything walked away with posters, stickers, lanyards and loads of other shwag that promoted our site like woah. It was really amazing how many people we reached. The even was amazing. I saw the popping and locking finals and part of the bboy final. Totally amazing.

Afterward, at around 10:30 PM, we met John and went to an In and Out Burger (AMAZING) after which we drove along the sunset strip. Unfortunately, it was a Sunday night and it was totally dead, but against all odds, the Hustler store was open and we walked around there for a while. It was our last night in LA so I wanted to hit up a bar or some sort of nightlife, but being Sunday night, not much was to be had. So we went back to John and Emily's and proceeded to get completely wasted off expertly mixed margaritas courtesy of Barry. Well into the night, John and Jacob decided that they wanted to get some food at the diner and I decided that unless I wanted to share my beautiful boyfriend's body with a bum, I better go along and babysit. Our waitress was a hilarious 50-something woman. When we sat down and got our drinks she left menus, as usual. We BSed and didn't do anything about deciding because we were all a bit tipsy as usual, and then she came back, eyed us up and asked if she should just pretend we didn't exist for a while. In those words. It was hilarious. So we finally decided on stuff just as she began pointedly clearing her throat from behind the counter. Our food was good, I think. Sleep later was even better.

We woke up and had left over margaritas for breakfast and decided to head out to Venice beach to meet up with Eli and Nicole,who had driven down to see us and another of his friends living in LA. It was cool because he somehow made it into a work trip and got paid for mileage and gas. Lucky bastard:) We met in Venice and had a nice but overpriced lunch and then wandered around a bit. I could have stayed there for days but that was impossible. Then we drove back up to John and Emily's and gathered our things and packed the car one last time. Our drive to the Airport was uneventful and we made it with lots of time. Our flight left at 10:50 pm. I had booked it that way on purpose so that we could wring every last drop of experience from our trip possible. It was a lovely last day in the beautiful sun-drenched state where I will soon live. Apparently the view of the LA lights was amazing as we flew out, but I was obliviously asleep on Jacob's lap, which was also not unpleasant.

All in all, our trip was a colossal success, both from a business perspective and a personal one. I found a new goal in life (be able to live in Northern California) and we all had a wonderful experience. Hope you all enjoy the pics. They're Here: Feel free to comment, and to those who were on my trip, feel free to make corrections where needed!