San Francisco has been on my “must do” list for quite some time. I’ve already experienced and loved a few other major cities across the great state of California, so my expectations were pretty high. On my journey, I’d be accompanied by my long-time friend and best man, Mike Pinto. I suggested the trip around late summer and within a matter of days, we had all of the logistics mapped out. We would fly in on Thursday (December 3rd) morning and head back home on Sunday (December 6th) evening. This would provide us with a solid 2.5 days of actual sightseeing time. More then enough time, considering we were intending to focus exclusively on San Francisco.
Upon our arrival, we immediately took notice of the weather. It was down right chilly. So chilly, in fact, that one of our first stops was at H&M so that I could buy a brand new wardrobe. One warm scarf, a hoodie and an undershirt later and we were ready to go. We checked into the Westin St. Francis, which was located just across from Union Square. Great location! The hotel was impressive , but they were going through some major renovations at the time, the most irritating part of which had to be their elevator situation. Out of a bank of five elevators available, only two were active. All weekend! I can’t tell you how painful that was. A 15 minute wait for an elevator, anywhere, is just not acceptable. But like I said earlier…amazing location.
Mike and I are not foodies by any stretch, so we really didn’t have any plans of experiencing the cities culinary excellence. We were in full-blown tourist mode and it was all about the hot spots. However, we did cap off the weekend with a nice Italian dinner in South Market (SOMA). I was fortunate enough to connect with a friend and mentor of mine, Hari. He was a former colleague who had moved to San Francisco less than a year ago, and I was really hoping to catch up with him. After our fine dining experience, we took a jaunt down Market Street to the Warfield Theater. The game plan was to catch a comedy show by the Comedians of Chelsea Lately. The show started off slow but finished extremely well. Josh Wolf kicked ass! continue reading »
