San Francisco (Day One)

I have been to San Francisco, and now I am back with the Aussie! I got into San Francisco on Saturday morning at 10 am, which was an hour before Al arrived there from Sydney. I picked up my bag and walked to the arrivals area in the international terminal. I love airports where you can just walk from one terminal to another!

After our little reunion, we got a taxi to our hotel right next to Union Square called the Handlery. Al got a great deal from bookit.com. Our room was in the older part of the hotel and was very small,  but it was a fantastic location and had a nice lobby. Hotels can get very expensive in San Fran, so we were pleased.

Once we settled in, we walked down to the Embarcadero and strolled up the coast until we made it to Fisherman's Wharf. 

View of Coit Tower from the Embarcadero

Fisherman's Wharf is a fun area! It's extremely touristy, but there are great views of the bay and lots of places to eat and shop. 

Aquarium of the Bay at Fisherman's Wharf

It was nearly 3 pm, but many of the restaurants were still packed for lunch. We ended up going the fast food route and got fried fish. Al got fish and chips, and I got crab cakes and chips. 

It hit the spot for the time being. 

After lunch, we found uninterrupted views of Alcatraz. 

We also found the sea lions at Pier 39.

We left Fisherman's Wharf after that, because we were freezing. We wanted to walk back to our hotel the adventurous way: over the hills. It was hard work, but we somehow found a bunch of stairs that took us away from the coast and up onto Telegraph Hill. It's a hill, if you can't tell from the name, so there were a lot of stairs. We finally found ourselves behind some homes and looking at beautiful gardens and perfect views of the water. 

Of course, I enjoyed the dog artwork. 

We almost made it to Coit Tower, but we decided to go back to our hotel. We figured that we'd have time on another day to go to the top (we didn't). 

The hills in the city are so steep, but it's always hard to tell in these pictures. 

We walked through China Town on the way back. If it wasn't for the fact that some of the writing was in English, I would have to second guess whether of not I was still in America. 

Actually, I felt for a lot of the time like I wasn't in America. San Francisco has a way of making you feel like you are somewhere very far away from home. Not to mention, we were always surrounded by tourists from all over the world. 

Of course, we saw a lot of cable cars!

We took a nap when we got back to our hotel, and then we went out for dinner. We tried to go to Cheesecake Factory in Macy's down the street (not so original, but Al likes his cheesecake), but there was a two hour wait. We went instead to Burger Bar in the same building. We only had to wait about twenty minutes. 

Each booth had their own TVs with a different sport. We got some kind of gridiron football championship on TV in our booth that wasn't quite the NFL. We never figured out what it was, but it was entertaining nonetheless. 

To drink, I got an Agave Basil Caipirinha, which had Leblon Cachaca, fresh muddled limes and basil and agave. I wasn't exactly sure what I was drinking, but it was STRONG!

To eat, I got the SF Vegan, which was roasted eggplant, roma tomato and sauteed peppers in between two gigantic portobello mushroom caps. 

I think it lacked cheese, but that would make it un-vegan! The fries on the side were fantastic. Forget about the fact that I had fries twice in one day. I was on vacation!

Part II coming soon!