Wow, you're back? Day One read like War & Peace... I'll try to keep day two shorter, but it was a full vacation considering it was only a couple of days!
So... we woke up, sore as hell, and so I went for a fantastic swim to wake up, while Jax lazed in bed and I think watched some Sandra Bullock movie. (Jax reminds me upon reading that it was not Sandra Bullock, but some horrible made in Canada chick flick on the women's network featuring McDreamy. Not to get off track, but listen to this... so this average looking chick meets McDreamy (he works at a bagel shop) and she's a lawyer, but not happy in her work. He asks her to go away for the weekend with him and pretend to be his girlfriend. His best friend is getting married and he can't bear to be a the wedding without a 'date' and being McDreamy, of course he can't find a hot girl to really date, so he has to beg this average chick. Follow me so far? So the girl decides to slum it, and pretend to date the bagel guy. So they take this idyllic ferry ride out to some beautiful island, and all his friends are perfect and filthy rich, and they go kayaking and play croquet and McDreamy basically just sits there and listens to this girl drone on and on.. he's cute AND a GREAT listener. So dreamy... anyways, she finds out that McDreamy is actually filthy rich himself, he used to work on Wall Street but he decided to get back to nature and he OWNS the bagel shop!! He's a great listener, he's dreamy, AND he's rich!!
He's so dreamy.
They start to fall in love (of course) and they do it after the wedding -but, and here's the even worse, ridiculously contrived part of the script, it turns out that this girl's mother died when she was a kid. (this we learned during one of her rambling at the mouth scenes where McDreamy sat nicely and listened) Before her mother died she told her that the 7th man she falls in love with will be her soulmate. Here's the kicker, McDreamy is only #6! What to do?! A rich, successful, soulful, hot guy is in love with her, but she's carrying around an old piece of paper that her dead mom wrote that clearly states he is NOT the guy for her!!
So of course she leaves him. And then some smarmy realtor says he loves her, and so of course she should be with him she figures. Poor McDreamy! Gawd.
But don't worry, in the end... wait for it... everything turns out alright! She quits her job, joins McDreamy in the bagel shop, and they all live happily ever after. Whew! Close one!
Anyways, back to the trip... and oh! In all my Chick Flick ranting I almost forgot - the Inter Continental provided a basket of goggles for swimmers! So nice. The gym was big, and had a ton of cardio equipment, but after our triathlon on Day One, we figured we didn't need any fake cardio. Today we were scheduled to take a boat cruise and maybe hit a museum, take it a bit easy... and as Jacquie continued to remind me, go SHOPPING!!
yay.
Jax's dream day.
Jim's dream day.
We left the hotel and walked to the centre of town, still a huge line-up at the cable car, so we hopped on the street car going towards the ferry terminal, and finally used our San Fran day pass booklet I was so excited to get from Air Miles. (500 Air Miles per book - Thanks Mom for shopping on the 1st of every month at Safeway so we could get enough Air Miles for free San Fran transport!)
Jax on a streetcar
The street car was easy to use, and as soon as we got off we ended up in market at the ferry terminal. We didn't spend much time there, because our street car to the Fisherman's Wharf showed up. From what we saw though, the market looked like we could've spent a lot of time there.
little hippy gear
There's something about Palm Trees that says 'Vacation!'
And soon we were back at Fisherman's Wharf, and kicking ourselves at how easy it would've been to take the street cars yesterday and save ourselves the extra 2 hour walk on the way home!!
We used our San Fran city passes to get tickets on the cruise of the Bay, which was just an hour out on the water to go under the Golden Gate Bridge, zoom around Alcatraz, and snap some pictures of the skyline. While waiting for the boat we ate breakfast at some overpriced faux surfer's restaurant. Breakfast was notable because I ordered bacon and gave it to jacquie, but then almost threw up cause bacon grease was all over my eggs. blech. It's been a long time since I ate pig juice. We also got to see some of the Tampa Bay vs Pittsburgh round one of the playoffs game - Tampa won 8-2. (for those who are interested) By the way, since we're recording this for prosperity, Vancouver was playing Chicago and were up 3-0 in the series, but by the time we returned from our trip it was 3-3 and the city was in a panic!! But back to San Fran...
View of Telegraph Hill from our boat.
Golden Gate Bridge from the boat
The boat ride was nice, mostly because we didn't have to walk or ride bikes this time! We could just kick back and watch the beautiful scenery go by. They also played one of those cheesy touristy tapes, that spouts useless facts like, 'the amount of wiring that went into the construction of the Golden Gate Bridge - if laid end to end - can circle the Earth 3 times.' and some interesting facts like, 'alcatraz island was named after the Spanish word for Pelicans' and 'only 5 inmates ever escaped from Alcatraz, but they were never found, and presume drowned' - see, I did learn some stuff!
coolio
The notorious Alcatraz penitentiary.
We just drove around the island - we didn't get to stop and see the cells or anything. I'd done that on my last trip to San Fran, and Jacquie was worried that because she sometimes sees ghosts (and grey-haired images of her future husband-to-be) that she would pick up bad spiritual vibes and bring ghosts back with her (or something like that) Anyways, the island gave her the heebie-jeebies and so we didn't opt for the actual tour, plus we heard from a very disappointed little girl on our boat that the Alcatraz boats were sold out for the entire weekend and she was stuck on this stupid boat that didn't do anything. She was quite chatty, until her little sister told on her for speaking to strangers and her mom yanked her away.
Then, as I snapped 147 shots of seagulls behind the boat, jacquie went downstairs to order a beer, because she was so excited about American liquor laws. Plus she LOVES to come back from places she goes alone to tell me that so-and-so hit on her. In this instance, she came back with a Corona and informed me the bartender promised her a free beer if she came back. He also said she looked 25.
But, she whispered, he's Mexican-American, or latino of some kind. (according to Jax only black men and foreign men try to pick her up - me being a boring white dude is interesting to her then, apparently?) I don't know... anyways, I spent the rest of the boat cruise trying to get her to go downstairs to get the free beer, but she was flustered, and didn't go. (and if she DID go, I'd have been jealous, so she did well to ignore me!)
The way to my wife's heart: booze and compliments about her young skin.
there it is!! THE perfect seagull/alcatraz shot!
The boat ride over, we then headed to the aquarium - which was thrilling for me, but not so much for Jax! I didn't realize she was scared of the water being OVER us. There was a large tunnel that you walk through, and the fish and sharks swim over and around you. I thought it was beautiful! So cool to see a ray swim over you!
Sardines? I dunno...but wow eh? Don't they look amazing?!
Jim and a shark.
Look at those nervous fingers!!
Jim and a ray.
Jax preferred the frogs and hedgehogs. But hey, the tickets were part of the City Pass, so we could go for a quick 30-minute run through the place, and not feel like we were obligated to stay longer than we felt like! Plus we bought really dorky $30 pictures of ourselves standing in front of a green screen of sharks/jellyfish and the Golden Gate Bridge. Funnily enough, on our very first date together we went to the Vancouver Aquarium, and they take pictures of everyone entering in front of a green screen. Anyways, we take such dorky pictures usually, but this one was BRILLIANT! Alas, it was our first date, and neither of us wanted to shell out $30 for some cheesy touristy aquarium picture, so we didn't buy it. We still regret it, and the picture has taken on near mythical proportions in our minds... it is THE single-most beautiful picture of the both of us EVER taken. And we don't have it.
Anyways, after the aquarium we, what'd we do... OH! We walked up near Little Italy again, and then headed for Lombard Hill - the crookedest (most crooked?) street in the world! walking was very slow going today as the hills seemed WAY steeper now that our legs were tired. But we did mange to struggle thru, walk the hill, and then what did we find at the top of the hill?! Our very first cable car, with room to spare!!
yet more hills...
Lombard Street. Crooked eh?
So we hopped onto the cable car and boy, what an experience!! It's like a roller coaster, up and down the steepest hills imaginable, everyone hanging on for dear life, the conductors berating the tourists for getting in the way, not knowing what to do... it was tiring actually. Not as tiring as actually climbing the hills on your own, but it definitely isn't relaxing. They're working museums really, not built for comfort, no padding or anything... they're just like they were 100 years ago.
View of Alcatraz from the back of the cable car.
cable car going the other way
God... I'm getting tired even WRITING this blog. We were busy,eh? Because after riding the cable car a good 30 minutes, we ended up back downtown. Did we go back to the hotel for lunch? nope. We jumped in a cab (after I had THE best slice of pizza in the world. really. it was that good) and headed for haight/ashbury, site of the 60's flower power, hippy dippy movement of the 60's. I'm sure Jacquie's dad hung out here at the time.
But now? Meh... now it's gentrified, and feels like a high class Commercial Drive. It's WAY more picturesque than Commercial or Main, and there are lots of pot smoking hipster hippy dudes and dudettes, but the stores are pricey, the clothes are hi-end, and open air tour buses are lined up by the dozen. It's cool to see, and while the murals and graffiti and piercing/tattoo shops etc were interesting, it didn't seem really authentic. Kinda like Hollywood Blvd for me. It was once something real, and now it's a reasonable facsimile created for tourists. We wandered, shopped for various items of clothing (okay, truth be told I was a little sulky and I moped on various man benches in little boutiques while jacquie shopped - but really, I was the only guy in MANY shops) And then we went for some WICKED Thai food. really awesome. But by 5pm or so we were ready to call it a day - and besides, jacquie promised to take me for dinner tonight, and we had to go back, go for a swim (I wanted to anyways!! Can't let a perfectly good pool go to waste!) and then head out for dinner. woohoo!
So we bussed back to the hotel, amazed at how easy it is to find our way around the city. Buses, streetcars, cable cars, they all seemed to travel in fairly straight lines and all of them shot us back in the general direction of our hotel. We lucked out on the hotel location big time - considering it was my first HotWire purchase as well! ($150 a night for 4.5 stars - seems like a decent deal, eh?)
I swam, Jacquie I think found another Sandra Bullock chick flick, and then it was time to go out! Oh wait, you know what, I missed something - we shopped!! How could I forget?? I was DYING to stop walking, but I followed jacquie into Old Navy to buy a shirt, and then to Burlington Coat Factory for underwear and socks, and I'm pretty sure there was some big shoe warehouse, and a make-up store... I can't believe I blocked all this out! Huh. And this was all before we returned to the hotel before dinner. I'm tired just thinking about it.
yes baby, those are SUPER cute. Can we go now?
Soooo... after our lovely shop and laze at the hotel, we walked back to downtown, and jumped on a cable car because we were old hands by this time, and went all the way down to the Fisherman's Wharf again. We weren't sure if we should go for seafood there or to Little Italy... but luckily we decided against the tourist traps and instead headed to Little Italy, for... wait for it.... quite possibly THE best Italian food I've ever had.
now... it might have been the company, the magical surroundings, the weekend in San Fran, or the fact we'd bike/hiked/swam/walked 3000 kilometres over the last two days, but when we finally decided on a restaurant.. everything was perfect!! we chose Volare, a Sicilian restaurant... wait, I'll see if I can find a picture online.. found one!
Found a review online, and so this blog isn't boring with just my musings, here is some random guy waxing poetic about his meal at Volare:
There was a spinache gnocci dish with gorgonzola sauce, and a regular gnocchi dish with basil pesto sauce. At my suggestion, my wife asked them to give us the spinache gnocchi with basil pesto sauce (combining the best aspect of both dishes), and they had no issue with that. OMG, it was THE BEST gnocchi ever, hands down. Just ridiculously good. And the sauce was not all cream to cut the cost. It was true olive oil based pesto, loaded with pesto ingredients. They didn't cut a single corner. WOW.
Here's another one, more succinct, but possibly even more powerful:
Great authentic Italian/Sicilian pizza! Loved the place...and I was born and raised in Sicily, so I would know.. A+++++
See?!! It really was a fantastic place. We ate so slowly and savoured everything we ended up shutting the place down. The wait staff was all changed, the chairs up, and still we sat and raved to each other about the delicious foods! We ate: (and excuse my spelling)
Fresh bruschetta
Crunchy bread
Amazing olives
crisp, refreshing, salads
Homemade spinach ravioli in gorgonzola creme sauce
and the biggest, bestest bowl of cioppino that we'd ever seen (a big bowl of seafood soup with everything in it - Jacquie's favourite kind of meal)
lobster, crab, mussels, squid... a big mess o seafood - Cioppino
I don't even remember if I ordered dessert. I think I did... did I? Maybe a piece of chocolate cake or something? I really don't know. I think maybe I was in insulin shock at my blood sugar was out of whack because it was SO rich and SO good. I ate with my eyes closed most of the time.
Oh, and we had a FANTASTIC bottle of wine, eau deauffes or something weird like that. I tried to peel the label off discreetly, but it wouldn't budge.. It was Californian anyway, and the year was 1999, and for $30, it was a PERFECT compliment to our meal. (well, it was perfect until my pasta came, but then it didn't really match, but that was okay, I was too busy eating to bother to drink)
Damn, and this was supposed to be somewhat of a wine blog. Here we are, coming across our first bottle of wine, and we don't even remember the name! arrgh. ah well.
And so that was pretty much it for the night. It was close to 11pm, it was raining a little, so we hopped into a cab and sat in the rain and listened to our driver ramble on in Russian or some Central Asian language into his earpiece and ignored us, and we were back in our beds before midnight, still raving about the food (in fact, we're STILL raving about the food, a week later!)
Anyways - that was Day Two! And if you're really interested, you can read all about DAY III in the next installment of the thrilling, exciting, mind-broadening, Jim and Jax do San Francisco!
Until then... I bid you goodnight. (it's 12:22 on a Friday night, and Jax has been drooling into her pillow for at least 2 hours, night owl that she is!) I'm going to show her how to log onto this sucker tomorrow - maybe she'll do the next update!)
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