It all began Thursday afternoon. I wasn't working, so I started at Roosters a little early. By the time everyone arrived, I was pretty toasty. At the end of the evening, the idea was to ride with John to his place in SLC, go out that night, and then ride back to Layton the next morning with him on his way to work. We ended up staying at John's house for the evening and had a super time. Doug came over and casually mentioned that he and a few others were going to San Francisco the next day.
As you can see, I was pretty inebriated. I'm not sure what happened next, but before I knew it, I'd booked a ticket online from SLC to Oakland. Later in the evening, after everyone left, I sobered up a bit, and got back online to see if I could cancel my ticket. Surprisingly, I had no problem cancelling my reservation and there weren't even any fees involved.
The next morning, John and I were driving back north, and I started thinking about how I rarely do things on a whim. "If I can still get the same ticket as cheap as I did last night," I thought, "then I'm gonna go to San Francisco this weekend."
After I got home, I found the same ticket and the same price, and immediately began packing my bags.
Chris and I were on the same flight, and arrived in Oakland in the mid-afternoon. We took the train over to San Francisco, and met Doug, Marion, Nicole, and April at our hotel, which was next to the Transamerica Building, right in the middle of the financial district. We were joined later by Will, who lives in San Jose and drove up for the weekend. We walked around the city for a while that evening, stopping in Chinatown for dinner.
After dinner, we went back to the hotel to shower, and then headed back out to go dancing and drinking. The weather was typical drizzly San Francisco weather, but the temperature was pleasantly warm.
I don't know the lady in the middle, but her husband offered to take our picture, and we insisted she jump in.
Needless to say, there was some drinking going on.
Midway through the night, we got a little hungry. Will knew the city pretty well, and took us to a little pizza joint that served one of the best slices of pizza I've ever had. Or maybe I was just drunk.
The end of the evening turned into somewhat of a blur, but I'm sure I had an amazing time.
The next morning, we woke up and headed down to Market Street and Union Square, a major shopping district.
There were some seriously amazing stores. I always thought Vegas had the best shopping around. Not anymore.
After shopping all morning, and eating lunch, we went back to the hotel for a short nap. Then we decided to do a little more sight-seeing. One of the cool things about big cities is being able to walk everywhere. We only took trains when the walk was unreasonable or if it was raining too hard. And we only took cabs after the trains stopped running.
If you've ever been there, you know there's nothing flat about San Francisco. It looks like these houses are slanted, but I was just holding the camera funny. The roads are that steep. Looks cool, huh?
We walked toward the bay and up a big hill to Coit Tower. From there, we could see Alcatraz...
...and Lombard Street (the crookedest street in the world) and Fisherman's Wharf, and, of course, Golden Gate Bridge. The fog kept rolling in and out, even as we stood there and watched. It was so cool to see.
On the way back to the hotel, we walked through Chinatown. Chinese New Year is next week, but their festival had already begun. There were people everywhere, and it was really neat.
We went back to the hotel and had a little birthday celebration for Chris, who turned 27 yesterday. After that, we went to dinner and a sushi house Will recommended. One of the coolest things about the trip was that I got to see Caleb Moore. I called him after I bought my ticket (the second time) and, luckily, he was planning on coming up from Monterey anyway. He and his friend, Sergei, joined us for dinner. It was really good to see him again, but I totally forgot to take a picture. Fortunately, he'll be driving through Salt Lake City in a few weeks, so I'll be sure to take pictures then.
After dinner, Caleb had to drive back home, but the rest of us went out for another round of hitting the clubs. It was a little more mild than Friday night, but it was still super fun.
Thanks to Doug for inviting me, and for everyone else who made the weekend worthwhile. These are the things that make me want to be more impulsive and capricious. Life is for living.
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