San Francisco Treats

Alan and I went up to San Francisco (or “the city” as we locals say) last weekend to do a bit of sight seeing. We went to Pier 39, a popular tourist destination that has tons of restaurants and shops and the world-famous sea lions, some of which are too lazy to migrate and instead just like to hang out on the docks year-round. They are hilarious to watch, and I could honestly sit there for an hour listening to them bark at each other.

After Pier 39 we headed off to find The Stinking Rose, a restaurant that prides itself on “flavoring its garlic with food.” It was on our way to the restaurant that the night got interesting. If you’ve never been to SF, I have to tell you that the hills are THE STEEPEST I’VE EVER SEEN IN MY LIFE. You look at the city and it’s just not normal. How people ever decided that it was a good idea to build on the steepest hills ever in an earthquake-prone city is beyond me. So Alan and I are driving through the city’s Little Italy, a neighborhood called North Beach. Our search for parking in the busy area took us off the main drag and onto the steepest hills in America.

When I said that I didn’t want to drive a stick shift in San Francisco, I know Alan just thought I was being dramatic. However, when we were on one of these side streets — looking through the windshield straight up at the clouds, unable to see over the hood of our car to the street, unable to get going faster than 1 MPH, with our car literally burning up, the smoke coming out the back of our poor little Saturn, a cab behind us and the pressure to get up the hill, did I mention the burning? The smell? — I think Alan saw my point of view. We’ve decided that next time we head in we’ll probably take the train and cabs, lest we blow up our car on the streets of San Francisco.

Once we were out of the car, things improved. The whole area was lively. We even saw someone smoking pot on the streets. Craziness! Thanks to our reservations, we walked right in the restaurant and sat down. The food was really tasty, very garlicky as you might imagine, but delish. When we got back to the parking garage, our car even managed to start, so that was a wonderful end to a fun and frightening day in “the city.”

Sorry no pics of this adventure, but the camera was MIA. We do have video of the aftermath, in which Alan thinks our car exploding is hilarious and I do not.

But just when ya’ll thought there would be no pictures at all, I present a little piece I like to call “Marti’s destruction of goat, who now has a horn coming out of his head that was clearly not there before.”