California: Day Two

Friday morning Rachel and I slept in later than planned, but soon we were on our way.  I dropped her off at work again, spent a few hours in Starbucks, stopped off in the Levi Strauss bathroom, and proceeded to climb Telegraph Hill.

I did not realize how immense it was.

In the beginning I was pretty cheerful, and very interested in my surroundings.  The houses perched on the side of the hill are gorgeous, and in amazingly good shape.  I wonder how they get construction crews/painters/movers/etc. to do work.  There weren’t many flat spaces for perching on.  I think once I’d moved into a house on Telegraph Hill, I would be afraid/too lazy to move out until I died.

I took pictures of the Bay, the steps, the skyline, a street sign.  A street sign on the steps, because like in Pittsburgh, there are stairs which count as legitimate city streets.  And then I heard I noise.

I looked to my left.

And beheld a gloriously nude gentleman, who gave me the dirtiest look EVER.  I looked away.  Surely he wasn’t really naked in his window and glaring at me?  I looked back.  Yes, yes he was.

I hurried on pretty quickly after that, and passed Julius’ Castle, a beautiful but now closed restaurant, and then realized there were MORE steps.  At this point I wished I hadn’t put tights on under my jeans, but it had been so chilly that morning I thought I would need them.

I kept on climbing, and at last reached Coit Tower.  I refused to spend 5 bucks to climb more steps, so here are some fuzzy pictures I took.

And here is me looking gross and sweaty with a lovely downtown backdrop.

Going down was, unsurprisingly, a lot easier.  Until I came to the part of the path where I’d passed the naked guy.  What if he was waiting to yell at me, to tell me off for taking pictures in a residential area?  I had a panicked text discussion with Rachel, but eventually made a run for it.

Safely arriving at the bottom of the hill, I divested myself of my tights and headed downtown.  While exploring Pier One the day before, I had spied a bike rental stand, and I was determined to check it out.  A very nice man at Bike and Roll (a hockey fan from Michigan who moved to SF for his girlfriend) set me up with a ride, and I set out.  I was pretty thrilled with my ability to ride in/with traffic, and I took a few pictures at the beginning of my ride.

I stopped at the Fort Mason park to grab and sandwich and a bathroom break.  Also did you know there is a Civil War fort in CALIFORNIA?  Crazy.  Also apparently the Confederates set up a town in Mexico for the sole purpose of selling their cotton to support their army.  Less crazy.

By the time I made it up the hill and to Golden Gate Bridge, I was feeling  a little tired.  I was pretty thrilled riding back and forth across the bridge though, until I got off to take a few pictures.  I know that the Bridge sways quite a bit, but that is not as noticeable as the constant thrumming of the ground as trucks and cars pass by.  I got back on the bike pretty quickly, and headed in the direction of Golden Gate Park, which according to my map was not THAT far away.

As amazing as biking to and across the Golden Gate Bridge was, and as many times as I have proudly told that story, I am not gonna lie:  after that picture was taken, the rest of my day was pretty shitty.  That day was an equal mixture of awesome and awful, and I can still look back on that day and remember exactly how terrible I felt at the end of it.

There were a lot of hills involved in getting to Golden Gate Park, and by the time I finally got to the Park I was beat.  I wanted to sit down in the Japanese Tea Garden and drink ginger ale.  I wanted to put my feet up.  I wanted to get rid of this bike.  Where was the bike return kiosk?

I checked my map to see where I could turn in my bike.  Looks like I can go…..back downtown.  I had invented a bike return place in the Park in my head.  Oh well, better head downtown, I’ve got 2 hours to get this bike back to its owner.  La di da, riding down this steep long hill is lovely….why am I seeing the ocean?

Because I biked in the wrong direction, and I was on the exact opposite side of San Francisco that I needed to be.

An hour later I was still trying to get out of the park, stopping strangers for direction, and crying without tears because I’d run out of water three hours ago, I had 45 minutes to get this bike back, and I was just exiting the park.

Fortunately, I ran into a very nice man who said, hey, if you need to get downtown, and you get on that bus right there right now, it will get you right where you need to be.

Thank you random stranger, thank you bus driver who was very patient while I buckled my bike to the rack, thank you bike rental kiosk for still being open after I raced through rush hour traffic on my bike to get to you!

Then, dinner time.  I rode with Rachel from the Embarcadero to the Mission, recounting my miserable tale.  I have to say, Rachel, having spent her day in an office, was not sympathetic, urging me to consider how wonderful the experience was.  It was wonderful until I COULDN’T CRY TEARS because I was so miserable and dehydrated.  So yes, as wonderful as it was to cross the Golden Gate Bridge on bike, if I had to do it all over again I would skip the park; I would have ridden straight back to the bike rental center from the Bridge.

Back in the Mission, we met up with my friends Liz and Brian, and still had time to kill before dinner, so we visited…

826 Valencia!  It was closed, but still; I saw it.

Dinner was at Esperpento, and it was fabulous.  We had the Gambas Al Ajillo, Tortilla de Patata, Patatas Bravas, Champinones Al Ajillo, rabbit stew, and also some asparagus which I don’t see on the menu anymore.  It was all pretty great, and I neglected to take pictures of any of it.

Oh well.

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