Day four was my birthday and I purposefully chose to travel on that day, so we began the day in San Francisco and ended it at home. Because we had to check out of our hotel, we had breakfast at the restaurant there, a little place called Ponzu. It was a hotel breakfast, too expensive, not great. But so what? We tried something new--and we really were sticking close to the hotel so that we could have an easy checkout. We also wanted to get some last minute shopping done.
After breakfast, we walked up to a couple of shops I wanted to go to before we left. David had seen some cute toothpaste caps at a shop called Alessi and I had seen some cool reusable shopping bags at a place called Karikter. It was early, about nine-thirty in the morning, and both shops were closed. Grrr. What time does this city get rolling anyway?
We killed some time by getting a coffee at Emporio Rulli Union Square and watching people. Dave took a few photos of pigeons and fewer photos of me. I was being very tolerant because it was my birthday.
(Dave has a knack, I think, for taking bad photos of me. This is not the worst by far, though even the woman behind me is, all, well that's clearly going to be a bad picture of that poor woman.) (But see, I'm wearing my new earrings, the pair I bought from the street vendor in Union Square with the Chinese character for longevity on them.)
By the time we finished our coffees, the shops had opened and we ran in and bought our little souvenirs. (I didn't get a photo of Dave's toothpaste covers, but you can see them here, at Alessi.com.) Here are my shopping bags:
(I actually bought three bags, two large and one small; one of the larger ones was omiyage for Kelly First.)
After hitting the shops, we went back to the hotel to pack, check out, store our bags, and arrange for a car service to the airport.
After that, we walked down to the Farmer's Market at the Ferry Building. To get there, we had to pass the Powell Street cable car turnaround. There was already a hellacious line of people waiting for cable cars, and as always, they were being entertained by some dancers. Dave took a couple of videos of these guys.
Too bad you can't hear the music. That morning, they were using recorded music, but we also saw them with a couple of live musicians, too. They just dance all day every day.
At the Ferry Building we bought "road snacks" (i.e., airplane food), cheese at Cowgirl Creamery and some bread at ACME bread. We bought apples and Asian pears and cherry tomatoes from some of the farmer's stalls out front. And that was all we had time for.
Oh, no wait. We also stopped and bought my birthday earrings. (Every year, I get a new pair of earrings on my birthday. Here is this year's pair:
These are lampwork beads, all handmade by an artist named Gina Zetts. Her etsy shop is here.
Finally, we caught a bus back up to the hotel where we played Scrabble in the lobby until it was time to meet our car.
It was a twenty-five minute drive to the airport, and about the same amount of time through security. I think the laid back Cali thing was in effect at the security station because not only did I not remove my little bag of toiletries from my suitcase, I also came through with some LUSH stuff that was over 3 ounces. No matter. From then on, it was clear sailing. We came from San Francisco to Phoenix (where it was hotter than hell on the tarmac and where we scarfed airport Pizza Hut pizza after running out of easily consumable cheeses) and then, after six hours of travel, we were home.
Ah, home!
We had a great time in San Francisco and I would love to go back. There is so much we didn't get to in our short little visit.
No comments:
Post a Comment