Weekend Shenanigans: San Francisco

When Paul found out he would have the opportunity to attend the Google I/O conference in San Francisco, I immediately wanted to go. Paul's conference ended on a Friday, so I decided to make it a long weekend.

I have a soft spot for San Francisco. My first time visiting was in 2004. I was on a roadtrip with two friends from college. San Francisco was just one of those places I had dreamed about visiting and I had a blast making memories there. I was excited to make new memories with my best friend.

I arrived on Friday morning. It was an adventure flying solo and navigating the BART by myself. It has been a while since I had flown solo. I missed my travel buddy, but was quite proud of myself.

After I checked into the hotel I started exploring. I knew we were staying in the shopping district and if I had any desire to shop I needed to do it sans Paul. I first checked out a little cafe called Bio where I had read there was a selection of gluten free items. This place was cute and looked so European. You only had enough room to walk in choose your items from a case and walk back out. If you want to eat at Bio there were 4 little tables on the sidewalk that were situated precariously close together. I sat and ate lunch and read. Then I meandered to a coffee shop and did some more reading. After that I was in the stores for the next few hours while Paul finished his conference.

Once Paul was free errr I mean done, we were picked up by out Aunt and Uncle and enjoyed dinner with our cousin, his wife and little guy. It was a delightful time meeting the West Coast family I had yet to meet. We enjoyed a delicious Persian meal at Maykadeh and sat around drinking chai and talking. Did I mention we ordered one of every dessert? Yes it was good! Aunt Arghavan and Uncle Mortezeh then took us on a driving tour of the city as the sun was setting. Including a drive down the crazy Lombard street!

Saturday morning Paul and I took a walk down to the waterfront. We saw the sea lions at Pier 39, meandered Fishermans Wharf, and enjoyed icecream at Ghiradelli Square. Then we got picked up by Paul's cousin Goulbou, her partner Kim and their two kiddos. We enjoyed a delicious picnic lunch at Golden Gate Park and from there took a drive to see the Golden Gate Bridge. It was a gorgeous sunny day to enjoy the city. Our little cousins took to Paul quickly and it was so cute to see him chasing after the kids in the park or playing in the dirt with them and eventually falling asleep in his arms.

Once we were dropped back at our hotel we took a few minutes to catch our breath and then we were off to the Castro District to have dinner with our friends John & Kim. They took us to a delicious Vietnamese place called Zadin that had lots of gluten free options for dinner AND dessert. Needless to say I was happy. After dinner we meandered to a local bar for a drink. And then that time came where we all looked at each other like a bunch of old people and had to call it a night!

Sunday morning called for sleeping in! Once we were up and going we walked down the street to wait in the always long line to ride the trolley. We rode it back over to the waterfront to enjoy lunch. After lunch we walked back to our hotel (with one quick fro-yo break), grabbed our bags, and headed to the airport.

San Francisco was almost as adventurous as Europe! It was great to have the time to explore the city and see our family and friends. Looking forward to getting back down there!