Friday in San Francisco

The last time I vacationed alone with my handsome devil of a husband was on our honeymoon six years ago! We’ve made great memories traveling with friends and family since then, but it was wonderful to have Andy all to myself. The weekend felt like one long date!

(One long date in which my nose began to run non-stop and my throat closed up before we even got to the city, I threw up for a solid half hour the next night, slept maybe four hours total over the course of two nights in the hotel and had to go to a pharmacy twice for tissues, medicine, cough drops and vaseline.)

Thinking about how insane that all was makes me giggle now.

Despite the sickies and the exhaustion, I truly had a fantastic weekend. My body managed to function on sheer adrenaline, and it didn’t hurt that Andy kept me laughing the whole time. He also held my hand all weekend and made me feel like the most beautiful girl in the world instead of a girl with a drippy nose and tired eyes.

There was a time on Friday when I was far from happy, though. We had just arrived downtown and Andy was ready to find a spot to have lunch. We were having a hard time finding our way to the bus that we needed to get on in order to get to our hotel in Japantown. There were people everywhere, it smelled like urine, my nose was running and I only had one tissue in my purse. The horror! Also, my plan was for us to bus to our hotel, drop off our stuff and THEN head to lunch…which was going to be about a half hour bus ride from our hotel. :-/ Yeah, I didn’t plan that out very well. (Oh, and we never ate breakfast. Fools!)

Andy put his foot down and said he needed to eat before his hangry-ness got out of control. He spotted a Super Duper Burgers and made a bee line for it, and I tried not to burst into tears. I mean, I love burgers…but it was a chain! We were in a city with a million jillion restaurants! Not only that, but I had plans for us to have burgers at *cough* a chain restaurant on Sunday! THIS WAS NOT IN MY PLAN!

(“This” including being confused by the map and feeling sick—it wasn’t just the burger thing that made me almost cry. Haha.)

It took a reassuring text from my mom, a lot of deep breaths and a surprisingly fantastic burger for me to realize that holding on to my plans was pointless if it was causing stress. I decided to swap my plans for the afternoon with the ones I had made for Saturday, which ended up being a clutch decision. We headed to the Ferry Building along the Embarcadero after checking into our hotel and loaded up on tissues. We explored one half of the building before picking up iced coffees from Blue Bottle Coffee to sip in between smooching (!!!) on a bench facing the bay. Then we poked around the remaining shops and ended our visit with a basket of beignets from Boulettes Larder. I was still finding cinnamon sugar on my face hours later.

After the Ferry Building we headed to The Exploratorium, which was a lot of fun. (We bought City Passes, since I knew I wanted to do the cable car thang, California Academy of Sciences, Exploratorium and a Bay cruise.) My favorite activities were making our own stop motion video, freaking out over a scary head made out of doll parts and tinkering with an interactive clock. I liked making the people drink coffee. :)

Next—bay cruise! We got a great view of the sea lions on Pier 39 without having to deal with the insane crowds. I loved seeing the city, bridges and Alcatraz from the water. Didn’t love embarrassing myself in front of everyone...I was clicking away and got caught off guard when the wind suddenly blew my dress up MULTIPLE times! I was dyyyying. I couldn’t hold my dress and hold my camera and hold onto the railing! I finally had Andy stand behind me and hold me steady while I knotted my dress against my calves. The knotting ended up being kind of genius, actually. Andy complimented how much he liked the knot multiple times that evening!

Once the boat docked we left the Embarcadero to take a cable car ride up Hyde Street. I wanted to see the famous section of Lombard Street that zig-zags downhill. It took a lot of time to get there between walking, bussing and waiting in line to get on a cable car, but we were both glad we went. The view was phenomenal! Plus, hanging on the sides of the cable car was an experience in its own right.

It occurred to me after we left Lombard that we could have seen the Bay Lights from there if we had waited a little longer, but truthfully we were both starving at that point. I gave Andy a few restaurants to choose from and he picked Pizzeria Delfina in Pacific Heights. I was hoping he would! I had read about the restaurant on my friend Amber’s blog and thought the house-made fennel sausage pizza she ate on her honeymoon sounded amazing. She wrote, "I was eating the pizza and saying I craved it at the same time.” Girl, now I know exactly what you’re talking about!

Dinner ended up being my favorite part of our day—not because I didn’t love everything else, but because something about being there felt so right. Maybe it was the wine? ;) The music, the conversation, the food…it was all perfect. We ordered two pizzas, several drinks and a sundae with vanilla gelato, amarena cherries, pistachios and dark chocolate sauce. Our dishes were practically licked clean! After dinner we walked hand-in-hand from the restaurant to our hotel. It was a lovely way to end the day.

Up next, Saturday and Sunday!
Some more pics, if you’d like to see...