It’ a gorgeous day in San Francisco when Juanita and Angie land into the airport at 10:30am. They go down to baggage claim and wait for Suzy’s flight to come in. She gets there pretty quickly and the adventure begins! It’s our first time using Uber and our driver is a super sweet, his name is Abel and he reminds Mom of one the family’s chauffeurs in Cuenca who was also named Abel (crazy coincidence!). Our ride was quick and exciting, seeing the streets of San Francisco for the first time. While we are riding, I tell Mom about how I found the Grace Cathedral and they have Sunday Mass at 8:30am on Sunday, which prompts Abel to give us some religious pamphlets about being saved and the bible. It was a little awkward, but it was also very sweet, since he said he only gives them out to special people.
The Argonaut hotel is centrally located, on Fisherman’s Wharf and so nice! We are very pleased with it, but unfortunately our room was not ready. We leave our bags at the desk and head across the street to Capurro’s for a bite. La Sue handed out some presents, they were silver heart shaped locks with each couple’s name engraved on it to lock on the bridge! Everyone was super excited about doing this and they each came with a skeleton key with a heart shaped handle and a silver chain to keep as a remembrance of the trip. We walked along Fisherman’s Wharf and browsed the galleries, posed for pictures with wax statues of Al Capone and Mark Zuckerberg and saw the sea lions on Pier 39. They were surprisingly LOUD and hilarious to watch. We found a great little store of Russian nesting dolls, that was run by the cupiest little old Russian lady. Apparently there is a pretty big Russian population in San Francisco. We loved all the dolls but they were very pricey. Lots of cool things going on at the wharf!
When we got back to the hotel, our room was ready. After settling in, we rested a bit and took in the amazing view from our room. We got a free room upgrade with views of the Golden Gate Bridge, Ghirardelli Square and the turning of the cable cars just because Juanie told the really nice girl at the front desk it was Mom’s birthday and talked hotel Biz talk with her! We were also surprised with complimentary snacks with a cute little note on them and a bottle of red wine. Next to the snacks there were some bottles of water, La Sue grabbed one and ripped the little note on it and started to drink, she started to read the note out loud thinking it was another “enjoy these complimentary snacks” note. Unfortunately, it was quite the opposite. It was a note informing us that every bottle of water consumed would incur a $3.50 charge to the room…OOPS! After unpacking and establishing where the ice machine was (very important to La Sue), we decided to venture out again. We wanted to get a little something to eat and the concierge recommended the cool little corner place we saw on the way in called the Buena Vista Café where they claim to have invented Irish Coffee. The place was very old school…built in 1896 and had so much character. The food was surprisingly delicious, Suzy had the Crab Melt, fresh lump crab and sourdough english muffins baked that day from a local bakery. Juanie tried the Irish coffee (Strong!) and chocolate covered bacon, covered in Ghirardelli Chocolate… both sweet and salty. Mom tried it too, they both said it was very “unique”. There were some curious diners with Irish accents that leaned over and asked what Mom and Juanie were eating, Juanita told them and offered them a piece…they said the same thing…”unique”. La Sue said, “Uh…none for me, thanks.” We walked backed to the hotel and decided to make one last stop, Ben and Jerry’s next door! Mom loves her Ice Cream and she just couldn’t resist. After that we called it a night, we were pretty wiped out.