I am sitting at home after seven days of non stop going around sunny San Francisco in the company of two great friends, one coming from Toronto and the other visiting from Paris. On the way to the airport I asked one of them to tell me three words to define his impressions of the trip  to SF and he said: “out there” because of the people he met and saw around were pretty crazy, “unique” because of the colourful and varied architecture and “weed”, well… because you could smell it everywhere.

A week is obviously not a lot of time to spend in one place but I think that considering the little time we had to see and live the city we visited a lot places and travelled a little bit around the area.

We tasted the great Californian food (Chinese at SF China Town, Persian in a North Beach restaurant called Maykadeh , Mexican tacos in the Mission, Thai in Santa Cruz’s Thai Orchid, Indian at Darbar, American in Berkeley’s T-Rex). Right now I cannot recall all the places but we were eating good, tasty and sometimes not so healthy food. Coffee and breakfasts were also great. I will be coming back to places like The Bean Bag on Hayes and Divisadero St., their coffee is nothing special but the breakfast is really good.

We were intermediate to advanced tourists showing the city to beginners. On the first day we went to the Civic Center area, had food at Arlequin and walked to the Mission. We spent the afternoon at Dolores Park and came back home passing by Castro District. A pretty awesome tour for the first day. I bet on the first 30 minutes our friend already decided his three words to define this amazing town. 🙂

People approach to you in this city and that is one of my favourites things about San Franciscans. Some other cities make you feel invisible but not San Francisco. People talk, exteriorize their ideas, look at you and smile. I say it one and a million times.

Also, the fact that we printed a poster of a friend from Toronto that could not make it to this trip might have helped to the fact that we had even more people starting conversations with us. Yes, we have pictures all over the city with our “paper” friend. We are making an album for him that will be named something like ” The trip I can’t remember…!”

Even though a beach patrol officer friendly and politely came to me asking who that guy was and we could not take our poster to Alcatraz because “it could be used as a weapon” we did take pictures at Muir Woods, Berkeley and everywhere possible. That was incredibly fun.

We were going around day and night and our friends realized right away the same thing we noticed back in September, the party starts in the afternoon and the city goes to bed early. You can have the greatest time in SF but I believe that waking up early is the key. I have not tried it yet but even for Halloween people seem to wear their costumes since noon.

Going out with friends was epic. The jokes were constant, as usual, discovering new places and travelling with close friends is always unforgettable and very rewarding. The weather was amazing. The Golden Gate Bridge had not fog. They never understood the tourist obsession with the Painted Ladies at Alamo Park when you have so many other houses in the city that worth a picture as much or more. Totally agreed.

They had their tourist dosis of Pier 39, clam chowder and sea lions but also their cool sunsets at Baker Beach and Santa Cruz after wine tasting. We visited the University of Berkeley, passed by the Google offices in Mountain View, went to Noisebridge and to three or four bars on the Mission for Halloween. We really enjoyed walking on Fillmore St, entering the BooM BooM RooM for some live music and drinks and finishing up the night eating pizza at Domino’s.

We walked up to Haight a few times, mostly for coffee or ice cream, visited the Golden Gate Park for about 30 minutes, not too much time for more but the weather was always on our side and the views and pictures turned out to be lovely.

Yesterday, we ended up the week with a Sunday theatre play with amazing voices, hats and wigs (Beach Blanket Babylon).

Tomorrow is November. The tourist writing this is staying in the tilted city for another two months. I will be ready for more stories, after I sleep…

Happy Halloween!