San Francisco Part 1

Eric and I spent 5 days in San Francisco last week.  He gets one paid conference per year of his choice, so this time he picked one in SF.  We usually try to take advantage of the paid conferences to take a vacation because his hotel, plane, and food are covered which makes for a more affordable vacation.  I usually come the last couple of days and then we extend a couple of days.  This time though, we went out together and just stayed during the duration of the conference.  That meant a lot more classtime for Eric, so I invited some friends of ours from Washington to meet us there.  I was very surprised when they took me up on the offer!  It made for a great time because I had friends to do sight-seeing with while Eric was in class.

This is Eric and I at dinner the first night.  We ate at a quaint little Italian restaurant called Cesarios.  Everything on the menu looked delicious.  I had a hard time deciding what to get.  I finally decided on pasta with a tomato cream sauce.  It had mushrooms and sundried tomatoes with grilled chicken.  It was SO good.  I wanted to go back and get the same meal again.  To top it off, we shared a creme brulee for dessert.

What was even better was we got to see our good friends, Susan and Scott Connors again.

This was a picture I stole off Susan and Scott's blog of their room.  Ours was very similar.  We stayed at the Union Square Marriott downtown, and the accomodations were very nice.  It was also a very good location with nice shops and close to public transportation.  We didn't rent a car, so that was our way of getting around.  My only complaints were: no free breakfast and $12.95 per day for use of the internet. 

Eric started his class early the following morning, so I met Susan and Scott for breakfast at Lori's Diner.  There were several of these in San Francisco.

Here I am with the Edsel in the diner

Some of the tables had personal jukeboxes

Here I am trying to decide what I want.

Scott & Susan in the hotel lobby with the map

The view from our hotel room

Me in our hotel room

This pic was taken from our hotel room...it was the building next to us

Susan & I next to the sculptured rock on union square on our way to catch the trolley to Fisherman's Wharf

We made it to Fisherman's Wharf

There was a giant macaroni noodle just as we started walking on the wharf.

Other things we saw on the wharf:

Susan next to the lobster in one of our favorite stores.  I bought Jarem a shirt and Tessa a crab necklace here.

Sea lions

View of Alcatraz from the wharf

Golden Gate bridge

I was accosted by a silver man!  In San Francisco, there were lots creepy people and weird things.  This was among the weird things we saw.  This guy's head and clothes were spray-painted silver and he had speakers playing rap or something next to him and was kind of swaying to the music.  I was in a crowd a little ways off and decided to take a picture (I cropped the pic so you can see him better).  He instantly zoomed in on me just as I took the picture and ran over to me rattling his can of money right in my face and asking for money.  He really scared me, but the only thing I had was a $20 bill which I wasn't about to give him.  I told him I was sorry but I didn't have any cash.  He was mad and gave me some mean looks before running off.  The people behind me said that if you take their picture you are supposed to give them money.  I was a little shaken from him...he really gave me the creeps.  There were others like him painted completely gold and etc.  I resisted the urge to photograph them. :)

This was one of my favorite places

Demo through the window...he was making cool things like alligators and turtles with bread dough

Showing off his completed alligator

Baskets of bread moving from the bakery to the cafe along the ceiling

My lunch: clam chowder in a bread bowl

Samples of their bread

Me and my clam chowder...it was good

After lunch, we went to the Boudin museum upstairs.  One of the most fascinating things to me was that they have kept the same start alive for over 150 years beginning in France.  The start was one of the only things they saved after the bad earthquake.

In their early days,  they would deliver bread early in the morning and put it on nails on people's doors so they had fresh bread on their doors when they awoke.  It cost 6 cents a loaf.

There was a place you could take a test to find out what type of bread you are.  This was my result...what do you think?

Susan and Scott next to a delivery wagon

These are some of the huge mixers they use to mix the bread

X marks the mixer...the arrows show the chutes.  When it is done mixing, the mixer drops the bread down the chutes where it rises at the bottom and then is formed into shape

A memorial for those killed in submarines in WWII

Starring Rosie the Riveter

Later, after some window shopping, we found a pleasant little courtyard and I enjoyed some Mitchell's coconut ice cream while Susan and Scott had frozen lemonade and a smoothie. (they missed out)  We sat and enjoyed the pleasant weather and live music before moving on.

Beautiful floral arches at the cannery

Celing at Neiman Marcus

Each corner of union square had one of these hearts.  Each one was a little different in a different color or design.  Scott took this picture of Susan and I as we headed back to the hotel

We met up with Eric as soon as his class was done and headed to Chinatown.  This was where we had dinner.  Susan wanted me to stand downhill so she would look taller, but standing closest to the camera made me look even more giant! :)

Cool picture Eric took of the chinese lanterns.  I decided not to take my camera that night because it had been a pain carrying it around everywhere all day.  This was so disappointing because it was dusk (the perfect time for taking pictures) Eric took this on Susan's camera

The boys taking a break while Susan and I shopped.  It's funny how their legs are crossed just the same.

Eric with Senor golfing frog

Later that night, we hit the diner and each couple shared a banana split.  It was good.