A San Francisco Story

I visited the city by the bay for the first time this month due to a work trip. I would be there a week and plane tickets were astronomical, since it was over Memorial Day weekend. So the night before I flew out, J hopped on a Greyhound with some interesting bus folk and met me out there, 15 hours later, for the week. Love. In the time we had I think you could say we gave SF the tourist treatment.
Double Decker tour bus with hilarious ESL bus driver? CHECK
Chilly winds and humidity resulting in mind-boggling hair, and wondering why everyone was marveling at what "such good weather" it was? CHECK
Famous Painted Ladies? CHECK
Lombard Street? (From a distance, we couldn't get our tour bus driver to drive down it, which was surprising because he had no problem driving that behemoth like a go-cart every where else) CHECK
Getting tangled in and inexplicable double helix? CHECK
Alcatraz from a distance because it was way too bloody cold to get on a boat? CHECK
My new favorite place, the staggeringly beautiful Palace of Fine Arts? CHECK
Failed car photo of SF from across the bay? CHECK
Riding a giant whale? CHECK
More crazy hair from atop Berkley? CHECK
Poor wiring in Chinatown that I am surprised didn't cause J's OCD electrical engineering head to explode? CHECK
Pier 39 and more bad hair? CHECK. I really can't with the climate there. I was pretty much cold and ugly that whole day.
Golden Gate? Of course. CHECK
Yes I realize that I've left out the trolley cars but they were down the whole time we were there, which was a bummer because we were right downtown off of Market Street. I did learn some lessons the hard way about SF that I will need to remember the next time I visit, when I feel like I want to give some bad hair and freeze to death again.
- Don't bring a car. BART. Driving sucks, parking is like $55 a night even if you are at a hotel. I turned our car in on day two.
- Bring a coat, and an umbrella, and rain boots and a wind breaker.
- Bring ample chedda, because this place isn't cheap.

All in all: It's a pretty vertical city. Lot's to see. I'm good for now.

Special thanks goes out to Kayla, our second tour guide, and for the thrills of accelerating the car down 45 percent grades on blind intersections. My butt cheeks are still clenched.