If You’re Going to San Francisco… Part One

On April 29-May 3, I visited the beautiful city of San Francisco. My first visit to San Francisco was in 1986, when I was just 8 years old. My parents had taken my brother Manny and I out to San Jose to compete in a national track meet (he was only 6!). We spent about a day in “The City.” I have some vague memories of Chinatown and Fisherman’s Wharf. My next visit was around 2003 when I was out there for a 2-day conference, which took place just outside the city in nearby Walnut Creek. I was lucky enough to venture into “The City” once that weekend, to see a Giants game (against my Florida Marlins). Side note: While the Marlins lost that game, they ended up beating the Giants in the playoffs and eventually won the World Series.

Other than these two brief experiences, last week was my first real immersion to “The City.” This time around I was visiting my brother, Tony, who recently moved there to take a position as a Sports Writer for the Associated Press. (Side note: he was only 1 year old during that trip in 1986). He lives in the Pacific Heights area of “The City” – after four days there, I determined that this must be the best area of “The City” to live in. His neighbors include millionaires – and even Nancy Pelosi, whose home is just two blocks away from my brother’s front door. No, he’s not rich. But he found a pretty good deal (still expensive I’m sure) in a house that has been converted into several smaller units.

The one thing that struck me most about this city was all of the amazing views. I kept telling my brother that I felt like we were in a Mediterranean city, with the hills and bayside valleys.  I flew into San Francisco late on a Friday night. I had been in Dallas the previous two days for a conference. My direct flight on Virgin America (great airline!) got into San Francisco at 9:30 PT. Let’s just say I was tired, but excited to see my brother (it had been about 4 months!) We just went back to his place and relaxed.

Saturday, we woke up and took the bus about 15 minutes or so down to Ferry Plaza for the Saturday Farmer’s Market. It’s pretty neat, they have vendors giving out all sorts of free samples of different cheeses, breads, sauces, etc. We grabbed lunch there and then walked about a mile or so down to about Pier 33 to catch the ferry to Alcatraz. While Alcatraz is best known for being a prison, we also learned that it played a role in the Civil War and had been hijacked by Indians in the 1960s protesting the U.S. government’s taking of their lands. It was a very cool tour and we also had some amazing views of “The City” from the island and the ferry boat.

Once back in “The City,” we walked around Fisherman’s Wharf, where we saw almost 200 sea lions laying around on pallets in the bay. We then caught a taxi back to my brother’s place, rested up, and went out to dinner at the Osha Thai restaurant in the Cow Hollow neighborhood. Good stuff. And we had so much, we took home dinner (which we ended up eating on Monday night). Later on Saturday night, we ventured down toward the Fisherman’s Wharf area and grabbed a drink at an Irish pub, where we heard a musician play some cover songs, including the classic, “San Francisco” song by Scott McKenzie (bar patrons were all singing along – yes you can tell most of the folks in there were tourists). The musician also played “Hotel California” by the Eagles. We then stepped outside, got on a cable car, and rode it all the way down (or rather, all the way “up”) to the Union Square area. We bar-hopped at a few places and ended up at the Starlight Room on the 21st floor of the Sir Francis Drake Hotel. This bar/lounge had a nice dance floor with big windows and views overlooking much of “The City.” It was a $10 cover with fairly pricey drinks, but I guess you get what you pay for. We weren’t there terribly long (most of the clientele was a bit older than us, but it was a really nice place). We called it an early night, home before midnight. It seems like San Francisco is a pretty early town, from what we could tell.

Sunday we woke up and went to church at St. Dominic’s Cathedral, only about a 6-block walk from my brother’s place. We then rented me a bike, grabbed lunch at Marina Submarine, a place not far from my brother’s pad, that reportedly makes “the best subs in San Francisco.” Service was slow, but the sandwiches were great. One Asian guy makes them all. Only cash accepted.

Then, we began our bike riding adventure through “The City,” out through the Presidio (up some steep hills) and across the Golden Gate Bridge! This was the most exhilarating part of the trip. I mean, it was one of the coolest things I felt I ever did. I had never really experienced the Golden Gate Bridge before in my life and here we were biking right across one of America’s most celebrated monuments. After crossing the bridge, we biked into the beautiful town of Sausalito. We parked our bikes, grabbed some ice cream, and hung out there for about an hour before taking a ferry back across the bay into the Fisherman’s Wharf area. Then, we biked back to my brother’s place (probably the mot grueling part of the trip, up many steep hills). What a day!

After returning the rented bike, we grabbed some showers and rested up before going out to meet some friends of mine that live in the city and in Palo Alto. We were meeting them for dinner only a couple blocks away at Choquet’s Restaurant on Fillmore. However, just before we went out to meet them, we noticed – via Twitter – that the President was holding a press conference at 10:30 PM ET (it was almost 7:30 PM PT where we were). The White House wouldn’t say what it was about. We flipped on CNN and the media looked clueless. I immediately told my brother: I bet we got Bin Laden. It was my only guess. And when CNN said the press conference was about national security issues and NOT Libya, I felt my guess was stronger. I was hoping this was it. Anything else might be a doomsday scenario.

Then, we watched Twitter closely – it was as active as I’ve ever seen it on a Sunday night. Within minutes, we saw a Florida Congressman tweet that we got Bin Laden. YES!!! We cheered. We couldn’t wait around for the President’s press conference, which started much later than reported. We had to meet my friends for dinner – 5 0f them – all conservative. We all cheered and we toasted to victory for the USA. What a great night. As we got back to my brother’s place, we flipped on CNN and saw crowds cheering outside the White House and read reports of Americans cheering outside the George W. Bush home in Dallas. Meanwhile, we were two blocks away from the former Speaker of the House’s home in San Francisco. It was dead quiet. Go figure.

Coming next… Part 2: Napa Valley and my last day in San Francisco