Quick trip to SanFran

Back in July, Marcus had a 3-day trip to San Francisco to meet with his team.  He had been asking me to go for weeks (months?) beforehand, but I thought it was too much of a hassle getting child care so I kept denying him.  Finally, a few days before his trip, he asked one last time if I would go for one day with him.  I said yes, if the childcare came easily and it was not a trouble for someone to stay with the kids.  He called his mom and voila! I was booked on a 24-hour trip to SanFran….

We flew out early on a Sunday morning and enjoyed the day immensely, packing in as much as we could in that short time:

When we arrived (Marcus was in first class and I was in the back of the plane, ha ha ha) we met up with one of Marcus' coworkers and shared a taxi to the hotel.  The taxi driver was great and took us on a wonderful scenic route because of the San Francisco marathon that morning.  We learned a lot about the area from him.  As soon as we arrived at the hotel (our room was not ready) we took a short walk down to the waterfront.

my first taste of an In-N-Out burger (it was great!!!)
(this was for "breakfast" btw)

It was fun seeing all the fish vendors.

Alcatraz

We continued our walk up to Chinatown.  It was so interesting to us how you can cross a street and go from Italy to China!  The definition really was that abrupt, and it was awesome.

lots of fresh meat/food vendors

We saw so many great sights, like city parks and beautiful churches, little shops and lots of hills.  We stopped for a gelato snack in Little Italy and kept walking. 

Look at how the cars are parked.  I couldn't believe that they
didn't just topple over!  This was one of the steepest hills I saw
(but there were others as well).
Note our elevation vs. sea level…yes I walked all that way!

I wanted to see famous Lombard Street.

We finally made our way back down to the
piers to have a sourdough bowl of clam
chowder (soooooo good!).

Then to Ghiradelli Square to go to the
chocolate shop and get goodies for the kids.

 By that time it was well after lunch and finally our room was ready.  We got ready for dinner and met up with some coworkers in the bar area, and then we were on our way out again.  First we went to this really old, fancy hotel to have drinks and appetizers on the top floor (forgot the name??) and then we made our way to a famous hole-in-the-wall Chinese restaurant, the House of Nanking.  OMG it was fantastic!!  We (as a group) just had the owner bring us whatever he wanted to serve us, so we go to try dishes that we maybe wouldn't've ordered ourselves.  

It was a great ending to a perfect day.  The next morning Marcus sent me away in a cab and I was on my way back home (first class this time!).  Many many thanks to grammae for watching the kids at her house, and for Auntie Meghan for helping.  It was great to have one last get-away before this baby will be born….