6 Miles of Surprises or Where is Chewbacca?

I’m continuing the tradition of super long walks across San Francisco and have been discovering the bold and the beautiful things along the way.

I started my walk in SOMA,  navigating between homeless people and tourists  and right about Chinatown I stumbled upon two young women who were jumping around an intersection with “Honk if you want to save the baby seals” signs. On these signs they drew baby seals in different bright colors. All I could think about was with that with all the troubles in the world how did they end up choosing this one? and what was the logic behind determining that doing what they were doing was useful?  Oh, well. Not all brains are born equal.

Then I went off to find the famous Caffe Trieste, where apparently Francis Ford Coppola wrote the Godfather. I haven’t even seen the movie (shame on me) but I like to give myself destination to discover. The discovery was not so impressive but now I can say that I had been there.

Arriving in Little Italy

Wall art in Chinatown

a hidden graffiti at the side of an old school pharmacy

The coffee shop where Francis Ford Coppola wrote most of his screenplay for the Godfather

The street corner at Caffe Trieste

Funky stuff on Grant Ave

I continued up the hill to Coit Tower, another destination on my todo list. The views on  way up were simply breathtaking. I was too cheap to pay the $7 fee to take the elevator up but did take pictures of the frescos inside, which reminded me a lot of Ayn Rand for some reason.

One of the most beautiful views of San Francisco

More views climbing up to Coit Tower

More views climbing up to Coit Tower

Coit tower

I got a super secret lead from a colleague about the Greenwich steps. This was a secret passage to the left of the tower, going through something that felt like a tropical jungle in the middle of the city. I saw numerous beautiful flowers, butterflies, humming birds and even a blue parrot. I guess it was not so secret because I bumped into many huffing and puffing tourists that were going UP the stairs. Suckers.

Begging to descend

Found some bees!

After descending to the pavement I headed over to the marina district and on the way ran into Darth Vader and Chewbacca (Star Wars is another movie I haven’t seen, by the way) who were having a huge fight with the silver statue man (you know, those guys that paint themselves and sit without moving?) Everyone was having a great time taking pictures of the fight. Until the cops started zooming in..

After what seemed like a very long walk on the equivalent of New York’s horrible time square, San Francisco style, I escaped the dreadful crowds and cheesy tourists traps when I arrived at the Aquatic Park / Fort Mason.  Right about the time I stopped feeling my arms from the cold, I finally decided to head home. I then hopped into my new favorite mode of transportation and spent the $7 I saved at Coit to pay for my Uber ride.

A regatta in the distance

View of the Coit Tower from the sea

Alcatraz in the distance

A random one

Statue of congressman xyz

Fort Mason Great Meadow

Fort Mason Great Meadow

Sausalito is not a name of a Mexican spicy sauce

This weekend I took the ferry boat to Sausalito (only $5  with the Clipper card!) and 30 minutes later I found myself at a little piece of heaven. It used to be an artist colony but now it’s a kind of a yuppies-who-sell-artsy-stuff-to-tourists, type of colony. As always, I started walking in the wrong direction and ended up discovering many interesting things.  I also discovered my dream house for retirement (hopefully, by next year), well actually maybe 10 of them.  This place is so damn cute.

En route to Sausalito

The welcoming committee

The Inn Above Tide

I was told this place is very good. To do for next time

Scoma’s More pretty places

Local fashion

Someone is watching you

This is not a drawing

Sausalito’s favelas

Scoma’s

Scoma’s

Downtown Sausalito

Did you know that Sausalito is sister city of Vina del Mar in Chile?

This can be a scene from which movie

Sausalito marina

This can also be a scene from a movie too…

These looked like they were florescenet

Downtown Sausalito

I really should have had this conversation

Stalking people

View of San Francisco

Later, I googled “cool things to do in Sausalito” and found out that I have been doing the right main thing: roaming around. I ended up walking 2- 3 miles until I reached Fred’s Place, where food took ages to be served and the waiters were extremely concerned with offering you coffee every 2 mins. When I finally got my Eggs Benedict, the couple in front of me, was screaming at the waiters to take away their coffee cups and stop asking them about refills. The food was quite good so I’d recommend the place. Especially if you like coffee refills.

My brunch at Fred

Fred’s Place

Afterwards, I took the less scenic route and visited art galleries and quirky shops. My current read, a Whole New Mind by Daniel Pink, recommends eavesdropping people as a tool to improve one’s empathy (he claims that even Scott Fitzgerald used to have a notebook to take down all the conversation he had been eavesdropping on). I tried to do the same, but then I overheard a man telling a client that his testosterone levels are low and then saw another looking at phallic pictures on his mobile phone. This was too much information so I am quitting on eavesdropping.

I want!

Rent a bike with Pooh?

What has brought me to San Francisco?

On my flight to San Francisco, I was reading Isabel Allende’s novel, Daughter of Fortune. It started in Valparaiso, Chile and finished in San Francisco, at the time it was starting to form during the California gold rush days. I didn’t know what the book was about when I started reading it so the coincidence was a strange,  but not entirely uncommon. Funny how these things happen.

The gold is long gone but I did come to the Golden Gate city in search of an adventure.

It all started when one day I got an SMS (apparently people still use this outdated technology) from a Business School mate:” Stuck in Dallas due to snow storm, thinking of coming to Austin and flying from there, are you around?”. Luckily, I was indeed in Austin and of course, I invited him to stay with us, looking forward to catching up. We were just moving to a new house, so it was great to recruit an extra body to help us carry everything. Plus, I was kind of curious to learn more about the Russia – Ukraine conflict (NPR is kind of useless on this topic) from someone who had many contacts in the region.

Well, one thing led to another, and once I found out about some of the challenges my mate’s San Francisco-based tech start-up was working on, I couldn’t let go of my fixer-upper nature and offered my help with solving them. We talked this through in the following weeks and Voila! It was decided that I will relocate for a couple of months to help on some projects.

Some of the other deep considerations that went into this decision:

1. I couldn’t do yoga anymore due to some orthopedic issues with my neck, so I had now much more free time on my schedule

2. My next trip was not planned at least until May

3. I never lived in San Francisco but on my visits there it seemed that it had way cooler coffee shops than Austin so I really wanted to explore all of them

4. I figured that San Francisco will be kind of a nice weather place to be in. I now know that cold is relative and my tolerance quickly adjusts to feel cold anywhere where it’s not extremely hot.  I am really not sure why I thought that my San Francisco wardrobe should consist of light summer dresses. Maybe I was thinking about LA? Mom – please bring sweaters and boots when you visit.

5. I wanted to catch up with my bay area peeps because I never get to see them unless we bump into each other in class reunions or breakfasts in Rio de Janeiro (you know who you are).

6. I wanted a break from driving. Whatever you say San Franciscans, complicated public transportation is better than no public transportation!

7. Fake consideration to be used in professional settings with people I am trying to impress with my super powerful business woman persona: Having worked in more traditional industries, I wanted to benefit from the Bay area’s abundant innovative/hi-tech resources plus the lean start-up operational experience in order to apply those lessons in my future endeavors.

First days in San Francisco

My first day of exploration of San Francisco was full of adventures. I picked up UberPool (shared ride service, $7 anywhere in San Francisco) for the first time ever and ended up riding it with a fashion professor from New York, who informed me that the upcoming trends to NOT look forward to are stylized pijama wear (i.e. wear your pijama to work) and gothic style (black from top down, metal, bondage). I shall be preparing my wardrobe for the next season..

We both went to visit an incredible exhibition called High Style at the Legion of Honor Museum by the Golden Gate. It featured costumes that inspired designers in the past 100 years or so. It was truly special and I even managed to save $25 by just showing my Bank of America card (totally unplanned pricing and even more unplanned savings).

Entrance to the Legion of Honor Museum

View from the museum

I lay on the grass for like half an hour, just enjoying the beautiful day

High Style Exhibition of Costumes from the 19th and 20th century

These “most expensive shoes in the world”, sold by french designer Pietro Yantorny designer for US$600 back in 1908, which is equivalent to $10k of today. One of the most loyal customers, had 100 pairs.

Shoes with a special touch

Art inspired hats

The glamorous 20s

Butterfly patterns inspired by the surrealism movement

The original little black dress by Coco Channel

A dramatic look

Post WWII elegance

I really wish I had one of those for my animal print collection

The happy 80’s

Dresses from the post WWII era

Structured dress by Charles James

The not-so-little red dress designed for Charles James’ “bigger-boned” client

After the exhibition I decided to roam around the bay, discovering one amazing view after another. I stopped for lunch at the Cliff House, which was a very nice place with gorgeous views of the ocean and finished my trip at the Golden Gate park, which was much more of a forest than a park. I think I am going to really like this city.

On the way back in my UberPool, I rode with a student from Monterrey, Mexico who told me that lately the government has been cracking down on drug cartels so instead of ganging on each other, they started to kidnap innocent people in order to make up for the lost revenues. #fail. The things you learn using shared cars..

The Golden Gate

Point Lobos

Sutro Baths at Point Lobos

Little lemmings over the Sutro baths

Lunch time at Cliff House!

Inside of the restaurant

Ocean Beach

Ocean Beach

Ocean beach

At the Golden Gate Park

At the Golden Gate Park