2nd Day in San Francisco—Dottie's, Crookedest Street, Chinatown, Bay Bridge, Haight-Ashbury District, Full House house, Crissy Field, Golden Gate Bridge, Sausalito

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Friday, November 20

Friday was a busy day, and I knew it would be because there were so many things on my list to see. We had tickets for a tour of Alcatraz the next day, which would take at least a few hours and probably a lot of Mom’s energy. So I knew that Friday would have to be the day on which we got most of our sightseeing done.

Our first stop on Friday morning was to get some breakfast. I had googled the best (but yet fairly inexpensive) places to eat in San Francisco, and Dottie’s True Blue Café popped up. People said that it was the best breakfast in town, so of course I wanted to try it out!

We stayed in a motel about 10 miles south of the heart of San Francisco. Actually, we were technically in a city called South San Francisco. It was the cheapest I could find, and unlike other motels, the parking was free! I remember at one place I called, they charged $17/night for parking! Um, no. One thing about our motel was that it was close to the airport, so you never know if you’ll get all the airplane noise or not. I actually did call them beforehand and asked if people often complained about airplane noise. The guy truthfully answered that yes, they did sometimes complain, and I appreciated his honesty. Luckily, we didn’t have any problems with this. When we were awake we could hear the planes, but other than that, it was fine. We didn’t have a refrigerator or microwave or free breakfast or anything fancy like that. Lol. However, they did have a hairdryer, so I didn’t have to pack mine. Yay. :P If we ever went back, I would totally stay there again. It had like 2 out of 5 stars, but we’re not too picky.

Naturally everywhere we went, we used the GPS on my phone aka “Jane.” We couldn’t believe how MANY homes and businesses were packed onto the hills we passed by. There were literally like no empty spaces around us…seemed like every inch of land had something built on it. This gave it a foreign feel, as if we were visiting another country instead of just San Francisco.

There was so much traffic as we headed north into the city that first morning! And it wasn’t even really during rush hour! Why were there so many people out at like 9:45 am?? Traffic was pretty slow, but when you’re on vacation, it doesn’t seem to matter quite as much. If I was on my way to work in this traffic all the time, that would be a different story!

As we drove down 6^th Street, we spotted Dottie’s. There were so many cars parked on the sides of the street and driving down the street with us. I knew from what I read online that there would be a line running out the door of the restaurant, and there was. We also knew that with Mom’s health issues, she would need to do the least amount of walking as possible throughout the whole trip. As we sat there waiting to move again, Mom goes, “Should you drop me off right here?” So she hurried and got out, right as traffic started moving again. I yelled out to her not to get hit, that I didn’t want her run over! As I drove away, there she was, standing in between the 2 lanes of cars going opposite directions, in the middle of a busy street. I said a prayer as I drove away to find a parking spot!

I didn’t know WHERE to park, and the roads were so confusing. It wasn’t like a 4-way stop; there were streets veering in every direction that turned into other streets, as well as cars, pedestrians and dogs everywhere. Another thing that is different about driving in San Francisco is that there is often one little, solitary light over on the right hand-side of the intersection that lets you know if you need to stop, go, or slow down. You know how you usually have 3 lights hanging directly at the top of the middle of the intersection where you can clearly see them? I didn't find it to be like that in San Francisco. Sometimes there is just one little light, so as you make your way down the streets, you really have to be watching out for those pedestrians and also looking to the right side of the road so you know if you can keep going or not. And you have to be extra careful not to stop your car too late because then you will be blocking the pedestrians' pathway. Chances are that there will be a car behind you, and you won't be able to back up to give the pedestrians more space. All of this while trying to find parking spaces and figure out where you are going, if you're new to the city. And sometimes you are also going up and down hills, so you're trying to quickly switch between the break and the gas pedal so that your car won't roll down the hill as you are sitting at a light. I know I'm making it sound like a driving nightmare, and you probably won't ever want to rent a car in San Francisco after reading this...but it was really the most frustrating place I think I have ever driven a car. Mom looked up some statistics about San Francisco later on, and apparently it's the 2nd most densely populated U.S. city after New York City. Aha...that would explain all the people, the closely packed houses, and the shortage of parking spaces!

Anyway, I’m not sure how I came upon it, but I found a parking space on the side of one street SOMEwhere that seemed fairly close by. That didn’t mean I knew how to get back to the café. I wasn’t super sure if I could even park there, and I didn’t know how to work the parking meter. I saw someone use a parking meter one time, but I didn’t remember if they paid before or after they parked or how it all worked. There were all these homeless men standing on both sides of the street, and though I tried to figure out the parking meter for a minute, I really wasn’t sure what needed to be done, so I just left and hoped for the best!! I brought along our rental car contract in case we got towed, so I would know the license plate number and all of the other info! I knew it would be a mess if that were to happen, but I also didn’t know what else to do. One homeless guy called out something to me—I have a feeling he was trying to tell me something about parking there, but I never found out.

I entered the café address into my GPS once again—this time with walking directions. I quickly came upon an intersection, and I looked up to see what the cross streets were. I only saw one of the street names, so that was no good! Knew I had to remember where I parked SOMEhow because we would be in big trouble if I didn’t. Saw a business right there on the corner and committed the name to memory. (After this first experience, I had the sense to take pictures of where I parked during our trip…much better than trying to remember the names of unfamiliar streets and businesses.)

As I walked along the sidewalks, there were homeless people everywhere and lots of people walking dogs on leashes. At one point I had to actually step off the sidewalk because there were so many people standing there and I didn’t care to try to squeeze through them.

I started to discover that the walking directions were really not very good, and in fact they seemed to be leading me astray. I honestly didn’t know where I was going. My lack of direction, stress of driving and parking, fear of the car getting towed, rushing to go meet Mom, and the clearly sketchy area of town all filled me with a bit of anxiety. Next thing I know, I see a homeless man throw a large object at a car as he crossed the street, yelling and cursing at the driver. Clearly he was angry! Then a man walked past me with tattoos across his face. These are definitely not everyday sightings from where I’m from. Haha. You can just imagine how my morning was going so far. It was a wonderfully charming introduction to San Francisco! :P Little did we know, this was just the start of our driving/parking adventures for the weekend.

I realized that I wasn’t getting much of anywhere with my walking directions, so I asked 2 policemen standing on the sidewalk. Luckily I soon found the café, and we were seated at a hightop table in the very small restaurant. I think almost all restaurants in the city are probably cramped for space. The food was good, and we decided we should probably walk back to the car together, considering the circumstances. Plus, I just didn’t know how well I would actually be able to pull up to the restaurant to pick her up.

Mom had forgotten her toothbrush at home, and our way to the car, we came across a CVS. I told her we better get her one there because who knew when the next time would be that we’d come across a store, and if we did, who knows how long it would take for us to drive there, park, and walk. I also bought my mandatory refrigerator magnet there, too. I always buy a magnet in new states/cities that I visit. This one was perfect because it was in the shape of the Golden Gate Bridge, which made it very unique.

Got back to the car, and woohoo! It was still there! Talk about relieved. Time to go on the 49-mile drive! Research had told me that the drive started at San Francisco City Hall. The city hall building was very fancy-looking and was decorated in gold trim. As we drove up to it, I described it as “palatial,” and Mom described it as “stately.” Lol. I looked for the “49-mile drive” signs, to no avail. There were so many cars that it was hard to spend a lot of time figuring out where the start of the drive was. We left the area and reset the GPS to go back to city hall to do another search, but (not to sound like a broken record), the traffic was just too frustrating, and I finally just gave up on that idea. I figured it’d be easier to just look up directions to each place and drive separately to all the locations we wanted to visit. So that’s just what we did.

Our first stop was Lombard Street aka the “Crookedest Street in the World.” Definitely had to see this! It kind of reminded me of driving down country roads in Texas, but the curves were sharper and the street is at an incline. So I carefully drove down the street (which seemed pretty short, actually), and then I parked the car (found a nearby parking space!) so I could take some pictures.

Next stop=Chinatown! Actually, I’m pretty sure we just accidentally found Chinatown. It becomes pretty obvious when you are surrounded by a lot of Chinese signs and businesses. From what I understand, San Francisco's Chinatown is the largest in the country. So we parked (parallel parked, of course)…there is almost no such thing as non-parallel parking in San Francisco, it seems! I’m definitely not used to parallel parking, so Mom kind of reminded me how she does it.

We visited some shops and markets in Chinatown, and I bought a little zippered handbag. Stuff was pretty cheap, whether it was toothbrushes, toasters, or avocados (yes, there were avocados). Wouldn’t you know it, one shop had toothbrushes that were like 69 cents, a lot less than the purchase price at CVS the day before! The businesses were filled to the brim with items to buy. The markets were very interesting—they had really unusual items like dried snails, dried sea cucumbers, and dried monkey head. To be honest, I did wonder for a minute if it was a REAL monkey’s head, but I didn’t recognize any facial features on it (yuck), so I figured it must be something I had never heard of. Luckily, when I googled it later, I discovered that monkey head is a type of mushroom! Whew. The combination of all those dried things created a pretty strong aroma, which Mom didn’t really care for.

Their produce was really cheap from what I could tell. The names of the produce were written in Chinese, and I must say my Chinese is pretty poor :D, so I could only go off of what I recognized. I thought about buying some blueberries or avocados or something, just because it was such a great deal, but I knew we wouldn’t eat them there at the motel. One thing I found interesting was that the Chase Bank had Chinese lettering on the sign, as well.

I had wanted to go over the Bay Bridge to see Oakland, California, so that was the next thing we did, just for fun. It’s not as famous as the Golden Gate Bridge, but it was nice, and hey, we can say we’ve been to Oakland! :D As we crossed back over the bridge, we had a nice view of the bay, which is actually really pretty.

Next stop—the Haight-Ashbury district! The music and culture of the 1960s has always been a favorite of mine, and at some point I had seen documentaries about the hippie movement. Around Haight St. and Ashbury St. is where they say the hippie movement began, so I had to go check it out. At the intersection of those 2 streets was a Ben & Jerry’s, so we each got a cone and sat there looking out at the street. There are lots of shops—we stepped into a Tibetan shop that had all kinds of Bohemian-looking clothes and things of that nature. I was surprised at all the Victorian homes around the area because I didn’t realize that there were SO many in San Francisco. They’re really pretty houses, and they’re fun to take pictures of!

Not far from the Haight-Ashbury area was the Full House house. This house was shown as being the house that the Tanners lived in on the show. Full House made me a huge fan of Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen from a young age, so I knew I had to see it. I had done some research online before the trip, so I knew that the owners had painted the house a few years back. It’s no longer white, and there are trees that block much of the front of it. As we were taking pictures, a woman came outside with 3 preteen boys in sports uniforms (soccer, I think) and was talking to a van driver who had apparently hit the front of her car and knocked some of the bumper off. Oops! She seemed a little frustrated, as you can imagine. I almost felt bad for standing across the street and taking pictures of her house (and subsequently, car) at a time like that. Right as we walked away, 2 20-something girls came up and started taking pictures of the house, too. Clearly it’s a popular tourist spot!

There was one place in San Francisco that I wanted to visit simply because of its name, and that was Crissy Field. See, we had a pretty black dog named Crissy many years ago (who died a tragic death), and you never see the name spelled that way. So I thought it’d be cool to find a sign (if there was one) and get a picture with it! I guess you could say that Crissy Field is a park/conservatory/place for people to walk/bike, etc. It’s also right on the bay/beach, and it has GREAT views of Golden Gate Bridge and Alcatraz Island. It was pretty chilly when we went because the sun was setting, and it was kind of windy! But the setting sun really made for some pretty pictures of the bridge. It’s kind of funny because as we were out there taking pictures, we saw this lady with a black dog, and as soon as we started talking to it, it literally broke out of its leash and ran up to us. I just thought it was coincidental that we would be talking to a black dog inside of Crissy Field!

After that, I asked Mom, “Wanna go across Golden Gate Bridge?” So that’s what we did. Put on that handy GPS and made our way across the bridge. As we approached the end of the bridge and the charming little town called Sausalito, we noticed the TONS of traffic about to go across, back into San Francisco. Aw man…totally didn’t think about there being rush hour traffic on the bridge! We knew there was no way we could head back into San Francisco anytime soon, so we were going to have to spend some time in Sausalito, whether we liked it or not! Lol. Right away I turned down some winding residential streets right along the bay’s edge. If there had been a place to stop and if it wasn’t already getting dark, I would have totally taken more pictures of the pretty view (I think i got 1)! But it seemed the only places to stop were people’s driveways, and I wasn’t going to do that. We came upon a church, and there happened to be an older lady in the parking lot, so I asked her, “Are there any good places to eat around here?” She goes, ‘This is Sausalito!!” Oh, my bad…silly question, I guess! :P She told us about this one good Italian place that she had just gone to for lunch that day. Try as I might, I was not able to locate that restaurant by GPS, so we just drove down a street where she said all the restaurants were located. Whenever I try to think of the name of the street, I only think of Calendula (a popular herb) because they are spelled similarly…lol…of course I would think of an herb!

We came across this one restaurant that looked really cute from the outside—it had stained glass on the windows, and little plants and flowers hanging out front. It was kind of like a fast food place that also served ice cream. So we parallel parked (surprise, surprise!) and paid the parking meter. At first it was only letting us pay for ½ an hour of parking, and I was confused. It would take us longer than ½ an hour…turns out that parking was free after 7pm. Ah, so that explained it. Learning more about parking meters every day. And THAT was the end of our first full day in San Francisco.

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