so we woke up at 3:30am, packed up the car, and headed down to buffalo airport. from there, we flew to the atlanta airport, where we had a 5 hour stopover. we finally landed, took the BART downtown, and made our way to our hotel - our room was lovely and we were so thrilled to finally have made it.
it had been a really long day already for us by that point, so we didn't do too much that night - we wandered around union square for a bit, then went out for indian food before heading back for an early night at the hotel.
monday
Woke up to the excitement of being in San Francisco! After grabbing some coffee and cookies in the lobby of the hotel, we hopped on the cable car down to the wharf. it was a nice and refreshing beginning to our first full day. We got off at Lombard and walk down and took some pictures.
after that, we walked down to the wharf and headed over to the musee mecanique - a free museum of coin-operated oddities that used to be at amusement parks back in days of yore.
after that, we wandered over to pier 39 and observed the sea lions!
after checking out all the touristy stuff, we walked over to the coit tower, where we saw some awesome murals and great views of the city.
following that, we walked over to the beautiful filbert steps in search of the parrots of telegraph hill.
after that, we walked through north beach over to chinatown, where we went to the famous city lights bookstore (the birthplace of the beat movement).
we then wandered through chinatown, and saw the fortune cookie factory.
we headed back to our hotel to rest up a bit before we headed back down to the wharf to get the ferry to alcatraz!
we were two of only twenty folks from both evening ferries that got to go on the spooky, lantern-lit hospital tour.
tuesday!
we started our day in the haight, with the 'flower power walking tour', a 3 hour tour of the area given by one of the locals. we saw charles manson's house, the hells angel house, the grateful dead house, and the house that janis joplin lived in.
and lots of the other interesting sites in the area
following that, we took a bus over to the castro.
after that, we walked over to the mission delores.
and then over to the gorgeous women's building
we then took a bus up to twin peaks.
wednesday!
we woke up early, picked up our rental car, and headed down the coast to monteray.
we arrived at our destination - point lobos state reserve in carmel!
we hiked through roughly 1/3 of the reserve. we saw deer, seals, pelicans, otters, squirrels, salamanders, and a whole lot of trees and ocean.
we then headed back up the coast to santa cruz.
and another beautiful drive, this time back to san francisco, during which shannon spotted a whale!
thursday!
we took a bus over to the pacific, where we made our way inland through golden gate park, including the japanese tea garden.
we spent the rest of the day shopping in the haight.
friday!
in the morning, we went to yerba beuna gardens, and then over to the SF MOMA.
from there, we walked over to the ferry building on the embarcardero.
we caught the BART from there over to berkeley, where we spend the rest of the afternoon record and vintage clothes shopping.
we took the BART back to san francisco, and went back to our hotel where we imbibed on the champagne the hotel gave us.
shannon suggested that i open the bottle in the bathroom so that it wouldn't make a mess. it didn't work out quite as well as i'd hoped.
we went to see team dresch and erase errata at slim's.
saturday!
we headed down the wharf once again, this time to pick up our rental bicycles for the day. from there, we headed over to ride the bridge.
after completing the bridge, we took a rather scary highway into the pretty little town of sausalito.
we took the ferry back to san francisco, and spent more time with our sea lion friends at the wharf.
we woke up sunday morning, very sad to be leaving san francisco.
