San Francisco, part 1

Yesterday, Matt nearly got us into two car accidents while making a left turn (like SCARY close, I couldn't sleep well last night). So I decided to try my hand at driving. I haven't driven in any big cities. Anywhere. In fact, we determined that as far as cities go, I've been to Munich, Frankfurt, Paris, Nice, and Montreal, but as far as cities in my home country, I have not been to a single one. At least not the downtown anyways. San Fran was to be my first major city...so I've definitely never driven in one. I did surprisingly well. There were no white knuckles. I can't say it didn't raise my heartbeat quite a bit, but I didn't break a nervous sweat or have sore hands when we arrived.

Backtrack with me to the morning.....

After hitting the mall and REI in Santa Rosa, we headed south to Petaluma, for some outlet shopping. Basically we came out of an entire morning perusing the malls with five clothing items (we stink at shopping, don't we?) and a brighter headlamp so I can run in the dark. As we left the outlet mall, we were accosted by a windshield repair salesman. He showed us pictures of chips that his company can fill in without replacing the entire windshield. Our windshield tells a story. One giant chip, that we got on a toll road to Tulsa, several from driving in Fairbanks, and one really deep one that you can stick a fingertip into, from the haul road. The final one did crack. Nothing in the line of vision, so we didn't need to replace it. And I don't want to. I call that last giant chip our car's Haul Road Badge of Courage. Since we were completely stripped of our Alaskan identities on Friday when we got the California plates and licenses, this is all we have left to prove that our unassuming, compact car is a warrior. I don't want to take that away from her :)

We ate a small picnic on the edge of the parking lot, near a bike path (how come we can find paths so easily while we travel, but our own town's seem to elude us?). Two mall security officers came by at different times on Segway scooters to check us out. Apparently we look suspicious. What do you think?

Gourmet park side dining : leftover pizza and some bread with cheese.

The next big highlight of our day was the Golden Gate Bridge. It is 1.7 miles long and I started to tear up when I saw it. My home state of Michigan has a very similar looking bridge, the Mackinac Bridge, at 20 ft short of 5 miles. This one does have a pedestrian walkway though, so maybe it's almost as cool....maybe.

View from our hotel room. Maybe it was worth the extra money after all.

We also did enjoy the Ghiradelli Square. Free chocolate samples in the stores, which they offered after we ordered our hot chocolate. I really like cities, once I don't have to drive in them. San Fran immediately reminded me of Paris, being a reasonably clean city. Matt made the remark "But instead of the permanent cigarette smell, it's a pot cloud." Oh California, how eco-conscious you are. "Cigarettes are bad for me, I smoke pot instead." I may never fit in here.

So delicious! I love C H O C O L A T E ! ! !

For the first time in my life, I was actually sick of chocolate for a few hours. Hopefully that feeling will pass......

We had a delicious dinner near Fisherman's Wharf and decided to turn around and head home.

Pier 39 at dusk.

Downtown San Francisco from the Embarcadero.

One thing I did realize about the city: I'm glad we live reasonably nearby, because it's going to require some return trips to see everything. And I just found the shopping area, so it'll take an entire weekend to get through it all (poor Matt). Other blogger friends have shown some really cool hiking trips through the area, too. I'm excited to see some of those things (and Matt won't be so scared of that idea)..... Until tomorrow. :)