“Let’s think of some funny things that happened while we were in San Francisco.” I said to my best friend Katie as we sat perched on our bar stools in the basement of Goose & Gander, a local craft cocktail joint in Napa Valley. The dark wood paneled interior looked more like a flower shop than a bar. The bartender prided himself on a rather large assortment of homegrown herbs, flowers, and fruits that he used to make his concoctions and displayed them all over the place. We were topping off our first day of wine tasting with a Moscow Mule and had the giggles. She replied to my question with only a slight pause in her laugher, “How about the man that just walked in to the women’s room?” She pointed through me to the group of people behind me. “That just happened,” she’s giggling so hard that her nose is wrinkled, her smile endless, and her body bouncing with each snicker. It’s contagious and I’m laughing too, before I even know what she’s going to say. She can barely finish her sentence, “it’s all I can think about!”
We had been planning our girl’s trip to California, San Francisco and Napa Valley, for months. It was the most organized I’d ever been, planning daily itineraries complete with restaurants, shops, and tourist sights for each day. It left us with very full days, but very little decision making on the trip. Each morning we just got up, looked at what we planned, and headed out for a cup of Blue Bottle coffee.
It was our first time visiting San Francisco and we spent the entire first day seeing the sights. Once we got to our hotel room at the Executive Hotel Vintage Court in the centrally located shopping district of Union Square, we refreshed ourselves, we headed out to ride the cable car to Fisherman’s Warf to try a bowl of clam chowder, a tourist must do. We watched several cable cars full of tourists go past us and finally decided to bag it and walk. We walked down Powell Street past people tending to their daily needs. Buying groceries, walking to run errands, and getting local gossip over a newspaper stand. Laundry hung from clotheslines on balconies and children peeped through open windows. Housecats stoically guarded their domiciles while dog walkers tended to packs of tiny beasts. The streets weren’t terribly busy though, all of this taking place over many, many blocks. We connected with fellow tourists again along The Embarcadero. We spent the rest of the day like this, walking from destination to destination through the everyday lives of San Franciscans - from Fisherman’s Warf through secret gardens to the top of Coit Tower in Telegraph Hill (recommended for the views) and then back to our hotel via Taylor Street and the grand hotels of Nob Hill. Taylor Street being one of the steepest streets I’ve ever walked up/down. We were impressed with the accuracy of parking and dizzying slope changes. It was terrifying to think about having to drive a stick shift car or even wear heels around this city.
The vibe of many San Franciscans is an odd mix of bohemian, liberal idealism, with a strong grounding in finance, fingers in the tech world, and a mission to save the planet. And to say it is a foodie town is an understatement. Each meal was more impressive than the next, favorites being sausage and broccoli rabe pizza, pork belly and squash blossoms pasta paired with delish wine and a homey atmosphere at Flour + Water in the Mission District. And a fresh take on Vietnamese home-cooking slanted door spring rolls, barbecued willis ranch pork spareribs, grass-fed estancia shaking beef and some of the tastiest veggies I’ve ever had at The Slanted Door. The farmer’s market at Embarcadero was also notable and we enjoyed a relaxing Saturday brunch out-of-doors there with some friends who lived in town.
Almost every local I talked to never rode a bike over the Golden Gate Bridge. “It’s a tourist thing,” they would say, with a tone of distaste, every time I asked. “Tourists, ride bikes over the bridge to Sausalito, a touristy town, and then take the ferry back. It goes past Alcatraz so you can get some good pictures. But it’s for tourists.” Needless to say, all of our friends who did it said it was the best bike ride of their life, a once in a lifetime experience. So we had to see for ourselves. Most people rent bikes at the pier but we took a taxi to Sports Basement and rented bikes from an outdoorsy shop in a retrofitted grocery store. The space was so raw that they didn’t even bother to paint over the “dairy” “meats” and “bakery” signs leftover from the building’s previous life. Biking proved to be fun and challenging to us Florida girls trying to navigate the steep inclines. Although the bridge was insanely crowded, the view was picturesque and we were lucky enough to see the fog lift.
Once we got the hang of riding bikes, it was fun to jet down to Sausalito and spend the day tooling around the shops, galleries, and checking out the architecture. We went to a great dive-y Mexican place for lunch, which I highly recommend. It didn’t have views of the bay, but it did have Tecate, tacos, and a casual and festive atmosphere with outdoor seating. The weather was out of this world perfect – in the 70s with a slight breeze and lots of sunshine. The only stressful part of our day was getting on the ferry to go back to San Francisco. I recommend getting a token (there’s a stand in the bike parking area, you can’t miss it) as soon as you arrive in Sausalito as it will reserve a spot for you and your bike on the ferry at a specific time. If you do not have this token, you could be left for hours waiting for the next availability. Once back in San Fran, we rode our bikes through the city and along the beaches back to the shop. It wasn’t until then that we realized taxis don’t normally go out there, so we ended up walking back to a busier part of town. We definitely earned all of our calories that day!
Another “must see” on the list of tourist destinations was Haight Street. As we got out of the cab on the corner of Haight and Ashbury, we immediately regretted our decision. It wasn’t a quaint tree-lined street of vintage shops and nostalgic bohemia, it was a filthy street consumed by drug paraphernalia shops, tattoo parlors, dirty diners, and the wafting scent of stale marijuana. We committed to walking it and ended in Golden Gate Park. Again this is apparently a great place to stop, but we found it full of homeless hippies literally marching to the beat of their own drum. I’ve never felt so East Coast prep in my life. We couldn’t get out fast enough, jumping on the bus back towards the Market Street. Google Maps told us that not far away in a park on the corner of Hayes St and Octavia St, there was an ice cream shop and beer garden side by side. We locked glances with a stare of affirmation and relief then signaled the bus to stop. Hayes St turned out to be our favorite spot in San Francisco. We found our tree-lined street with ice cream, beer, and great shopping. We spent the afternoon here before squeezing in a visit to the SFMOMA to see the highly anticipated Cindy Sherman exhibition.
Our highly planned trip wasn’t without a dull moment. But because we didn’t have to sit around saying, “I don’t know, what do you want to do?” we were able to truly sit back and enjoy each moment. We laughed without the need for an actual joke, drank and ate the best San Francisco had to offer, and roamed the streets without a care in the world, making for a truly relaxing city get-a-way.
