San Francisco Trip

Sunday-Thursday, 9/20 - 24/09

Darin was invited to go to the Intel Developer Forum in San Francisco. Funny that he never went the 13yrs he worked at Intel, but went the first few months working at Amazon. Anyways, with airfare so low and free hotel - I decided to tag along. We are so blessed to have Grandparents that live near us and that are happy to take care of the kids for a few days!

We got in Sunday around noon and stayed at the Hilton Financial District. The hotel ended up being in a great location. To the left was the high end shopping district, in front of us was Chinatown and to the left of us was North Beach (the Italian District) and beyond that was the wharf. We walked and walked and walked.

Here is the amazing view from our hotel room.

We heard drums drumming and looked out the window and saw that Chinatown was a buzz. We walked down and it was the Autumn Moon Festival going on. It was fun walking around and looking at the booths and stores. I was so ecstatic when I found a knock-off purse store. I bought several for me, mom and Kirstin. I later found out that knock-offs are everywhere!

After Chinatown, we headed toward the wharf and ran into the North Beach area. It is all things Italian. The people really are Italian and speak it and have the accent.....so cool! All their restaurants have outdoor tables and a really open and fun feeling. We stopped and had a beverage before moving on.

We made it down to the wharf area!
Shops, shops and more shops!

Here is Alcatraz behind us.

Crabs are cooking everywhere.

We never did ride on a trolley (the lines were too long), but I got my picture with one. :-)
It was so cold, I bought a sweatshirt to wear. Darin toughed it out because he had bought a sweatshirt in Chinatown that we left at the hotel. It was cold! It was amazing how fast it turned cold.

We ended our first evening at an Italian restaurant. We had two entrees with fig in them and they were really good....who knew! There was a heat lamp above us and a band playing inside the restaurant. I love eating outside and interacting with the people walking by. I wish we had this in Seattle. It was a really fun day!

Monday - Day Two
I foolishly didn't bring my tennis shoes. I thought that I would be find with my Docs and Crocs, but my feet were hurting bad after day one. So first thing, we headed to Macy's and bought me some new shoes. Darin didn't have to work today, so it was another day of exploring.

We tackled Lomard St today. This is an extremely steep road that someone decided to make into a really steep, windy road and then someone else made it beautiful with lots of plants and flowers.

Here is a view from the top.

Then we just started walking down toward the wharf. Here is the view we have of the Golden Gate bridge. We could only see the top with all the fog around.

We did come across a great view of Alcatraz and the Bay.

We ran into Ghirardelli Square.....YUM!

Since we had walked the wharf yesterday, we decided to do this gocart GPS guided tour. We had seen someone on it while we walked up Lomdard and thought it would be really fun. It was fun, but got colder and colder as we moved away from the city and the day got later. Again, we didn't bring our sweatshirts with us.

We drove to the beach (windy & cold & no view).

Then we started driving closer to the Golden Gate Bridge. There was a beautiful view of the city.

Here is the view of the bridge enclosed in fog. It is super cold!

We can barely see the bridge though it is right in front of us.

The GPS guided us away from the bridge and into the huge city park. Here is a little slice of Holland. There was ALOT to see in the park. It was definitely worth doing the tour.

Then we headed back into the city. I love the architecture.

And we drove down Lombard and back to the rental office. It was a long and very cold 2.5hrs, but we would do it again. It was a good self-guided tour.

After buying a 2nd sweatshirt and getting warmed up a little walking around, we went to dinner again in North Beach at Calzones. Yummy! Another great day shared with my hubby!!

Day 3 - Wednesday
It was such a treat to hook up with CT (my previous job share partner). Her husband was at the forum too and she decided to come for a couple of days. We had no idea that each other was coming. While our husbands worked, we had a fun day walking all around San Francisco. We had the best breakfast at this little cafe in North Beach.

Today we got a view of the bottom of the Golden Gate Bridge. I never got a full view of it.

It was a fun day. We literally walked all day long. Then we went back to the hotel and had dinner with our husbands. Darin and I ate in North Beach again at Panderei. I had gnocchi for the first time and I really enjoyed it. It was another great evening.

Day 4 - Thursday
Darin worked again today. I packed us and checked us out of the hotel. I met CT in the lobby and we went and got pizza for lunch in North Beach. It was a place that Darin and I had went to on Monday. Really good thick crust pizza.

We came back to the lobby and said goodbye. I sat in the lobby and finished my Nicholas Sparks book and then Darin was there at 2:30pm and we were headed back home.

It was an awesome trip!