San Francisco 2008

I just returned from a jaunt to San Francisco. I was there for four days for a work-related seminar. The seminar was good and I have a lot of new things to apply to my job when I get back to my desk.

Unfortunately, Jim didn't get to go with me this year. School started a week earlier than it did last year so he missed out. We were pretty unhappy about that but oh well. Life happens. Plus I went off and forgot my camera so the few pictures I did take were with my camera phone which doesn't take very quality pictures.

I mostly hung out with a fellow clerk from Winslow named Suzy. She's a lot of fun and we had a lot of laughs together and did some shopping which about wore us out. We did lots of walking from one place to another but that was good for us, right? One night we strolled down Market Street until we found Westfield Mall. What a fancy place. You can't even tell it's a mall from the outside. It just looks like another tall building in downtown San Francisco. But once we got inside, it was huge. I took this picture looking up inside the center part of the mall which is the Nordstrom store on the top 4 floors. The bottom three floors are other mall stores. But the excalator was cool because it went around and around this center structure. I don't know if you can tell much about it by looking but it was pretty neat.

The last night (Friday) we were in San Fran, we had tickets to go to the Giants game against the Dodgers. After the Yankees game we went to in NYC, I was a little apprehensive, but it turned out to be fun. This picture of me was before the game started and the wind was blowing pretty fiercely. Of course, we had just walked a long 8 blocks to the game so that didn't help my hair out. I should just delete this picture but it was the only one I got of me actually at the ball field, AT&T Park. My hair looks like a football helmet. haha oh well.

The next picture was overlooking the San Francisco Bay from the outfield wall of the stadium. The picture does not do it justice. It was beautiful.

After we walked all the way around the stadium before the game started, we were just getting ready to go up to our seats behind home plate. The Star Spangled Banner was being sung so we stood there and waited. Just about the second she finished, two F-16s flew over the top of the scoreboard which you can see in this next picture. I mean, RIGHT over the top of the scoreboard. It was SO loud and amazing to see and hear. If you looked away for half a second, you would miss the whole event. That's how fast they flew by. It was so cool. About the time they got right overhead, I grabbed one ear because it was so loud. I couldn't cover the other one because my hand was full of other things. haha I told Ryan about it and he said, "Great, you're already deaf enough." haha He's right though. But this picture was the view from our seats. We were up pretty high but the seats were great. I could see everthing from where we were.

On Saturday, before we caught our plane, we went on a tour of the city. It was fun and we saw lots of cool sites, most of which I posted pictures of last year. But this was a new stop. This was the entrance to the 1915 World's Fair. You can't tell much about it from the picture but there is a beautiful park there right next to it and beautiful homes just behind me from where I stood to take the picture. The guide told us that one of the homes on that street just sold for $4.5 million. They were pretty homes but definitely not that big. Just pricey.

Well, that's my trip in a nutshell. Well, except for one story I have to tell. ...

While we were at the game, I told Suzy I had to go find the restroom. So she sat and watched out things while I ventured down the stairs to the walkway where they have restrooms and sell all the food. Just as I walked down the ramp, I saw a restroom clearly marked "Mens" so I thought, "Good, the women's can't be that far away." So I walked just past the men's room and I saw a large doorway and figured, OK, this must be the women's room. So I walked in and after I was about two steps inside the door, I froze. I looked in and FOUND MYSELF IN THE MEN'S ROOM!!!! Can you believe it? haha Good thing they all had their backs to me. I kind of laughed to myself and was so embarrassed when I had to walk out of there because I knew people would see me, a woman, coming out of the men's room. The weird thing is, no one reacted to it. haha (It IS San Francisco, you know!) haha Anyway, I wasn't going to tell Suzy about it but I couldn't resist. We got such a kick out of it. She was laughing so hard she had tears. It was pretty funny.

Well, that's it for my San Francisco trip. We left Phoenix about 8:30 last night and was home by 11:30. Long day for us but it was lots of fun. Until next year....