June 23, 2009

"San Francisco"

We had a great breakfast at Blue Lake’s only restaurant and Claire gave us a bunch of great things to see and do in San Francisco. Armed with our list, we said good bye and took the 101 South. We drove through some amazing redwood forests. You hear about the size of the trees, but nothing can prepare you for it.
As we approached we kept an eye out for any land marks then we came around a hill and saw the Golden Gate Bridge headed straight for us. As we drove over it it was relatively clear and we met tons of cyclists coming from the city. We drove straight into the city and up Lombard St. (steep) and then down Lombard St. (the real windy section) Our first tourist destination taken care of in the first 5 min.

We were headed straight to the piers to try and get a tour of Alcatraz right away. We wanted to get that out of the way soon. Turns out the earliest time they had tickets for was Thursday morning, the day we were planning on leaving. So, instead of the first thing we did it would be the last thing we did.

We Checked into our hostel, The Green Tortoise. It was extravagant as far as hostels go. Very nice and full of travelers. That night we decided to walk around North Beach find a bar and relax. We walked through Chinatown, went to City Lights bookstore (an old haunt of the Beats) and found the Claire recommended “Specs”, a bar that reminded us a lot of Chicago’s Old Town Ale House. In some ways North Beach and Old Town seemed very similar in general. For dinner we walked a little farther and found a stretch of Italian restaurants, we had no recommendation so we were deliberating, when a tall, dark haired gent popped out of Michaelangelo’s doorway.
“Hey, folks come on in. I’ll give you a glass of wine on me.”
We must have looked unconvinced even though I was pretty much sold, because he kept chatting with us.
“Where you from?”
“Really? My Grand father’s from Chicago.”
“My dad’s name is Joe. He was actually mad that my mom didn’t name me Joe. So I’m Michaelangelo Joseph.”


We went in and had calamari and ravioli. We got some giggly folks nearby to take our picture. They were especially tickled, because we were sitting under neath a naked man. As we were getting ready to leave two women walked in and one was wearing an NC State shirt. Very rare. (UNC apparel is everywhere because everyone buys it regardless of whether they went there, but someone wearing a Wolfpack shirt must be an alum) On our way out we asked them if they had gone there. They were actually current students who were spending the summer in SF. One was from Greensboro and the other was from Shelby.
“What!? I’M from Shelby.”
Then Shelby explained that she was born in Charlotte and that it is just coincidence that she happened to be named Shelby and later move to Shelby, NC.
Anyway, small world.

We went back to the hostel and prepared for a full day of biking, starting in the morning.