San Francisco, Baby

When Brian and I travel together our trip is pretty much lived out by television and movie quotes. We can (and do) relate most things to a line from somewhere. Usually it's a line from Friends, but when the time is appropriate, the lines come from any other movie or show that we know.
It all started years ago on our first trip to Seattle. We walked by the office supply store Office Max.

   Me: Man, girls are so hard to buy for. 
  
   Brian: Ya, when you shop at ..... OFFICE MAX!!!

and we laughed and laughed and laughed. That was when we noticed how many lines we could pull from our most watched and most favorite tv show and pertain to a moment, a city, a trip and just plain life in general.


Cut to our trip to San Francisco last week.
(This is exactly how our conversations go, seriously)





About to cross the border-

   Me: LONDON BABY!!

   Brian: Do you have your passport?

   Me and Brian at the same time: Uh, ya, it's in the top drawer of my bedside table. Wouldn't want to lose that. 



 Flipping open the safety card on the plane -

   Brian: awww, these aren't the ones from Flight Club. 

   Me: BRIAN. What's the first rule of Flight Club??

   Me and Brian at the same time: First rule of Fight Club - you never, ever talk about Fight Club.




Ordering wine at lunch -

    Me: I just might have two glasses of wine at lunch. 

    Brian: Two glasses of wine at lunch?? Only prostitutes have two glasses of wine at lunch!!! 





All of that to say.  We had a fantastic trip. We crossed the border with only a small hitch, they pulled us into the garage and searched every nook and cranny of us, ok not us but our bags and our vehicle. Besides the two dehydrated christmas oranges from LAST YEAR that he found in the bottom of the un-used diaper bag that still sits in the truck for emergencies, we were clear. But he did remind us that we had two undeclared pieces of fresh fruit and that is totally illegal. Ahem.



San Francisco. Where do I start? I have wanted to go there forever and it did not disappoint. It is the city that just keeps going and going and going. We didn't stop for the full three days and we didn't even touch on all there is to see and do. I think you could go 100 times and still not.







The highlights:

Lombard Street - the "Crookedest Street"
One city block, eight switch backs. I think it would likely be the worst street to live on, what with all the inconsiderate and ignorant tourists that bombard it every day, but it is definitely a cool street to see.





The Golden Gate Bridge
Every bit as impressive as the movies make it seem. I only wish we could have seen it as the sun was setting.











Chinatown
Speaks for itself. Although, the funky smells I could do without.







Clam chowder in a sourdough bread bowl
Yum. I love that the food they are famous for is so delicious and healthy. haha.





The trolley car
Such a cool historic piece of the city.  Also, super fun to ride. Epecially when the hand brake operator you are standing beside loves his job, loves talking to people and loves to tell funny stories.









More food
All the food. All of it. I started out taking pictures of some our meals and Brian was all OMG stop taking pictures of your food, people on the chive make fun of people like you all the time. Thats not why I stopped, I truthfully just forgot because I was busy shoving the food into my wide open gob, but for the record, WOW we ate some delicious meals. And we ate so so so much. So much.









The views
With hills that big, theres obviously going to be some view points. And there were. And we saw them.











Sadly we missed Alcatraz, all advance tickets were sold out and we slept in the morning we were supposed to go down to the pier at 7:00 to wait in line for two of the 50 tickets they reserve for the day of. That is a perfect excuse to go back!







We really had so much fun. The whole city was amazing. I could not have prepared myself more for what was to come and still, I was blown away. It was beautiful, clean, friendly, easy to figure out (right there, just saying that, I am picturing us, standing on a street corner with map in hand trying to figure out where to go and one of us saying "well, I gotta do it. I'm going into the map"  and then us laughing and laughing. That one will never get old.)





I have to go back. I want to see and do more. I also want a friend to move there and live in one of those beautiful Victorian homes and have me as a houseguest pleaseandthankyou .  I would love to take my kids back, but first they need to be big enough to walk themselves up those giant hills.
I missed those tiny little people and I have to tell you, one night, I spent a long time watching videos on my phone of them. I was very happy to get home to their smiling faces and arguing voices. It was nice to walk at grownup paces, and eat at fancy restaurants. We did a lot more than we would have been able to had they been with us. It was good to come home too.





I brought in my 30th year with great friends and I settled in nicely with this amazing and unforgettable trip.





The line goes I'd walk back to London for another frosty one of those bad boys.  Well I'd walk back to San Francisco for another piece of that tiramisu in little Italy, or, as the locals call it, North Beach.

p.s I've tried to decide whether other people would find us annoying or fun to travel with. So hard to say.