On Memorial Day weekend I flew up to San Francisco, where I played tourist and went to a wedding there, then out to our farm to visit family and friends and pick some blueberries and flew home.
I flew up Saturday morning…though by the time I actually boarded my flight, two hours late, it was approaching afternoon. I landed at SFO, picked up my bag and walked to the BART (Bay Area Rapid Transit) station, which was well marked. It was a bit confusing figuring out how to pay for the ticket, which was around $11-12 to go to the Embarcadero stop, the last San Francisco stop. It was simple in the end…you just tap your credit card before entering and again when exiting and voila, no ticket needed, nor any app.
From the Bart station it was less than 10 minutes to walk to my hotel, which was near the Transamerica Pyramid (is it even still called that?) in the financial district not far from Chinatown. My room was ready (yeah), so I dropped off my stuff and quickly got an Uber to the Golden Gate Bridge. I have driven over the GG bridge but had never walked over it and that was my planned afternoon activity. It’s not too far, around 1.5 miles to reach Marin County, but it was pretty windy and cool (though sunny at least) and VERY loud (all the cars passing by…on the return I wore headphones). From the bridge I could see much of the City of San Francisco, Alcatraz (the prison island in the Bay) and Marin County, along with many sailboats and even a cruise ship.
There are nets under the bridge on both sides so anyone who has a desire to jump won’t go very far.
After walking back to the Visitor Center, I again took ride share back. I was tempted to get a Waymo ride (self driving car) but it was more expensive by about 50%, so…I didn’t.
In the evening there was a party/casual dinner at Ghirardelli Square, which wasn’t too far away but it was dark so I again took ride share and had a nice evening with my cousins…and more loud noise and music!
On Sunday I played tourist (and enjoyed watching tourists) walking through Chinatown first. I could definitely see which were the popular bakeries and vegetable shops…they were packed with long lines for the bakeries and dim sum establishments and looked tasty, but I’d just had a big brunch so settled for looking in the windows. I then walked down to Pier 39 where people were looking at the sea lions..but we have them in San Diego so they weren’t so interesting. From there I walked to Fisherman’s Wharf and had a better view of Acatraz. There were one-hour boat trips but it was windy so I kept walking, all the way to Ghirardelli Square where I had to get a bit of chocolate of course. There was a long line for the ice cream sundaes though. I walked past some of the famous cable cars which seemed smaller than I remembered.
In the evening I went to the beautiful wedding of my cousin Elena, hung out with my other cousins and had a nice evening all around. It was sort of fun to dress up!
My sister picked me up early on Monday morning and we drove out to Victoria Island where Victoria Island Farms and Sabbatical Distillery are located. It was calm early on then very busy later with people who came to pick blueberries and taste bourbon, whiskey and more from Sabbatical. I went out and picked a bag of blueberries and they are very tasty! Then my sister and I had a nice walk on the levee before heading back to SFO for my flight home.
The return flight was not delayed and I even managed to get dinner in the lounge before flying, never a given since they seem quite crowded these days.
I hadn’t been to San Francisco in years and it was very, very busy, and mostly pretty clean and safe. It was a fun weekend!