I visited San Francisco for the first time 10 years ago and, I must admit, I was not incredibly excited about it. It was part of a week long tour that took me all over California. San Fran was the beginning of the week and I remember thinking..."Ok, New York is way cooler." I enjoyed some of the sites we went to, but perhaps I wasn't seasoned enough to completely enjoy it. This was not the case on my third visit yesterday (My second one was very brief a few months ago). I had the grand fortune of visiting with my good friend KP, who gave me "The whole San Francisco experience." :) Thanks bud! Since I generally try not to write a novel on my blogs, I decided there is too much for one blog. I labeled this part one, but I am not sure if it will stop at part two or continue. Over next two months I hope to go back a few more times. Because San Francisco freakin' rocked! With cultural savviness, a strong public transportation infrastructure, and sports experience to rival New York and as beautiful as any city you will see, San Francisco is well worth at least one trip in your life time. I am fortunate I am working on 3+. So here you go...
THE FULL HOUSE: Pridefully I will admit that I was a huge fan of Danny Tanner and his kids when I was a wee lad. DJ (The older sister) was way cute but far too old for me. I had my eye on Stephanie since she was my age :). Additionally, who could argue with the adorable Michelle, as portrayed by the Olson twins before they went insane. Uncle Jesse was soooooo cool (John Stamos seems to not have aged a day since the early 90s) and Joey was the funniest guy ever (Rush Hour Renegades anyone??????). The best thing about Full House was... the house. They lived in this cool row house in the middle of San Francisco (I had no idea where it was when I was younger, but I liked the 49ers). In the opening shots they drove over the Golden Gate bridge and chilled in Golden Gate park, which I found out yesterday is nowhere near the actual house used in the shots for the Tanner House. The acual house is a good 5-10 minute drive away and is part of a section of houses called "The Painted Ladies." KP and I drove up and had a difficult time getting a parking spot, but KP made it work out because, as he said: "This is San Francisco-THEY DON'T CARE!" This would be a recurring theme this weekend. As we got out and looked at the Painted Lady Houses the most AMAZING thing happened. On the front window of one of the houses there was a sign that simply said "THIS IS NOT FULL HOUSE." I wondered if numerous people had walked up to the door and asked for a tour of their house to see, ignorantly, where the show was filmed. KP and I had a hearty laugh and then walked around the back of the houses to see where Kimmie Gibbler lived.
GOLDEN GATE PARK: Our next stop as a little less exciting. We drove through Golden Gate Park on our way to Haight Ashbury. This was the Central Park of San Francisco, although as KP said, not quite as nice. However, I thought it was quite beautiful and green. There wre lots of museums and paths to walk/run along. There were plenty of people sporting small dogs throughout the park. As we exited along the coastline, we made a left on Fell Street on our way to the next destination. Along that road we saw, what seemed to be a police car, with an interesting marker on the tail. It said "UFO PROTECTION FORCE." I made it known that I wanted a picture of it and KP immediately made an illegal U-Turn with the mantra "It's San Fran I do what I want!" We pulled up behind the car and I snapped the ridiculous photo as we continued on.
HAIGHT-ASHBURY DISTRICT: Unfortunately our adventures must conclude today with this entry due to time. If you are not aware, Haight Ashbury was a magnet for a huge hippie population in the 60s. People would come to play their guitars, do all sorts of illegal things, and just hang in San Francisco. It became quite famous over the years and is a standard tourist stop if you come to the city. Fortunately, we went during the week so it was not quite as busy, so we busted out our guitars and decided to jam on the street. However, before that our stay in "The Haight" began with an amazing parking spot right at the corner of the Haight Ashbury. We were blessed with parking spots the entire day, which made us postulate that perhaps Jesus wanted us to be there that day :). After eating at an amazing restaurant (They had an unbelievable crepe special with some minty water!) we walked through the district with our guitars to Amoeba Music, looked inside, and walked back to find our corner.
KP and I had decided a few days before that we would bring our guitars to jam in The Haight. Our mission: to write a worship song in the minor key. We plopped ourselves down, KP decided to take some "Facebook" pictures of me, and then we played. Playing your guitar on the street was not an uncommon thing in this part of town, I had already seen numerous people on our walk. Still, we managed to attract some attention with people who were walking by. One gentleman even stopped, got really excited to see us and gave us both a fist bump. At that point we felt we had arrived as hippies in Haight Ashbury. So we decided to pack up our guitars and head to Pier 39....
That's all for today unfortunately. Stay tuned for stories from Lombard Street, Pier 39, Fisherman's Wharf, and if you are lucky, our walk around Giants Stadium during game one of the 2010 World Series!
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