San Francisco, day 3!

My cousin who lives in the Bay area saw on Instagram 

that we were in the city.

She kept texting a list of places we MUST go to eat.

Food is a very important part of vacations for us!

I laid in bed with a huge list of things we still needed to see and devour.

I was overwhelmed with how we were going to get it all in.

We didn't have a full day, our flight was leaving at 5.

At 6 I jumped out of bed and informed everybody to wake up!

We needed to get an earlier start than originally planned.

We got ready, packed up and checked our bags at the front desk.

Mr. Holmes was number one on her list.

People start lining outside the door an hour before opening 

for their famous cruffin!

Which is a cross of croissant and a muffin.

Much like the cronut.

Apparently they sell out the first 30 minutes!

They opened at 8 and we got their probably 15 minutes before...

with only 2 other people in line.

I was confused because I thought it was going to be mass chaos.

We started talking to a couple and she had read rave reviews on pinterest about this place.

The doors opened and we pushed ourselves in for some sugary carb goodness!

Where are the cruffins?

"We don't serve cruffins until 9."

WHAT??? 

No wonder there wasn't a line yet!

I was super bummed, but they assured me everything they had out was basically

a cruffin, just baked in a different shape.

Same recipe and everything.

With that, we basically ordered one of everything!

In true San Francisco fashion, it is a random tiny bakeshop in the middle of a ghetto street.

 Hunkering down with our breakfast.

It was fun place to try!

I really wanted to ride a trolley!

We headed back to Union Square to find a trolley station.

It was crazy, the bus dropped us off and we looked across the street to a trolley pulling up!

We ran across the street and asked if we could get on.

The trolley conductor squished us on and off we went!

How perfect did that work out?

AND it was the trolley line I was wanting to ride, the Powell and Hyde trolley.

I love that it was decked out in Christmas décor.

The funny part was that we had no idea where it was taking us!

We knew we were headed down the hill towards Fisherman's Wharf,

 but who knew if it would turn and go a random direction.

Hello Lombard street!

With our luck, it stopped at Pier 39 and everybody had to get off.

Our next place we wanted to go was China town.

The workers said to jump to the next trolley over because it was leaving in

 5 minutes and China town was one of the stops.

What were the chances?!

We sat inside this time.

It was about another 10 minute ride when the conductor said this is China town!

Bye trolley!

We turned around trying to get our bearings and we spotted a Chinese hospital.

We must be at the right place.

A little further of a walk and yep, Chinese people EVERYWHERE!

I truly thought we were in a different country.

It was crazy how fast we got immersed into what felt like a whole different culture.

I was loving every minute of it. 

Since it was the weekend, everyone was out getting shopping done.

We walked upon a produce vendor making a delivery.

You can barely see his truck with hundreds of boxes flattened in the back. 

Lots of fresh produce out on the streets to purchase.

 We walked passed a restaurant with steam coming out of the window

 from them boiling fresh dumplings.

As we were watching and drooling, 

we decided to go get some authentic San Francisco Chinese food!

We couldn't read the menu, 

so we pointed and tried to understand what everything was.

Pretty sure we didn't know what half of the stuff we ordered was, but

it was all part of the experience:)

A view from upstairs where the tables were.

Laughing at what we were eating.

These were hot "bbq" pork buns. Tasted like sweet n sour something.

Pot stickers, sesame rolls, Chinese donuts, chicken dumplings. Cabbage something or another.

After our little snack, we headed out in search for another snack, lol!

We found it in a tiny little alley.

Golden Gate Fortune Cookie Factory!

You could literally smell the sweet cookies from the street.

We were greeted with warm, fresh, flat cookies before they get shaped.

We could hear some commotion.

The owner (we knew it was the owner because his pictures were plastered on the walls with him shaking celebrities hands), was chewing out this poor Chinese worker. 

You can see half of her backside on the left in a maroon shirt.

I wish I would have gotten a picture of him yelling at her.

It was #ackward. 

It was a good few minutes of him doing that.

He stormed out and she embarrassingly turned around, put a fake smile 

on her face and greeted us.

We think she was late to work and was the only employee that knew English.

I actually video taped some of the misshape and sent it to my friends husband that went to 

Hong Kong on his mission.

I wanted  to see if he could translate what he said to her, ha!

 He couldn't make out all of it because he was talking too fast but what

he did hear was him saying "what were you DOING?".

I guess the guy could've said it a lot meaner or sworn, but he didn't. 

Still, what a jerk!

The boys wrote some cute notes on paper for the girls.

They handed them to the workers to put in some fortune cookies for us to take home.

We also got some chocolate dipped cookies as part of their souvenirs.

Outside of the tiny factory with a specialized bag of cookies!

SO many oriental trading type of stores to shop in!

We hit a few to find some more things to take home to the girls.

We barely scratched the surface of China town, but needed to move

 onto the next activity because we were running out of time.

I love these lanterns strung across the streets.

Casey with his trusty bus map got us to Alamo Square where the painted ladies are!

My inner Full House geekiness was so excited to see this!!

I guess we passed the Mrs. Doubtfire house on the bus to Alamo Square. 

If I had of known, we would have stopped there too!

Now, this was our most anticipated stop for food. 

Tony's pizza in Italy town.

Not only did my cousin say to eat here, everybody else that we 

asked said it is the best pizza you will ever eat!

I was nervous there would be a line out the door and we wouldn't have time to wait.

Because typically there always is a long wait.

We walked up with our fingers crossed and the lady said a big party had just left and we could get seated right away!!

Our eyes were big while looking at the menu. 

It was hard to narrow it down.

So many different sauces, crusts, toppings to choose from.

We ended up getting 4 different ones, lol!

Each one did NOT disappoint!
Even the run of the mill pepperoni was amazing.

That pizza on the bottom was money.

It had a honey drizzle... I want some right now!

We had stuffed our faces when the waitress brought out our deep dish.

We had forgotten about it!

We unbuttoned our pants and started chiseling away at it!

Tony's, you were good to us.

With that, it was time to head back to the hotel and get our bags.

We called a Lyft and off we were to the airport to head home to our girlies.

They loved the fortune cookies and goodies we brought home for them.

I can't say enough how much FUN this trip was!!

Casey said he couldn't believe how the trip just flowed so perfectly.

This was a trip I didn't have scheduled out everyday and was nervous we would run out 

of time and not get everything in. 

We loved our one on one time with the boys.

We loved being with Papa and Grammy and making amazing memories.

San Fran, we will be back!!

San Francisco, day 2!

It rained all through the night.

I anticipated that we would get soaked all day long.

I had our poncho's, and rain booties ready to go in our backpacks.

It was slightly misty outside as we walked to Lori's Diner for breakfast.

Can you see the pink Cadillac behind Rusty?

The vibe was cool, but it was just mediocre food.

Casey was determined to make it to the Golden Gate Bridge by city bus!

He had been studying the bus maps and was certain we could get there no problem.

Our first leg went great!

We needed to switch routes so off we went and found the next bus

 stop right across the street.

 We were feeling pretty proud of ourselves for not getting lost or missing our stop.

After we waited a few minutes, we noticed that the stop 

had temporarily been moved due to road construction!

Hmm, but where?! 

Dark clouds were rolling in and it started to sprinkle.

I called a Lyft and we hunkered down in a Circle K until it arrived.

Tender mercy in all of that, because the city bus would have never taken us where

 we needed to go to rent bikes! 

Plus, our driver took us through the most gorgeous town Presidio. 

Aka, billionaire row.
I would love to go back and explore that place on bikes.

A view of the bridge from Sports Basement, where we rented bikes.

The large area of grass is called Crissy Field.

All geared up and ready to ride across the bridge! 

The rain stopped and the most glorious blue sky and fluffy clouds stayed the rest of the trip!

Grammy stayed back.

 Sports Basement was a huge place with lots of places to wander and couches to sit on.

We did have to conquer a few steep hills.

The bikes were good quality so it wasn't super difficult.

Papa rented one with peddle assistance.

  As we were standing up huffing and puffing to reach the top, 

he whizzed on right passed us with no effort!

I was curious how his bike rode compared to ours. 

He let me borrow it and WOW!! 

Why did I not rent the upgraded bike? 

You could ride all day without breaking a sweat.

A view from the top of the hill.
You can see a blurry blob of Alcatraz.

Famous picture spot.

On the bridge!

What a neat experience.

Hands down, probably one of my top favorite things I've ever done.

It was super windy and cars were passing by with Christmas trees on top of their cars.

You could see the waves on the beach underneath crashing on the sand.

Made it to the other side!

We debated on continuing the ride down into Sausalito and taking the ferry back. 

It would have taken too much time. 

I tell ya, San Francisco is packed with so much goodness to see!

Heading back!

Sports Basement is that big white building in the right top corner.

I wish I got a picture of the inside.

They had a spin class going on when we got back!

The day had flown by so fast!

We still wanted to ride the Go Cars,

 I called and they said if we hurried we could get an hour tour in before they closed.

We didn't want to risk getting lost, so we ordered a Lyft and got there lickidy split!

After signing our lives away, we loaded in the cars and off we went!

Each car has a navigation system and a tracker telling you which way to turn as well as describing what you are driving by.

It was a blast!

 I think we all had beaming smiles on our faces the whole time.

I had Lane with me and made him take pictures.

Our hands were frozen, so this is the best he got, lol!

I shouted at him to take a picture of the Christmas tree on top of the car.

They were everywhere and was so magical!

Haha, you can barely see it between the metal bar.

Our main destination was Lombard Street!

After lots of side street turns, there it was!

You could tell by the big crowds taking pictures of it:)

At the very top ready to drive down!

So, so fun!!

We made it back safely.

Wishing they could have driven.

We were starving! It was such a busy day we didn't have time for lunch!

The Go car tours was down the street from Fisherman's Warf.

We decided to walk down and find a restaurant there to eat.

The first thing we saw was Hard Rock Café.

Not an authentic place, but there was no wait so we caved.

Boy were we glad we did!!

Everything we ordered was top notch!

There was not one bit of food left on anyone's plates.

My ribs were as long as the table!

They were falling of the bone, some of the yummiest I have ever had.

What to do after stuffing our faces with food?

Wash it down with melted chocolate, of course:)

Back to Ghirardelli square for more rounds of sundaes!

This is where it got scarily comical.

Casey said we could take buses back to Union Square.

We needed to catch quite a few of them.

Every time we would walk to a stop, we had just missed the bus and would

 need to wait for 15 minutes for the next one. 

The first time was fine. 

I face timed the girls.

But each time, the area would get sketchier and sketchier.

At one point we were waiting at the NASTIEST bust stop.

I swear it reeked of urine, had a dirty stained comforter and garbage all over the floor. 

A homeless man was hacking up a lung in between puffs of a cigarette.

 My mother in law and I were FREAKING OUT! 

 We each had a kid tightly by the arm. 

If it couldn't get any worse, a drunk homeless guy was cussing out and chasing after

 another  ONE. LEGGED.  homeless man on crutches!!! 

Moments later, a clearly out of his mind guy was slowly walking the streets, clanking a 

stick behind him on the gates making a loud noise, back and forth.

 It was a scene out of  a horror movie!!

Casey, what did you get us into! 

That bus couldn't come fast enough!

I whispered to never try drugs to the boys. 

They nodded their heads with a dazed stare, lol!

A good visual consequence lesson for them.

This beautifully lit Macy's building was a grand site!

We had made it out of the trenches and were safely home!

Union Square at Christmas time is a big deal.

We walked around for a bit.

They had an ice skating rink and a guy dressed up in a home made costume with lights all over it.

Of course he charged to take pictures. 

It was like being in a mini version of Times Square.

Super fun vibe.

Once again, we were bushed from a long, awesome day!