For Valentines Day my super sweet husband surprised me with an impromptu trip to San Francisco. I was super excited never having been there before. Christian was excited for the long drive and for me to check out the city we could potentially be living in if Christian’s finance career takes us there. I headed to Target, filled up on snacks and drinks and waited for Christian to get home from his meeting. It was 7pm on Thursday night when we began the long drive up the I-5…..
These are my photos chronicles of our trip to San Fran. I have a bunch too and I don’t expect anyone other then my mom to really look at all of them ….
↓↓↓Yep… That says we are arriving in at 2:45am! Yikes!
↓↓↓ It was kind of creepy driving across the Bay Bridge at 2am. There was no one else out there…
We ended up getting into our hotel at 2:15 am. My husband, against my wishes, drives like Mario Andretii and we were able to shave off 30 minutes. Although, over 7 hours that’s not too bad. Our hotel was awesome. We stayed at the Orchard Hotel, which is a chic, Eco friendly boutique hotel in Union Square, and in the perfect location on Hyde and Bush. We quickly feel asleep on our Organic Cotton sheets and in our King size bed. Christian and I laughed, our bed at home is a full, and we felt like we could both stretch our arms out to each other and still not reach.
We spent Friday exploring our neighborhood. We began by eating at the famous Sears Fine Food for breakfast followed by shopping in Union Square and North Beach. We came across a Goorin Brothers Hat shop, which is the maker of one of Christians favorite hats, which he wore to death in Europe and has been wanting another one ever since. We both picked up new hats and then made our way to Fishermans Warf & Peir 39. We walked around for a couple of hours, watched the cable cars get turned around, went to Ghiradelli for a sundae and made the trek back to Union Square to get ready for our night! ↓↓↓↓
Our night consisted of dinner and seeing “Wicked“!!!! It was seriously the best play i have seen! We have heard the song, “Defying Gravity” so many times, but when we heard it there, in the context we were in, it was so different; Christian said it gave him chills! I wanted to get pictures in the theater, but they had signs everywhere and people walking around. I turned the flash off, put the shutter speed way low and the ISO really high and was able to get a few before having to put it away so i wouldn’t get kicked out.↓↓↓↓
We spent Saturday in China Town. Talk about hectic! That place is so hectic and overwhelming! Almost every shop there sells those little poppers you throw on the ground and firecrackers. About every 5-10 minutes you hear these booms and at night people set off ones that last for like a minute. China town is littered with the red paper wrappers from the firecrackers. Good thing I didn’t have a migraine, oh wait I did. Good thing for Imitrex! We walked though all the shops. Found one great store with the most extensive and random bobble head collection I have ever seen (I only took a picture of a few of them though) everything from old Cereal mascots to Star Wars characters. And if we had $99k on us we could have bought those Elephant tusks with elaborate detailing etched in on them. ($99k seriously?). And with my husband being an avid tea drinker, he enjoyed smelling all the different flavor of teas. We had lunch at the House of Nan King, it looks like a dive from the outside with a Technicolor sign, but was actually really good and a lot cleaner then I thought it would be by looking at the sign. I’ve been told it is a must for china town.↓↓↓
We didn’t exactly have a typical Valentines Day this year. We spent it on Alcatraz Island. I threatened Christian, if he made me mad I was leaving him there. Luckily, for him, that didn’t happen. We took the first boat out of the Harbor on an extremely foggy Sunday morning. The fog was so bad we couldn’t see 20 feet in front of us. Needless to say it gave a very eerie feeling when seeing Alcatraz in the distance. I had some reservations about going there. It seemed like such a scary place, but once we were there, I realized it was just a prison on an island that had a lot of history behind it. Before Alcatraz became the prison we think of it as today, the one that housed Al Capone, it was used as a Military fort in 1850. It then became a Military Prison. The first Military prisoners were housed in a little damp room under ground that they had to be lowered by a pulley system into. Really creepy! And then once the military left they started using it as a prison. It was actually a popular place to live in the 1950’s. They even had a waiting list to move there. If you think about it, it was ne of the safest places because you knew exactly where all the bad guys were locked up. (Sorry Carl if i am getting any of my facts wrong.!)
We met Carl after we finished with our audio tour. Christian was walking by and saw someone in a restricted area and was curious how we could get this VIP access as well. We found out that if you ask a Ranger or a Volunteer with keys (the actual keys they used during the prison days) they can take you around! So we found Carl, the best tour guide ever, 5 hours later we left Alcatraz on the last boat back to the city. We saw every nook and cranny of Alcatraz. It was amazing! We saw the dungeon, which was a dry moat during the Military occupations and where they locked up some prisoners. Carl shut the door and turned off the lights and man was it dark and scary! We also got locked in solitary confinement. I now know why people go crazy in there. Christian sat on Al Capone’s toilet. We went upstairs to the hospital where “Birdman” Stroud was kept, Christian even got in his bathtub……talk about gross! Went through old Military tunnels. We saw so much more, but I cant remember everything. I just know it was REALLY REALLY old and it blew my mind how much of history we were seeing. Here are my favorite photos….. Thanks you Carl for everything!!!!! ↓↓↓
Solitary confinement far right…. that was dark! ↓↓↓
Al Capone’s Cell ↓↓↓
Playing baseball in the rec yard ↓↓↓
Christian taking a bath in “Birdmans” tub ↓↓↓
The hospital OR ↓↓↓
Really old miltary stuff ↓↓↓
Random creepy masks we found↓↓↓
The fog finally cleared up around 2pm and gave me a chance to get this panorama view of the city ↓↓↓
After we sailed back to the city we ended our trip with some famous Clam chowder soup and Fisherman’s wharf. And concluded our Valentines day and amazing weekend, with ice cream and a beautiful sunset!
Thanks babe! I had a blast!!!! And thanks for Schlepping my heavy bag around San Fran!