711 My San Francisco adventure P1

05/18/2015

Saturday, May 9th
Airport
My father dropped me off at the gate. I had a switch over in New York JFK airport. However, before taking off, we were delayed 30 minutes because there was a disabled equipment on the runway at JFK so now I’m starting to worry a bit, I had a 40 minute layover and unsure if I would make my connection flight. When I got to JFK airport, although I did have to hustle, the flight I was getting on, was also delayed so I was on time. When I boarded to go to NY, I asked for headphones and I never got them even when I asked a second time, the attendance said, “Oh that’s right, you wanted headphones” I never got it. I finally got it while on the 2nd flight, about an hour in but they didn’t work or the volume was down and no matter how many times I pressed the up button, it didn’t work. I actually sat doing nothing for 4+ hours. I did do a lot of thinking though

When I got to where Lisa would meet me, I heard “hello!” and she walked over, gave me a nice tight hug. She had the bag I checked for her from her Mom which had a bunch of clothes in it from her nephew that is now her son’s. There was a lot, 43LBS of clothing for a 4 year old.

Hotel
We got to our Hotel, we took the BART (train system) and a cab to our hotel. We checked in and pretty much just dropped our bags off and it was off to go site-seeing.

Walked around
A woman in a city full of shops and stores… a woman’s dreams, a man’s feet worse nightmare lol.
I have NO IDEA how far we walked no idea how many shops and stores and even a mall we walked through, (mall was 2 floors, second floor of this large mall was a gym, were we surprised when we went up and walked around the shoot of the elevator and all there was, was just different rooms-sections of this very large gym. Did Lisa buy anything at the mall? Nope.

For those who never been to SF or doesn’t know how hilly it is, Even some of the sidewalks were slanted down towards the street. There was some streets that were on 45 degree angles and one that we saw, was even more.
I DIGRESS…

My Uncle Joe’s (my mom’s best friend) real nephew lives in SF with his partner. He moved out here on November first of last year. I somewhat grew up with him. Went to a bunch of games when we were kids and other family events. So I wanted to meet up with him and his partner for drinks one night. I told him Saturday would be the best night for us. I called him left a message, saying we were in town, and we would meet up with him in a few hours. We played phone tag a bit and finally got on the phone and he was down for whatever, he would meet us at our hotel about 9P. So after doing all that window shopping, Lisa and I went out for dinner.

Castagnola’s
My mom had got me a few groupons. Lisa picked one of them and we walked to the restaurant, it was 0.7 m away. We got a bit lost getting there. There was a street that split that had another street between them (as she explained to me when she had figured it out a few days later) and so eventually we made it to the restaurant only to find out it was closed. She wasn’t happy. She went on line and as soon as two weeks ago, there was a comment on a rating site and she called the restaurant and the number was no longer in use. So we walked all the way back to the hotel, picked up the other groupon and walked to the other restaurant, Castagnola’s (0.4 M from hotel)

We were greeted by a man singing badly while playing piano. (Just off to the right side of the front door, was a bar) we were seated by the window which overlooks the Bay. Lisa had read me the menu. There wasn’t much I liked-wanted and ended up with penne primavera with a salad. Lisa wanted the chicken palm. They brought bread out with oil and that along with the salad were good. My food was good but had different vegetables than I’m used to. Lisa’s chicken Palm came with mash potato. We both thought that it was strange. It would be one thing if it was an American restaurant or if she had options but it was an Italian restaurant and came with it.

After dinner she wanted to walk around some more so we went back to Pier 39 and walked around for a few more hours. We got back to the hotel about 8:30, gave us enough time to do a quick change and rest for a few minutes. .

Met up with Richard
Richard walked into the lobby of the hotel and said “hey Jonathan, how are you?” and gave me a hug then gave Lisa a hug. He led us to this bar called “gold dust”. It was this regular bar with table-chairs against the walls going all the way back. It was a long and skinny bar. We all had a hard time hearing so after one round, (I had a flavored vodka on the rocks) we left to find a quieter bar.
We went to this other bar (don’t recall the name) where we went upstairs and it was like a dance club but there was another set of stairs that lead to a big heavy double door which lead to another bar that had quieter music. Richard and I caught up on time and Lisa, being the outgoing type, kept asking questions and we kept ordering rounds and paying rounds. After a lot of laughing, talking and just a good time, 6 rounds of drinks, 6 different flavored vodka’s on the rock for me, I got up… We made it back to the hotel and Lisa wanted to get me something to eat so she went across the street and got me a burger and fries from “In and Out Burgers” I remember it was good but could barely taste it lol. I passed out soon after.

Sunday –Mother’s Day
I woke up early …but not really, it was just because I was on EST. When I got up, I took one of my few Mother’s day gifts for Lisa and put it in the bathroom, on the back of the door. When she eventually woke up, went into the bathroom, she came out and said “aww thank you” I said “happy mother’s day” it was a cute Red Sox tank top. She said she would wear it today.

L: How do you feel?
J: I feel good. A bit tired but good.
L: I’m surprised you don’t have a hangover. Do you remember falling?
J: what? No?
L: when you got up from the chair you fell flat on your face. (At the bar)
J: I did?
L: yep, and there was these two guys who were laughing hysterically. I told them, you think it’s funny that a blind man fell? They said no and helped me get you up. Richard had gone ahead so when he turned around, at first he was worried but once he saw you were ok, he was ok. We had to help you, basically carry with an arm around each of us. It must have looked pretty funny though. 3 laughing stumbling people trying to cross the street. It was like we were doing (name of some dance). It was a challenge to get you from the elevator to the room. (Our room was around the world from the elevator). Then I went down and got you an In and Out Burger. I figured you should probably eat something.
J: I do remember eating the burger and fries, but only vaguely.
L: When I went over, Richard was there. I told him you were ok.

Breakfast

Lisa and I went down for breakfast. There was a restaurant but Lisa asked if there was a continental breakfast. The lady said no so we went into the restaurant and sat down. The waiter said that we could have the buffet for 18.95 or we could order off the menu. We ordered a tea and a coffee. Lisa opened the menu and said “we’re not eating here” a stack of pancakes was 17.95. Lisa said to the waiter that we’ll have the check when he dropped the drinks off. He was surprised but brought the bill. They don’t take credit cards or cash, it is automatically charged to the card on file. Lisa wrote our room number down and when she was done drinking her coffee, she left for a smoke. The waiter came over and was questioning me and the room number verses the credit card on file since the names didn’t match. I tried to explain that it was my credit card but the room is under a friend’s name. I heard the hostess question Lisa on the same thing when she came in from her smoke. I explained to Lisa that the waiter said the same thing to me. OH, the one cup of tea and the one cup of “not so good” coffee, was $9.75. We were not happy campers.

We went to this little breakfast place that was on the back side street of our hotel. There was 12 tables. I was feeling like pancakes but they didn’t have any. They had waffles so I had that instead with lots of fresh berries. Lisa had a crate. I don’t remember what flavor. It was very good.
She served in the army for 14 years and she said that some of her habits took her a few months up to a few years to break. One of them is to not turn her cup over on the table when she is done. She explained (in a lot more details) you needed to drink 2 cups of water with every meal. So when you finish a cup, you turn it over and when you finish the second you turn it over and scream (something) to let everyone know you had finished. She said that she had to fight the urge to not scream or even turn cups over in restaurants. I just shook my head thinking “Oookkkk?”.

AT&T PARK Stadium # 25 for me!
Giants Marlins 3-2
We took a cab to the BART, walked a few blocks to the stadium, the AT&T Park. We got there very early and walked around a bit and I got a shot glass saying SF in orange to add to my collection
We then went to our chairs and went down to the field where Lisa took a few pictures of me with the field in the background. We had very good seats. We were about 18 rows up, looking right down the foul line, directly at home plate. I put my headphones on and was pleasantly surprised the game came in perfect. Lisa got up about 3 times for a cigarette break and once to get something to snack on. She seemed zoned out for most of the game. She was tired, maybe a bit hung over from the night before, maybe a big bored since it wasn’t the Red Sox so she really didn’t care. Every once in a while when the crowd cheered she asked me what happened. In my head, I planned on leaving around 3:30 game over or not since we had other things planned and I could listen to the game on the radio. So we left the game, Miami was up 2-1. The Radio worked until we got on the train and the train started moving. I guess it was a lot of electricity. At each stop, I could hear it so that was good enough. We took a cab from the station to our hotel.

Dressed up
Lisa had bought this beautiful purple strapless dress for this night. (She never wears dresses so this is a huge deal for her) Just as promised, it took her over an hour to get ready. She showered, blow dried her hair, straightened her hair, got dressed, put on her makeup. Had a few cigarette breaks in between. She put on these heels which, caused her to walk a lot slower and instead of holding her elbow, I held her forearm with my arm holding her up a bit and it was a good thing, there was once where she stumbled on a break in the sidewalk and I was able to hold her up. We were off to the restaurant. We didn’t take into consideration that she had to walk a bit slower so we were a few minutes late which turned out to be perfect as we were seated as soon as we got there. Not that I think how I was dressed was anything special, I wore a white dress shirt, black pants and this purple tie with light blues, grays and silver blended in, it matched her dress. (Lisa posted a pic of us on FB and her brother, my best friend comment, saying “Jonathan, looks like you are going to a funeral” which is why I don’t see the big deal of how guys dress up. You could wear the same thing to a wedding, a funeral, a nice dinner or to work…I digress…)

Dinner at Fog Harbor fish house
(After much research, checking rating sites and reading the comments, I chose this restaurant. No rated was lower than a 3 of a 5 scale and those who did rated 3 with comments, the comments didn’t match as they raved about it. They had salmon for her and a steak for me, it overlooked the bay. It would be nice for a mother’s day dress up dinner. I called 3 weeks in advance and it was a good thing as they only had 3 reservations left for 2. I picked 8:30 over the 5:30 since we had the game that day and we needed to get ready)

We walked down to pier 39, using her GPS we found the restaurant. It was on the second floor but the stairs were on the outside of the building. It was this wooden set of stairs that lead to a landing where the restaurant was right in front of you. We got there about 10 minutes late. Lisa was all apologies, explaining how they walked 0.3 miles with her in her heels… The hostess said no problem. Lisa gave my name and she said right this way…

So let me try to describe the restaurant as Lisa described it to me.
When you first walk in, you walk into a lounge area with the bar on the right. Then is the restaurant section, along the entire right wall, was floor to ceiling windows that overlooks the bay. You can see Alcatraz, the Golden Gate Bridge, the Bay Bridge and a few other islands along with all the boats out there. The room is dimly lit with a candle at each table. (Which Lisa blew out, she didn’t like the smell) The table had table cloths with folded napkins and they brought over fresh, warm bread that was mouth-watering. (We had a second basket it was so good.) I ordered a salad, steak, rice (but they gave me mashed potato instead, it was very good) and broccoli. Lisa ordered a salmon dish that had vegetables and was covered with a salsa. She said the fish was perfectly cooked. She said usually when you order fish, the top part will stay pink-ish but the bottom would be gray-ish and she won’t eat that part. She said that this was pink all the way through. She said it was so good (as she was eating it) “I could have an orgasm like in the movie “when Harry met sally” (and gave some extended “Mmm’s”. She did go out at least twice to have a smoke, leaving me by myself eating. We both cleared our plates completely. I was still hungry. I got dessert. The waitress came over, with the tray of desserts and was describing me each one. I was very impressed. I got this apple crisp that was out of this world. It was definitely for two. I ate about 3/4th and if I had any more room, it would have been gone.
Lisa said it was the nicest meal she had in many many years.
When the bill came, it was a bit more than I thought. I think it was because of the few glasses of wine Lisa had because I knew how much the meals cost. I left a $25 tip. I never spend anything like that for a meal and took the receipt home just to show my mom so she didn’t question my credit card lol.
(It kinda reminds me of an old credit card commercial, where the credit card company calls the person to make sure the card wasn’t stolen because the T-shirt and jean guy wants to take his wife out to a nice dinner)

We went to the lounge and sat at the bar for a glass of wine. It was late and so after the wine, we went back to the hotel via cab.

She had a very nice mother’s day.