Monday morning and poor Suzy is not feeling great. Which really stinks because today is the day she finally meets her one client in San Francisco face-to-face for breakfast, Dave Kendrick the owner and founder of dogtrekker.com. Suzy has been doing work for him for the past 7 years and yet, up until now they have only met and talked via phone calls and emails. The plan was to meet at the hotel restaurant for coffee and breakfast. Angie and Suzy go downstairs to the Blue Mermaid restaurant and get a table, they were sitting around for a while and Suzy decided to text him and let him know. Guess what? He was already there, he had no idea what Suzy looked like and had walked right by her.
We all laughed about it and sat down. It was a nice breakfast, great conversation and we told him we really had no solid plans for the next two days. He gave us some great suggestions including going back to Golden Gate Park, he said, “If all you saw was the Tea Garden, there is so much more to do at the park.” The check came and he insisted on paying, which was so nice and gentlemanly of him, especially since Mom had breakfast too. We thanked him profusely and said our goodbyes. Suzy (I) was struggling not to look or sound too sick the whole time and after breakfast was over, told Angie that I really needed to go back to bad for a little bit. I wasn’t able to eat anything and my symptoms were getting worse.
After about a 2 hour siesta, I feel refreshed and get back into the spirit of touring San Fran! We called an Uber and decided to go to the amazing Mosaic Steps at 16th Avenue. We never would have heard about these steps if it wasn’t for Juanie, she found out about the steps and told us about them before we even got to San Francisco. We had put it on the list of things to see and unfortunately ran out of time to do it before Juanie left. They were beautiful and the story of them even more so, it was a community project donated by all the neighbors and over 300 people helped put them in. So colorful, a real work of art!
We called Uber again (WE LOVE UBER!) and got a ride over to Coit Tower, this was a suggestion by one of Mom’s friends on facebook who was following our posts. Coit tower was donated by Lillian Coit to help beautify the city of San Francisco, it’s Art Deco in design and stands 210 feet with murals on the main floor. Mom’s friend Sue Mackarness suggested we go there because her grandfather painted one of the murals! The view at the top was gorgeous, even on a gray day. Unfortunately, it was also very cold and rainy and the top was open, which really made my symptoms get bad again. I told Angie, “Sorry Mom but I really need to get inside.” We walked out and realized that we had accidentally gone up without paying…OOPS!
It was 4pm and we wanted to just go sit somewhere and maybe get some hot food. Mom really wanted to try a place that Dave had raved about called “La Mar” a Peruvian Seafood restaurant whose specialty was ceviche. We looked up the restaurant and it was not open until 5:30, so we found another restaurant close by, “Hilltop” which was open for happy hour. Mom ordered wine and I got some hot tea. They had fireplaces which was a nice surprise that helped me feel a little better. We ordered an appetizer, but I had ZERO appetite, surprising since I wasn’t able to eat anything at breakfast either. We talked and waited for 5:30 to come, I started to feel worse and worse. Finally at 5:15 we left and walked in the cold rain the 3 blocks over to “La Mar”. All the ceviches on the menu were super spicy and actually the thought of eating ceviche did not sound good to me at all. We got 2 appetizers, fried yuca and empanadas, I took a couple of bites and really could not taste much. Mom said it was delicious. Since the tower, I had been blowing my nose non-stop and felt like I had chills. It was time to get in bed.
We got an Uber and went straight back to the hotel. I took a hot shower and got into bed, it was 7:30pm. I felt terrible that this had happened the last 2 days, but I was a mess. We decided to order the movie “Bad Moms” and watched that before going to sleep, I prayed that tomorrow I would feel better. It would be our last day in San Francisco and I did not want Mom to spend it in the Hotel while I was sick in bed.