2016-10-11

Surviving San Francisco - Day Four

     This is Val and oh my word, where do I even begin to tell you about our day?
     Well, after finishing our second blog post at 1 a.m. Sunday, we noticed we had yet to pack our stuff to leave the AirBnB. So we decided not to leave at 8 a.m. Sunday morning, rather we left at 9:30-ish to head into San Francisco.
     We decided to drive the rental into the city and park it at one of the piers rather than later in the day having to make our way back out to the AirBnB to get it before taking the Rockleys to the airport.
     Well, plans fell apart fast when traffic took up quite a bit of our driving time into the city. So we decided to just drive the Rockleys to the airport so they'd arrive on time. Yeeeeeaaaaah ... we arrived at the airport about five hours before their flight was scheduled to leave. Oops.
     No problem, we'll just go get some food. What better place to get food than an hour south of the airport in San Jose. Alyssa was in the mood for Mexican, so we set out on a search. We found one place via Yelp in San Mateo, but when we pulled up, Matthew and Ricky quickly decided the area seemed sketchy. So the next place we found was called Iguana Burritozilla in San Jose. This place was what looked to be a two-story house and was painted purple ... the purpliest of all purples.



     I had some nachos and Matthew had a specialty burrito, which were both good. We sat outside and enjoyed the nice weather. The last few days had been a little too warm during the afternoons, but today was perfect.
     After filling our tummies, we hopped back in the car to take the Rockleys back to the airport and returned the rental car, so we could head to our next destination.
     We wanted to see an overlook of the city. We had a few options, but we decided on Twin Peaks since it was on our way back into the city. To get to Twin Peaks we decided on riding the BART about halfway there and then getting an Uber to save on time.


Overlook of San Francisco from Twin Peaks


     Twin Peaks definitely gave a captivating overlook of San Francisco, but the journey back was a bit of a hassle.
     The first thing you need to know is that we had our luggage with us, which we planned to drop off at our next AirBnB location after Twin Peaks. The second thing you need to know is that Twin Peaks is up on a very high hill (hence the overlook spot) and the streets are a crazy mix of jagged and steep. The third thing you need to know is City Mapper (an app using google maps) likes to torture us.
     We set City Mapper to get us to the ferry station, which first meant walking to the bus stop ... no biggie. Ha. Ha. Ha. BIG biggie when that walk includes extreme stairs and by extreme I mean three different extremely steep flights. Poor Matthew had our big suitcase (~40 lbs) and was having to carry it down the stairs. We also came across a few areas that you wouldn't think would be on a map ...



I'm not really sure how this can be considered part of a road, but City Mapper seems to think it is. Before walking over to it, we seriously thought it had led up to a dead end. This little dirt pathway then led us to the infamous stairs.

     Something I find funny though is that the stairs we had to walk down had a street name ... even though it was only wide enough for one person. Strange.
     The coolest part about this little side adventure was that we got to wander amongst the houses in the hills. These houses are stacked on top of each other in rows and I was afraid I wouldn't get to admire them up close, but thanks to City Mapper's adventurous side, I was able to.:)
     Once we got to the bus station, we had to wait about 20 minutes, but the view was awesome while we waited. We finally got to the ferry building and made our way across the bay to Oakland.
     I had never ridden a ferry before, so I'm glad I was finally given the chance. It was such an experience and the views of San Francisco and the Bay Bridge were jaw dropping.



     We then made our way to the boat we'd be staying in for our last night. It was parked in a little marina in Oakland.


The Andiamo



     We were able to see the beginning of sunset from the boat before we decided to head back into the city for a night walking along The Embarcadero.



     We started at the San Francisco Ferry Building and walked up the coast.


San Francisco Ferry Building


     Our first stop was actually inside the ferry building for a Blue Bottle Cold Brew Float, which is Vietnamese cold brewed coffee with Tahitian vanilla ice cream and hot fudge. If you EVER have a chance to try this, DO IT! I can't really find the words to describe it, but it's extremely delicious.


Blue Bottle Cold Brew Float

     Speaking of extremely delicious things, just a little further down The Embarcadero, I came across the best chicken tacos I've had in my life. My mouth is just now getting the feeling back, but I'd come back to San Francisco just for those tacos. It sounds extreme, but it's true. They were cooked in some kind of Cajun sauce and the soft taco shell was made out of sourdough, which was something I wanted to try while in San Francisco since that's a food their known for.


My tacos and Matthew's Chicken Pesto sandwich with tomato soup in a sourdough bread bowl

     The tacos were the perfect way to end the night.

     I'll leave you on that high note so I can lay down for a snooze before having to wake up for our early morning start.


"San Francisco itself is art, above all literary art. Every block is a short story, every hill a novel. Every home a poem, every dweller within immortal. That is the whole truth."
- William Saroyan



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