Welcome to San Francisco! Hopefully while I'm here I'll understand why they say it's so foggy...yea you get it pretty quick when you hit the wall of fog. Inside 30 minutes the temperature dropped 32 degrees to around 60. I assume this bridge needs no introduction. I don't think you can ever get a clear shot of the city. Trust me, it's pretty. My college friend and host, Jeff Schwartz. I've basically taken over his apartment with all my stuff and he's been a really good sport about it. Here we are in Tiburon enjoying warmer weather, sun, and a Guinness (or two).
Um, parking is not pretty. There is no place to park, they know it, and they charge a fortune. It may be cheaper to just leave the car in the garage and buy a new one.
Driving in the city is interesting. When looking for parking I drove up a road that seemed like it was 90 degrees. Just for fun I kept hitting the gas and I think I was able to get the front end off the ground. Spent some time in the wicked tourist trap Fisherman's Wharf. Here I took a Bay tour and a city bus tour. The famous "Painted Ladies". These old victorian homes are a huge tourist attraction. They actually passed an ordinance saying tour buses couldn't stop there. Lucky for us our bus driver was a rebel and he stopped. He did say not to worry if he took off un-announced as he would be back after losing the cops.  Ok another one of my meeting new people stories. After the first few days with me Jeff burned out. Something about needing to work during the day and being tired. I couldn't understand. So after a full day of doing city tours I went out on the town. It was about 10pm and I was standing on a corner in the Italian district looking at a street map to figure out how to get home. This really old Italian man (Emilio) with a very heavy accent comes up to me and asks if I'm Italian. When I said yes he proceeds to help me get my bearings. I ask him if he has a suggestion for a pub in the area before I head home. He starts to give me directions to his favorite place a few blocks away. He then says that he will just walk me there even though it's in the opposite direction. We get to the bar (Carlos's) and we walk in. I proceed to the bar and Emilio stops at the door. He yells something in Italian to the bartender and points to me. The bartender yells something back and motions for me to sit down. Emilio gives me a wink and walks away.
I don't know what Emilio said but I proceeded to get free drinks for the remainder of the night. Now this place is a total dive and I couldn't help but notice this huge, plasma TV hanging from the wall. I mean this is the largest plasma TV I've ever seen and they are wicked expensive. After about an hour I ask the bartender how much that TV cost. He said that the owner had a "friend" who came by and just gave it to him. He then told me the TV retails for $27,000. I had to snap a picture of it because I think it was worth more than the whole bar. |
