Uphill Both Ways With Sourdough Strapped to My Back

Since I had a good amount of down­time, a Hubby & a baby with me, along with a city that none of us in our trio have ever been to it was decided to do some sight­see­ing. Had I gone alone to the con­fer­ence I prob­a­bly would not have gone around the city much. I am too neu­rotic to go around by myself in a strange city.

I’d worry the whole time about get­ting lost or for some rea­son I have a fear of falling down a flight of stairs in front of a group of strangers who would all point & laugh at me. At least if these things hap­pened when I’m with some­one I know they’d help me back to my feet, even if they laughed at me on the way down the stairs. Then I could yell at them for laugh­ing at me, some­thing I would be to embar­rassed to do to the group of strangers. Instead I’d prob­a­bly just try to seem all cool, brush­ing myself off, while smil­ing through tears that would be burn­ing my eyes. Hop­ing a future boss didn’t see me or that it doesn’t end up on YouTube, so stu­dents & strangers for decades to come could laugh at me.

Wait, where was I going with this story again?

Oh yeah, going around the city with Hubby & D-man. Here are some highlights.

Day One

We got in late. After tak­ing the BART (sub­way train) to down­town from the air­port we had to walk to the hotel. It saved money to do it this way, a taxi would have been WAY expensive.

When we got out­side the BART an overly polite home­less man gave us unso­licited direc­tions. I mean we are use to peo­ple shout­ing at us & call­ing us a slew of names, not offer­ing any direc­tions. It was bizarre, I was expect­ing a “F-you Bitch” not a “Are you look­ing for Pow­ell? Right that way, have a nice night. Enjoy it here.” I began to worry that peo­ple were going to be overly polite, but thank­fully there were lots of French there, so every­thing bal­anced out. (Ok, go ahead & com­plain about how that’s a hor­ri­ble stereo­type if you want but really know­ing peo­ple who are French over the years I stand by it. I love the French but mov­ing the Hell outta my way seems to be some­thing that is not pos­si­ble for any one I have ever met that was French).

It was after 10pm San Fran­cisco time when we got into our room. That makes it 1 am for us & for D-man who was ready for a late-night snack. Hubby & I also were hun­gry. We got fast food, even for fast food it was expensive.

First impres­sion of the city, it is a city. But the views are more impres­sive, there was lots of nightlife, & the area we stayed in had tons of street per­form­ers. First impres­sion of our hotel was it was very artsy. Mural on the ceil­ing in our room, phrases found on walls through­out the hotel, & every­thing had a retro feel. I loved it, the staff was great & the room was perfect.

In gen­eral, I have to say I hate eat­ing while trav­el­ing it’s the one major down­side, every­thing costs so much. Yet, eat­ing is one of the best things for me. My fam­ily lives for food. Life events are about food. One of the first ques­tions asked from both sides of our fam­i­lies about a trip is “How was the food?” and “What was the best meal you had?” Peo­ple still talk about the food from our wed­ding recep­tion. All the food we ate there was good, I don’t recall a bad dish.

Lots of fresh fish & some of the best mid­day meals we’ve had on a trip. Delicious.

That is minus a cock­roach we saw run across the wall in one place that just about ruined the expe­ri­ence for me.

The French fam­ily in the booth that had the lit­tle vis­i­tor didn’t bat an eye at, except to ask for a dis­count on their bill, they got it (good for them). I can only hope because the food was good that the roaches weren’t in the food, I REALLY REALLY don’t want to know. It made me want to vomit, I use to work in food ser­vice, and I know cities deal with these things but hav­ing one in the din­ing room is a major turn-off.

The first morn­ing was the infa­mous cof­fee spill. When I was done with the ses­sion Hubby & D-man were wait­ing for me. D-man was hun­gry again, as it had been a whole 2 hours since his last meal. He gets really hun­gry dur­ing the day but he does sleep most the night so it’s a trade off. But it was a mini-vacation only hav­ing one kid who was hun­gry ver­sus four who were all hun­gry & melt­ing down.

We walked back down & up sev­eral hills, did I men­tion how hilly it is there? It is SO freak­ing hilly. Walk­ing is not an issue but seri­ously it felt like walk­ing uphill both ways. My thighs were on fire from & not from just rub­bing together but all the walk­ing. OH MY, the walk­ing up & down the hills ALMOST killed me. I thought I my thighs were going to explode at one point.

We did go to Chi­na­town.

It is touristy but fun, we did check out some of the more local areas around it as well. Hubby was like a kid in a candy store. He loves chotchkies. We go any­where & he must visit them & he must buy them. D-man was more amazed by the col­ors in the shops & all the peo­ple. It seemed like mil­lions of sweet lit­tle old Chi­nese ladies came up to rub his chubby feet & tell him how cute he was. He was a king.

We also got the kids what has become their favorite item from our trip. It is a cat whose hand waves. It is so odd. Hubby saw it & couldn’t stop laugh­ing, he pic­tured the kids watch­ing it for hours. Turns out he was right. It’s on the boys dresser now.

Day Two

We still had great weather, nor­mally it’s a lit­tle cooler off the bay, but this week­end it was a lit­tle warmer. For us it was nice, some of the locals still thought it was chilly at night. We are use to hot & humid in the sum­mer. A breeze feels like paradise.

We went to Fisherman’s Wharf. We rod there on a cable car, it moves pretty fast & is small. The lines are long but it you are plan­ning to go all the way down it’s not too bad of a ride. How­ever, there were also a lot of peo­ple who let VERY SMALL CHILDREN hold on to the out­side of the car. I was pan­icked watch­ing it, think­ing these kids could let go any minute & BAM end of fam­ily fun time start of explain­ing why a 5 year spent the trip of a life­time in San Fran­sisco in the ER.

I know I’m NO FUN. Just ask my kids. I never let them do things like that or play with sharp knives. Mean Mommy.

Again the area around Fisherman’s Wharf is pretty touristy like seri­ously insane tourist trap. Tons of peo­ple every­where but you can see the Golden Gate Bridge & Alca­traz there. Both were pretty cool to see. It was a per­fect day out­side (warmer than usual so the breeze wasn’t too bad), but D-man didn’t appre­ci­ate see­ing the sites like we did. He ate his blan­ket & just wanted to eat in gen­eral. We also checked out the wax museum, but man every­thing is SO expen­sive. By every­thing I mean EVERYTHING.

There is also an entire pier, pier 39 where you can see a bunch of sea lions hang­ing out.

They were show­ing off their tubby selves for the crowd. How­ever, they do leave an odor also hang­ing in the air that is not so, how shall we say, pleasant.

We did eat din­ner at the Wharf & that was the best meal. The restau­rant was mostly seafood Ital­ian, seafood is really pretty com­mon in Ital­ian food espe­cially Sicil­ian food. So I was excited. We had a bot­tle of wine & D-man slept. It was so nice, relax­ing, and just great to talk over a glass of wine with Hubby.

I miss being able to hear my hus­band at times or to talk about some­thing other than POOP. Most of our con­ver­sa­tions start or end with POOP talk. And on this trip we had less of that, we still did talk about D-man’s bow­els (gross–breastfeed or not it’s still gross) but man we talked SO MUCH LESS ABOUT POOP. 1 kid ver­sus 4 makes a difference.

Before we left the Wharf we got to see the fog start to roll in. You could hear the fog horn. Lit­er­ally it cov­ers every­thing in its path. The Bridge dis­ap­peared before our eyes.
We ate a lot, had a good amount of drinks for the time there (given we were tired at like 7pm), D-man after the first night adjusted well to the time change (which meant that he was out at din­ner), & walked every­where we could in a day & 1/2. Had fresh sour­dough bread, because again Hubby is a sucker for all things cliche. And it was good bread.

I’d love to go back again. There were some great blues bars by where we stayed, it would be nice to go to those. Also, get­ting a full tour of the places we saw like Alca­traz would make Hubby happy. And then a mil­lion other places. Until then we’ll always have the wav­ing cat.

Tagged as: academia, family, poop, san francisco, traveling