Arriving in San Fran! Thank God for Sammy and Cheryl.

There's nothing like getting up at 4am when you've got a trip to get to. My father was kind enough to drive me to Toronto and wait around with me until I got in through the baggage trip. I love you dad! I got into the air port at about 5:45am, only to see a huge line in front of me. Anywho, once we were through that, I only had to wait for about 25 minutes before I was chilling out in the lobby for my flight to start boarding. I was flying AA, and here's a pic of my plane.

At about 7:50, I was in Chicago, only to discover that my flight was pushed back another half hour. Seeing how that was the case, I decided to appease that desire in my belly, and of course my grief at having to wait another half hour, with some super discount McDonalds breakfast. $3.35 including tax you say? Sounds delicious.



I arrived in San Fran at about 1:15 (remember to include a three hour time difference, otherwise it seems like my trip was only five hours long.)

Anywho, I learned how to use the BART (Bay Area Rail Trail) and make my way over to the well known and extremely touristy Pier 39. I've included a little pic of a map off of train. I actually ended up using that map as my map for a little while through my camera view finder. Gotta love high res.



Pier 39 was really cool! There were a lot of weird and funny things going on, from street performers who were juggling fire pins while balancing on a tight rope, to people walking around with tiny dogs dressed like royalty, to sea lions on the pier, to eating clam chowder out of a sourdough bowl. (Although, I ended up opting for the Fish and Chips instead of the Chowder, as well as having an "Anchor Steam" local draft, specially prepared by the pier... I won't lie, it kinda tasted like bottled bum.)



After my little excursion, I decided that the best course of action would be to take the ONLY Mobile National Treasure, i.e. the oldschool wooden Trolly Cars, back over to downtown, and then walk my way through San Fran over to see Andrew. I've included a couple pics of my trip, although they fail to do justice to what San Fran actually looks like. You'll see a pic of the Gap (Gap started in San Fran) as well as a ridiculous picture (or should I say mural?) of a guy outside of American Outfitters. I didn't opt to include pictures of Porn Dungeons, and strip joints from the underbelly of San Fran, but I will say that I was a little nervous walking around all by myself with my camera and laptop on me, at night, through 'dirtsville.'


After about a 10 mile hike with 40lbs of equipment on me, I have decided that San Fran needs less hills. OMG I WAS SO TIRED!!! I'm glad I've got an adventurous heart, because if I didn't, I probably would have fallen over and started crying. Did you know that pay phones don't exist in San Fran Bay area? I sure didn't... made it hard to find Andrew when I couldn't call him, didn't have a cell, and of course, made my way to the exact OPPOSITE area of San Fran in my 10 mile hike. That's right, I went the wrong way. So much for maps, eh? I even tried stepping into a couple stores and asking if I could place a local call, since there aren't any pay phones around. I said it would only be a minute and that they could dial it... regardless, the answer was an abrupt "No." I was beginning to formulate my opinion of what the typical San Fran person was like when...

Luckily, I ended up meeting up with Cheryl and Sammy, two people I befriended in a Bar called St. Mary's Cocktails. Cheryl and Sammy were both very kind people, and Cheryl got me a phone from the bar, quelling most of my worries right there. While I was waiting Sammy, who works at the Docks, bought me a pint of American Beer. (For all my skeptical Canadian counterparts, it honestly wasn't bad, so it IS possible to come down here and enjoy the beer.)

Andrew ended up coming down and picking me up in his car, and then we made our way out for some authentic Mexican in the form of Burritos. Despite giving me the worst case of the runs in my life, it was pretty good.

And so ends yesterdays excursion, I'll try and include some more info about Andrew and his place in my next post. We're planning on hitting up Alcatraz on Saturday, and tomorrow I'm going to go to the Computer History Museum, get a tour of Google, and also check out the SMOMA (San Fran Museum of Modern Art.)

LOVES IT!