San Fran

By Christopher J. Ortiz

I lived on the Central Coast for nearly five months and have barely ventured out of my town and county. So for the Memorial Day weekend, hoping for a light sentence, I worked it out so I got a three-day weekend and decided to spend the time exploring San Francisco – the Paris of the West.
My girlfriend and I packed our bags, overfilled our cats’ food and water bowls and made the 90-minute trip north to San Fran.
The most north I previously have been was the San Francisco Airport – kinda sad. We started the weekend with having lunch with my old college roommate and his girlfriend. We had lunch at Fisherman’s Wharf, checked out the smelly sea lions and dealt with the sluggish city traffic.
After lunch, I dragged my girlfriend to meet up with some co-workers at a bar on Haight Street. We were sharing a hotel with them for Saturday to help make our trip more affordable. After checking in at our hotel, which we later found out was in the part of town called “Tenderloin,” we caught MUNI to the Giants’ baseball team where we met up with other co-workers.
For our game, Mr. Barry Bonds was still chasing No. 715 to beat Babe Ruth. The game was against the Colorado Rockies, which gave me the chance to be the jerk you see at every game who is wearing the opponents' jersey and rooting against the home team. I have to say, the backdrop of the stadium, overlooking the bay with a Navy and cargo ships dotting the ocean – was awesome!
The Rockies lost, but the game was awesome and the $7 nachos sucked. Bonds knocked out No. 715 the next day, blah.
Saturday night, our “tour guide,” a co-worker who went to San Francisco State, showed us around, took us to a cheap bar - $2 PBR – and an OK diner for food.
We got back to the hotel around midnight and were listening to snores not soon after that.
On Saturday, I have he fortune of finding a $40 parking ticket on my car but I tried not to let that ruin my day in the city.
With our temporary roommates, we checked out Golden Gate Park where we witnessed a real-life hippie drum circle, we cruised the famous sidewalks of Haight & Ashbury where apparently a group called the Grateful Dead used to hang out.
And of course we checked out that bridge in San Francisco. It was actually pretty cool. It’s so weird how a structure can have such anthropomorphism qualities, how it acts as a spokesman or representative for the City by the Bay. We took more photos than necessary and paid the $5 toll to enter the city. As a side note, I thought it was interesting that you don’t have to pay tolls to drive over the Bay Bridge or the Golden Gate Bridge from the San Francisco side but to enter the city, you have to pay a toll – shows you which city people prefer enough to pay a cover charge!
After our friends left to go home, my girlfriend and I checked out downtown, found the Apple store after it closed (though we peeked through the windows) and checked out the city at night from Twin Peaks, which save for all the other tourists, is romantic and makes for a perfect capper for a day in the city.
On Monday, we just drove around, got lost in the bad part of town and had lunch at Pier 39. Then I dragged the girlfriend around to find the perfect tourist t-shirt that I can wear so everyone will know I was cool enough to have visited San Francisco.
On the way back, I made the mistake of trying to buy furniture at Ikea. I regretted going so I won’t make you regret reading about it.

Thanks!