Steph was in San Francisco this weekend on work. She was doing some training on the Conrad line of blinds which can be a challenge. Hence the training.
Steph and I have never been to San Francisco together. We've been seperately on several occasions, but never together. So I flew up after her training was done on Saturday to meet her in the city and then hang out in the Bay Area with our good friend Jessica.
I was tired from a night of sleeplessness the night before. I can't sleep without Steph in bed. It sounds sweet, but really it's a disability. I should find all of the open space in bed and at my place a relief, but it's not. Strange how that happens. So I fall asleep late and wake up early and catch a taxi to the airport. I slept pretty well on the flight. :-)
I get into SFO and catch the BART to Powell Street where Steph and her co-workers are shoping. We meet up and then Steph and I split from the group to go have lunch at this nice cafe - Grand Cafe - near her hotel. She was staying in the civic center at some hotel near the Tenderloin. Not a nice neighborhood if you end up on the wrong block. Her hotel was nice though. This was the weekend of the SF Marathon, a beautiful summer day and the city was chock full o' tourists. I forgot to pack a sweater - I always forget something - and had to stop at Urban Outfitters to get something to warm the skin some.
So we have lunch, eat slow, drink a couple of beers, and catch up a bit. The Grand Cafe had these funky sculptures in it of human-rabbit hybrids doing strange acrobatic things. The decor was one thing. Staying warm, having a laugh and killing some time in a new environ was something else.
After we ate we grabbed her bag from the hotel and then caught the BART to Oakland to meet up with Jess.
Jess met us at the Rockridge station (I kept sing REM's "Don't Go Back to Rockville" substitting "Rockville" with "Rockridge" every minute in my head after that). Turns out that Rockridge is where Edward took me to get some almond cookies the first time I visited him. Of course, the Bay Area is full of excellent small eateries and places to meet and be seen. It's nice getting to know the city more and recognizing your trails.
Jess lives in a cool little neighborhood about a mile from Berkeley. I spent a few minutes on Sunday AM looking at the window of her second-story duplex just watching the people on the street. It reminded me of the neighborhood I grew up in. Big trees. Kids riding their bikes. Wide street. Every house on the block was different and probably built in the 20's 30's and 40's. Smaller front and back yards, but who's counting?
I took another quick nap on Saturday while the girls gussied up for a night out and caught up with one another. We had dinner at Butterfly, an asian theme restaurant on one of the piers overlooking the Bay Bridge. Watched the sun set and felt cool watching beautiful people schmooze all around us. I ate grilled salmon on tapioca balls. Steph had pork loin. We both had large drinks and the conversation covered all topics - especially my work, Jess's dating and the city itself.
After dinner we caught a cab to a wine bar in the Marina part of SF. I forget the name of the place, but the neighborhood was pretty nice. I tried a flight of California Syrahs and the girls tried a flight of Champagnes and Cabs.
As we caught a taxi home the cab driver would stop at each light, pick up a newspaper he had folded up and tucked into his seat, take a pen out of his visor and mark a word on the page and tuck the pen back in the visor and the fold the newspaper up and stick it back between the seat and the stick shift. I caught him looking over at me out of the corner of his eye while I was trying to see what he was writing. Strange guy.
BART home. Slept late. Walked to get coffee. Made egg scramble.
One of the books on Jess's shelf is the Best American Essays of the 20th century. I read Joan Didion's essay "The White Album" and discovered that I loved her voice. I would end up reading "The Year of Magical Thinking" which Steph brought with her coincidentally. One note about the White Album: It's not about the Beatles, one of their Albums, or any of the songs on their untitled album.
On Sunday Jess drove us to Pacific Heights where we did more window shopping. There's a Jonathan Adler store there where Steph was infatuated with the design and I was infatuated with the little sayings they had on their walls.
One of the great things about San Francisco is that there's always a nice little restaurant around the corner that you've never heard of but is the quote Best [insert-ethnic-exotic-unheard-of-locale-or-mix-slash-fusion-themed] restaurant in the City endquote. We ate lunch at the best Peruvian place in town. A bit too late for lunch. A bit too early for dinner. Good eats. I had a steak sandwich that was basically a high-class philly. Steph had a ceviche with squid, scallops and other miscellaneous non-fish seafood. She was revelling in the crunchy, rubbery goodness.
Afterwords we drove on over to the Presidio and walked on down to the shore again and saw the Golden Gate bridge. Gorgeous day with all of the Windsurfers zipping along the water like waterbugs. Runners running. The wind was blustery as usual, but the sun was unobscured and the air warm in spite of the coolness of the breeze. There's a museum down there that I can't remember the name of. It has this old classic architecture on a pond. We took photos there because it seemed so out of place. Who knew we had this building out here on the West coast? It looked like it belonged in Central park, not the Presidio. Not that I'm complaining. It just bewildered us as to why it's such a secret and not an architectural icon for San Francisco.
After that, we caught out plane home and hit the hay early.
