Travelogue, earth date 06172009

30.

I woke up this particular morning with a new age to my name.

Of course, when I awoke there was no one in the room and I woke at my own ever-so-slow pace. I grabbed a handful of salt-water taffy for breakfast, picked up "Austenland" and began reading which then led to finishing the book. Then I grabbed my caffeine-free Diet Pepsi (really, should I be drinking something with so many words in it's title?) from the mini fridge and turned on the TV. The morning of champions....no doubt.

Brainless television.

We have two televisions in our home. No cable, no converter boxes, no nothing. Just good old fashioned movies, so this was something new to me. After two episodes of "True Hollywood Stories" (one about Full House the other about Home Improvement), I realized I wasn't missing anything in life by not having the thing blaring in my home all day and decided to turn the thing off and get ready.

I was supposed to meet up with Todd at the office around 11am. So, I put on my walking shoes and headed to Old Navy. My friend told me there was a bargain basement with killer deals there. I got there and the bargain basement was shut down.

Wah.

But I did pick up something cute for the girls and some shirts for Todd (all men's stuff was 1/2 off...that's a bargain) and headed back to the office. While waiting for their meeting to end, I started reading Sense & Sensibility. Tough one to get into. I think I read the first chapter twice just to get into my head all of the different characters in the book.

Lunchtime! The group came out of the meeting and we walked to this little place called Sam's. The atmosphere was bland (okay, maybe "original"...the decor probably hadn't been changed since it had first opened 50 years ago) and the food was normal (something I could have made at home)...but then again, I was comparing it to the meal I had last night. However, I loved that all the waiters were wearing tuxedos and each of them had accents from different countries.

The rest of the group had to return to the airport. We said our good-byes to his co-workers (great group of people, I had a lot of fun with them) and Todd and I started out on our journey for a long day of walking.

First stop to the start of our vacation together:

Coit Tower

The walk there was enjoyable as we had just a slight breeze most of the way. The weather was perfect. Sunshine and the perfect temperature. I could not believe how many hills we had to trek to get to the tower, and what amazed me even more was seeing this:

Imagine walking home from a long day at the office, only to have to hike more stairs to get to your apartment? Or what about calling the Elder's Quorum President to help you move? How many guys do you think would show up that day? Crazy!

The ride up the elevator kind of reminded me of the ride "Tower of Terror." There was this cute little Asian lady that would open the door, push the button and then let us out. Imagine that job! She did have a tip jar attached to one of the walls...fair enough. She did try to give us some history of Coit Tower on the ride up and down, but her English was so broken that none of us in the elevator really understood. You could tell by the long pauses of silence and the occasional sympathy laugh after she said something she would smile at. I liked her....none of that was very tower of terror-y, but the creeky old elevator itself was what reminded me of the scary amusement ride.

Then came the decent down the hill to our next stop....but first, a quick stop to take a couples picture:

We could see from Coit Tower where we were headed next, Lombard's Crooked Street.

This is taken from the backside of the upper picture...you can see Coit Tower here on the right...we walked from there to the famous street

It was a straight shot there...as far as the road goes but it went up and down and up and up and up. We hesitated walking up the jiggedy-jaggedy street as we were starting to get sweaty and tired, but I am glad we did. The homes along Lombard Street were beautiful and well maintained. But our favorite was at the top....we watched as a man on a motorcycle decided to descend down the crookedest street and after only 15 feet, you could see the panic on his face as he thought "I am going to tip this bike and not make it down safely."

Can you see him in this picture..this was right before he decided to think twice at that little landing pad.

Todd had just recently finished a motorcycle class and was loving every minute of it (so were many other tourists as it was as though he was now the dare-devil entertainment for the afternoon)...the biker parked his bike on the first level spot he could find and we didn't stay around to see if he was going to finish going down or forget what the signs say about it being a one way street and just head back from whence he came (that is what I would have opted for).

Then we chose to walk back to the apartment, but the route we took was not one that I think many tourists should ever take. Every city has their sketchy parts of town, and we found San Francisco's.

The reason we took this route was because, we wanted to see the walking distance from the Orpheum Theater to our Hotel. Bad/Good idea. Bad because I clung to Todd for fear of being stolen (yes, I know that sounds dramatic). I couldn't believe how many people would just come up to Todd and either put their arm around him and ask for money honestly saying it was for beer, or just yell. It reminded me of all the homeless people in Hawaii and the horrible addiction to Ice that is plaquing them there.

It was good because it let us know that we should probably take a cab home from the Orpheum Theater that night and not attempt to walk home so late at night.

We made it home in one piece and I was only shaken a little. After a nice nap and showers, we headed to my Birthday restaurant of choice....Burger King. After so much fancy food (two meals is so much, in my book) I really just wanted something cheap and greasy.

After our very fancy feast, we headed to the Orpheum Theater, this time walking on the opposite side of the street, having taken note earlier that it contained less people that I might have to turn away because I wasn't in the mood for handing out cash. And for having those less charitable thoughts (and probably because I was wearing heels) I got a blister on each foot shortly before arriving at the theater.

What were we going to the theater for?

WICKED!!!!!!!

I had heard great things about it, and everyone who has seen it has just raved. And after sitting through it (my blisters no longer bothered me once I was engulfed in the story and the amazing vocal talent) I can see what the buzz is all about. It was a fantastic musical (I like musicals of almost all nature....however, the last time Todd and I saw a musical was in Boston and we left at Intermission because of it's vulgarity and sexual content....I am a PG kind of person).

The cab ride home was fabulous (on my feet) and I had secretly hoped that San Francisco had one of those "Cash Cabs" (yet another brainless show Todd and I found ourselves watching frequently while at the hotel) so that we could win some fun money to compensate for what we/I were/was spending. No money won, but the cab driver was friendly and took our money without any problem.

Yes, I know that's his job. And I was grateful to not have to hobble home with bad blisters. I would have made a pathetic pioneer.