San Francisco scope-it-out trip, part 1
There will be pictures later.
Monday morning, we woke up at 3 a.m. to get to the airport in time for our 6:15 flight. Keep in mind: this is the first time I’ve ever flown first class, and I am stoked. It was supposed to land around 8. We got to San Francisco airspace in a timely manner, and circled the city for almost an hour before we were rerouted to San Jose to refuel, have the toilets serviced, and wait for the fog to clear.
At the 2.5 hour mark of waiting on the tarmac, the air crew is required to give passengers the options of disembarking the plane and arranging their own transportation. The pilot, when making this announcement, made sure to emphasize that their luggage would not be shipped, and while if everyone remained seated we would be able to taxi and depart San Jose in about 10 minutes, if anyone wanted off they were legally obligated to get out of line for departure, taxi over to a terminal so the passengers could disembark, and delay us by almost another hour.
And so, of course, some folks absolutely needed to get off the airplane.
So we were delayed some more.
Our original appointment to view our apartment at Parkmerced was at noon, but we ended up being delayed to see the apartment until 1:30 or so due to our air travel fiasco. We arrived, and Parkmerced was utterly lovely. The apartment is pretty average sized, so not enormous but large enough for us, with hardwood floors and gas heat and kitchen appliances. The kitchen is small, but the natural lighting throughout is so cheerful and encouraging. The bathroom is tiny with no storage options and hideous tile on the floor and walls, but there is a large linen closet outside it and we have plenty of options for painting and improving the space. It’s so exciting to have an apartment that’s such a blank slate, that we can do anything to. (The only reservation they have is that, at the end of our residence there, they either approve our paint jobs or we repaint to the original white. Fine by me.)
From Parkmerced, we went downtown on the M-train to check into our hotel, then, because I wanted to do something touristy and I hadn’t eaten a meal yet that day, we went to John’s Grill, famous for its patronage by Dashiell Hammett. But we were both super fried, so I ended up just getting my food as takeout and going back to the hotel. Mister headed to work for a bit, and I tried to unwind. When he got back from work a couple hours later, we both crashed and slept til 10:30. Another round of takeout later from a bar with a scary-looking-but-ultimately-very-friendly bouncer, and then we slept all night.
Tuesday morning we woke up and determined that it would be a very good, exploring day. Mister had to work, but we headed over to Blue Bottle Coffee first. This is literally the best mocha I’ve ever had in my entire life. Then, we walked from Blue Bottle to Mister’s office at 1st and folsom. From there, I decided I was going to walk to Chinatown- a hike, but I figured it would be nice to stretch my legs and see part of the city.
On my way, it started to rain in earnest, so I stopped in at a Daiso store and bought a $3 umbrella. Then I continued, I thought toward Chinatown, but I ended up somewhere in the Tenderloin, where I mostly saw a lot of homeless people waiting in line for a medical clinic. By that point I felt kind of lost and really sore, so I decided to head back toward our hotel and stop at the mall where there was a jeans sale at AE. I needed some jeans. So I bought some jeans, got a slice of pizza from the mall food court, and headed back to my hotel room, where I realized: i must have left my new umbrella in the fitting room at AE.
So I finished my pizza, took a bath to relax my sore muscles, and went back to AE to retrieve my umbrella.
Where they informed me that someone already claimed it.
So I went to Nordstrom and bought a new umbrella. Only, not for $3. For $30. Ugh.
So I figured I would just go somewhere midway between the hotel and Mister’s office and wait for him to finish working, and I had read about this place in the Yerba Buena gardens that sounded nice, called Samovar (a tea house). So I went there, and it was nice, but it was full inside so I sat outside, and that got cold really fast. I wrapped up a cookie for Mister, rolled up the cuffs of my jeans, and went to his office, where I finished reading a book and he got off work.
Mister, his coworker and I decided to meet another of their friends for dinner and drinks at a place only a few blocks away, but the rain was so terrible, and the sidewalks and roadways so ill equipped to handle it, that I got absolutely soaked on my way to the place (we ate at a place called The Grove, which had lovely soups and sandwiches). Dripping wet, freezing, we ate there, then got even more soaked on our way to some bar where we had a couple drinks and then Mister and I called it a night. We returned sopping to our hotel room, and dropped into bed, exhausted. Look, we’re Seattleites. We don’t mind the rain. We mind the shitty infrastructure that makes the sidewalks flood after a few hours of moderate downpour.
This morning, we were awakened by 70 minutes of screaming by a woman who was probably on drugs, but it sounded, honestly, like she was being tortured right outside the hotel. We finally called the front desk, and they seemed not to have heard it, even though it woke several of our neighbors up (we could hear them all exclaiming about it around the same time). And now, I have a sore throat and have been sneezing all morning, so it seems as if our rain adventures last night have gotten me sick.
So, no, not having the best visit to San Francisco ever. Mostly trying to figure out if my shoes will be dry enough to leave the hotel today, and wanting comfort food and coziness instead of more ‘adventures.’
Is it a little crazy that I still feel just as excited about moving here? Mister keeps lamenting that he’s never had any of these issues on his previous visits to the city: no terrible rain, no weird fog issues delaying our touchdown at the airport, no screaming people on the sidewalk, no shitty internet connection at the hotel (another fun adventure). But I don’t know- something in me is saying, this is not a signal of things to come.
So, I plan how to paint over our bathroom tiles, and I look forward to the day we pull in with our uHaul and call it good.
