Thanksgiving in San Francisco

Week of Nov. 27, 2009

San Francisco

(Mama and Papa Sevs are prominently featured in these pictures. DON'T MISS IT.)

The original family got together in San Francisco (my parents had never been to the west coast before) for the week of Thanksgiving. I say "the original family" because Jessticles couldn't fly out, so it was just the rest of the family before we added her to the mix. We ended up doing all the cool stuff in SF that I've heard about, so once again, I have conquered another part of the world.

Those are some genes you can set your watch to

I drove up after staying at Jimmy's place in San Jose and met with Mama and Papa Sevs at the Argonaut Hotel. This place is awesome for several reasons: it is a 2 minute walk from the Historical Maritime Park (the National Park Service tends to get me to dangerously high levels of stoke) and Ghirardelli Square AND they have a free wine "tasting" for 2 hours every day. Let me just say: you are staying at a great hotel if you and your parents can drink 4 free glasses of wine each and get a buzz right before dinner every single day.
First thing we did was drive over to Muir Woods. They have some enormous Sequoias there, and my parents were all "holy fuck." Plus it was a pretty easy stroll, so even my Dad could handle it.

"And these are called... 'trees?' Interesting..."

After enjoy some awesome trees (is that a hobby?) we went over to the Marin heights (is that what it's called? shit I don't know). It has great views of the Golden Gate Bridge, and my parents enjoyed it thoroughly. Well, mostly. My Mom got a little afraid of heights...

My Mom opted to stay as far away from the ledge as possible

After the Marin escapade, we went back to the hotel for some obligatory wine and Dungeness Crabs (so fucking delicious). As the Sun was setting, we went around the corner to Hyde Street Pier to look at the Historical Maritime Park. There were some really cool boats and if you walk along the dock you get a really cool view of the city.

The Ghirardelli sign just lit up! SUNSETS!!!

We may have gone to Ghirardelli Square for chocolates/ice cream later at night, but I don't really remember. It was almost two years ago. Sometimes my brain decides to forget things.
The next morning was a little foggy, but we decided to walk down along the pier area. There were some old warships, an "arcade museum" (they had the fortune teller from "Big" and some other crazy carnival-esque contraptions there), and then went over to Pier 39 to say hi to all the Sea lions.

The odor here was... less than attractive

I'm pretty sure I ate some sourdough bread somewhere for lunch. SF knows what they're doing in the sourdough bread department. Then my Mom and I took a bus tour around the city while my Dad went the lazy route to go take a nap at the hotel. Standard.

The seafood is so good that we didn't even go to In N Out Burger the entire week! I don't think I'm ok with that.

I think the rest of the night was pretty calm. I went and checked out the Hyde Street Pier for Sunset and we ate some stuffs? Free hotel wine probably happened too.
The next morning we walked down to the Ferry building because we had tickets to go over to Alcatraz.

It was a lot like the movie "The Rock." Unfortunately, there was significantly less Sean Connery though. Fortunately, there was also less Nicholas Cage.

I remember being all "oh this stuff is pretty cool" when I did the audio tour: hearing the escape attempts and whatnot.

They put me in solitary confinement because I was being... I don't know... too rambunctious? I guess we'll go with that for now.

After the Alcatraz excursion, we hopped a ferry over to Sausalito for dinner. Shit got quaint all up in there. There were random little stores that made my Mom go "ooo look it's another antique shop! So exciting!" And I think I got lobster for dinner.

Classing it UP

After dinner we headed back and walked home. And I'm pretty sure I got some chocolate over at Ghirardelli Square before I called it a night.

While it was cool to see a huge freakin tree in San Francisco, it wasn't even Thanksgiving yet. CALM DOWN EVERYBODY.

The next morning we explored some more of the city. We drove over to Alamo Square to check out the famous Painted Ladies (featured in that shitty show Full House).

They aren't mansions, but I guarantee these things cost insane amounts of money

Then we went to a museum near the Chinese Tea Garden to see a King Tut exhibit. It was really amazing seeing everything, but they didn't actually have the mummy, which... I guess I kind of expected to see. Oh well. Then we headed into the Tea Garden, walked around the ponds/bridges/plants and ate some fortune cookies.

They are just stairs, Dad. They're not that difficult.

So yeah, shit was lovely, we had a nice little tea party snack, then we GTFO'd and went to Baker's Beach just for shits. It had a really great view of the Golden Gate Bridge (apparently I love this fucking bridge).

San Francisco, your ocean is on the wrong side. Work on that.

Driving back to the hotel was QUITE THE CHALLENGE. Mostly because the hills I was driving up were so steep that I thought gravity was going to be too much for my engine torque. It turns out that my car, Soup, was able to handle it. AND we drove down the windiest road in the country: Lombard Street.

This road has switchbacks because it's so steep

We celebrated this amazing feat in a typical manner: with ice cream sundaes at Ghirardelli Square (this has become standard).

OMNOMNOM

Oh yeah! We had scheduled a bus tour of Napa and Sonoma Valley wine tastings the next day! Not having to drive = MOAR BOOZE. We actually had some really good wine. We stopped at four vineyards, and I'm pretty sure I was tipsy all day.

A couple of champions right here

This is what happens when you drink with Mama and Papa Sevs

Ok California, I get it. You're amazing. STOP BEING SO BEAUTIFUL.

The bus driver, a really strange dude who talked out of the side of his mouth (kind of reminded me of the antagonist in Men in Black) stopped at a few good lookouts on our way back to the city.

Mom, seriously. You're nowhere near the edge. Calm down.

If you think the tale of classiness and cuisine ends there, then you are SORELY mistaken my friend. We were walking home and decided to fill our tummies with delectable foodstuffs. We happened upon a seemingly unassuming restaurant called Scoma's, but in reality it was the BEST FUCKING RESTAURANT IN SAN FRANCISCO. Seriously, the seafood was insane. I got garlic crab - potentially the best crab I've ever eaten.
The next day was Thanksgiving, so my Mom and I went on a walking tour of the city. She likes to claim that we walked hundreds of miles through... I don't know, deserts or something, but it was just a few miles and it was FINE. We went by Lombard Street and up the hill to Coit Tower. This tower I think is the highest structure in the city, dedicated to firefighters? It looked like a firehose nozzle, so... I don't know. Maybe. There were a ton of wild parrots up there.

I asked them to pose for me and they said "ok."

It was a really cool view of the city from up there.

Me: "hey let's walk over there" Mom: "how far is it?" Me: "...don't worry about it."

We then walked down the hill into North Beach - the Italian district. We had some lunch at a place called the Stinking Rose. Their thing was to put shitloads of garlic into EVERYTHING. No joke. My Mom ordered something called "40 Clove Chicken Breast." My kind of place. It was delicious. I needed some industrial strength gum after that meal. We walked by the really thin building (shit, I can't remember the name, whatever) where the Godfather was written. It was cool though. We then meandered into Chinatown, right nearby. We kind of wandered around, the tallest people for BLOCKS, until we came across a little hole-in-the-wall place in a tiny ally. This is where fortune cookies were first invented.

These cookies were DERICIOUS

I bought a bag and ate half of them. The other half is still in my glove compartment. Almost two years later... We then went a tiny bit further to see city hall.

The number of homeless people per square foot in this area is staggering.

Mom was getting all "my feet have blisters from walking so much," so we went back to the hotel. Good thing too, because it was about time for our "alternative" Thanksgiving dinner. We had a four-course meal at a Chinese-fusion (not sure what it's fused with. hydrogen?) restaurant. It wasn't bad. I think I was really in the mood for a traditional Thanksgiving meal though. But it was cool to try something new. We went to an Irish pub right near the hotel after dinner. I bought my parents some Irish coffee (the only coffee I like) and then drunkenly conversed with some German people. I spouted all the German I know, so the conversation probably went something like:
"Good evening."
"Hello."
"I speak a little German."
"That's really good blah blah blah talking too fast."
"I have one year of German."
"talking too fast"
"I don't understand."
"Where are you from?"
"Philadelphia. nonsensical gibberish"
"talking too fast"
"Goodbye."

Our last day we really took it easy. I think just walked around the area, listened to the homeless guy who sings rap songs about people he sees, probably ate some food. My parents were tired, so I went over to the Golden Gate because I wanted to walk across it. I had an unhealthy attraction to that bridge. So I walked across during Sunset. It was great.

When I got back, we made the decision to go back to Scoma's, because HOLY CRAP. Are you kidding me? That food was so good. I got the exact same thing I did two nights before and it did NOT disappoint.
That was it for my parents, so the next morning I bid them farewell and went about my merry way. Where was my merry way? North to Marin to visit Lauren "L-Train" Schliessman at the school she worked at. We had a nice cafeteria lunch together, shot the shit, and enjoyed her school's gorgeous campus. MUST HAVE BEEN REAL TOUGH GOING TO HIGH SCHOOL THERE, TRAIN. But that about sums up my Great San Francisco Adventure. I still had a couple days off work, so I went back down to San Jose to meet up with Jimmy again. More adventures to follow.

This is the time I went to the Golden Gate Bridge and didn't urinate on it. Still cool I guess.