Tales of the Partial Froomies Trip to San Francisco, Intersession 2010 PART FOUR, and final

Wednesday, January 27th
Our fourth day was unlike all the others in that our agency was compromised. Just a bit, and sometimes in a good way.
See, back in the day, Roommate J had a friend she EMTed with. We'll call her Doctor E. Doctor E was just a med student back then, but now she's a resident at a super secret location in San Francisco. Roommate J got in touch with her and we decided we'd have dinner with her. Since she had a car, she would pick us up at seven at the De Young Museum and then take us to dinner and give us a ride back to the hotel afterward. This was the plan.
We decided that we would spend the morning wandering around Haight-Ashbury, the afternoon in Golden Gate Park, and the early evening in the De Young. The plan was perfect, foolproof.
And then we got off the bus. The Haight was emphatically not us, so I suggested headed straight to Golden Gate Park and finding somewhere to read (by now we were smart enough to bring our books). We walked out of the Haight, feeling a bit like my wannabe-hippie-but-sadly-too-wholesome mother. After traversing a corner of Golden Gate Park with more homeless men per square foot than they have under the trees in Santa Monica we found the main drag, and started following the signs to the "Japanese Tea Garden," praying for overpriced snacks. On our way there we encountered the Kew-like Conservatory of Flowers and the AIDS Memorial Grove. Finally we made our way to the Japanese Tea Garden, which had enough bonsai trees (mysteriously labeled "Asian Dwarf Trees"), raked pebbles, and koi to satisfy both the casual and the ardent Japanophile. So we were satisfied, especially when we found the tea shop, where I ordered a pastry in the shape of a fish, oozing chocolate from the inside. We ate there and then wandered around the garden, and then we wandered around the Botanical Garden down the road. And then we read a little and did more wandering. At this point we were sick of wandering and decided to walk over to the conveniently located De Young.
The thing is, at this point it was only 2:00.
Also, we hadn't been in touch with Doctor E for a couple days and wanted to do a final check. Roommate J went to reach for her phone and instead came up with a horror-struck expression. The phone with Doctor E's number was back at the hotel, charging merrily. My first reaction was to immediately get back on the bus and go back to the hotel to get the phone. Then I remembered something wonderful. Over the break, my family upgraded. I know, I know, how could a family so awesome be in need of any kind of upgrade? Relax. This was a phone upgrade. I now find myself in posession of a Blackberry. Cha-CHING! So we got on Facebook and, mercifully, Doctor E is one of those people who has their cell phone number up there for all the world to see. So while Roommate J beat herself up (nearly literally, so I didn't feel the need to add anything of my own), we waited for the page to load and got her number.
AND THEN. Roommate J called her. It turns out Doctor E had had her car broken into and she was dealing with paperwork and the mechanic and the DMV and might be running late. She would call us back, she said.
We went inside the De Young and I said something to the effect of, "We're going to get something to eat at the Café. I'm starving." This was not especially true (well, except for the fact that we WERE going to get something to eat or heads would roll) but I felt myself getting crabby, a sure sign that a de Plume is hungry and just doesn't know it yet, and wanted to nip it in the bud if we were going to be stuck in an art museum for hours.
Now, I have realized, in past years, that the art museum allergy of my childhood was just a reaction to being taken around art museums by my art historian mother. I actually like the things, but still, going through on an empty stomach was not a good idea.
On the way into the café we checked out the ticket prices and came across our latest stumbling block. Museum access was $35. Now, Roommate J, being from DC is used to free museums and I, being my father's daughter as well, was not about to pay $35 dollars for anything I was lukewarm about to begin with. We looked at each other and headed straight into the café, where we bought some sandwiches, played a few rounds of MASH, and debated over what to do next. Now it was 4:00.
We headed outside and drafted a phone call to Doctor E. Yes. We actually did this. Don't judge us. You can't just call up someone at the DMV with a list of demands; they're liable to kill you telepathically. Our suggestion was that we head back to Chinatown and she could meet us there later and we would take her out to dinner and pay for parking (or public transportation, if her car was still out of commission). Of course none of this was a problem when Roommate J actually called her, so we found the right bus (this took a while), made our first and last transfer, which involved a mad sprint across a busy street, and were back at the Hotel des Arts for much needed relaxation.
Relaxation involved watching THE MOST DISTURBING show ever about 4 year old beauty pagent contestants. It was on HGTV. Go figure.
(Also: OH THE GUILT, the State of the Union was on every other channel.)
Around 8:00 Doctor E called and announced that she would be picking us up in her parent's car with a friend to go see a band perform at a bar in the Mission district. This lined up with the spirit of adventure we were attempting to keep up throughout the four-ish days, so we said es, awesome, and went downstairs to wait for her by the Dragon Gate.
I give Doctor E credit for driving a Mercedes to the Mission on the same day her own car was broken into. The street where we parked was bustling, though, and Doctor E's friend, Doctor R, informed us that the Mission, at least this part, was hipster heaven. This explained the large amounts of plaid, Converse, and lens-less glasses we saw. The bar, which was called Amnesia (I know) where the band was playing was jammed--standing room only, in the doorway--and it was dark red and dark wood and the bartender was wearing a fedora. It was spectacular. The band was playing gypsy jazz, which involves an accordion, so I was happy. Doctors E and R got beer and Doctor E got Roommate J to share some of her Maredsous with her. When the band went on break we went to a burger joint a few doors down for a late-night burger. Let me give you a hint: if you are at all squeamish, and I'm not, don't eat dinner with three doctor-types. It's just not a good idea.
We headed back to the bar for the band's last few songs and Doctor E ordered an Anchor Steam, which is apparently only okay to drink on tap in San Francisco. She offered some to me and at first I turned it down but then I thought, sure, why not, so I took a sip.
Friends, I'm not saying I've become a beer fan, or that I would ever pick Anchor Steam over another beverage I already knew and liked, but I can safely say that I have found a beer I like, which is nice. I know I won't be disinherited now.
Doctor E drove us back and we thanked her and took showers before heading to bed.

Thursday, January 28th
Travel day! We arose, ate breakfast, and then hung out for a while before deciding we would be better off hanging out at the airport, so we packed up, checked out, and walked back down to the BART station. After getting on the right train, we sat back and had the shock of our lives: sunlight, streaming in the BART windows.
The airport was sunny too, and hot. It was weird. Our flight was only delayed by an hour which, when Newark is involved at all, was amazing.
Highlights from the flight:
-Playing film dub with the in-flight movie, the remake of Fame.
-Reading L.A. Confidential. I loved that movie. Now it doesn't even rank.
We arrived at Newark without incident and, of course, missed the train by a hair. Waiting for the next one wasn't too painful and we got on and found seats together with room for backpack and bag and Roommate J's suitcase. It was only then that we realized there was a man standing at the front of the compartment, preaching and holding a large drink from Jamba Juice. Corporate sponsorship? Oh well. On NJ Transit, even at 11:30, if you find a seat you keep it. Plus, after the past five days we were used to adventure and accidental discoveries, not to mention crazy people. We settled in.

THE END

Tales of the Partial Froomies Trip to San Francisco, Intersession 2010 PART THREE

Tuesday, January 26th
Hotel breakfast on
a rainy morning. Bagel:
dry. Cream cheese: succulent.
Yes. This was the case, as we began our third morning at the Hotel des Arts. We cuffed our pants and grabbed our umbrellas and maps (routine by now) and headed out. We had a route planned. First, we would go to the Transamerica Pyramid, then Coit Tower, and finally City Lights Bookstore before relaxing and then going to dinner at The Boulevard, recommended by Subcontinent and her parents. (The beauty of doing the majority of the planning for a trip is that you can go the places you want and the person with you just has to tag along.)
Right off the bat, the Transamerica Pyramid was a bust. It turns out it's only fun to look at from afar and the entire thing is private office buildings. Still, we accidentally (this seemed to be the theme of this trip*) stumbled upon the redwood grove in the back, and had fun exploring it and making fun of the creepy statues of children and frogs hiding between the trees.
From there we walked up to Coit Tower. Perhaps I should say hiked. As the bird flies, it is quite close, but we hadn't counted on the hills. Not that this was a problem. Some of the best moments of the trip were the times we found ourselves in residential areas, looking at houses, wondering about real estate. It is possible we could have picked a better time to visit Coit Tower. This was the rainiest morning we had had so far and the view, when we finally did get to the top and paid the fee to ride the vintage elevator manned by a friendly Chinese man, was limited, but (maybe because of my more peaty ancestors) I tend to like misty views and San Francisco was no different.
Downstairs we checked out the murals and used the facilities (classic de Plume planning) before walking back out and down to City Lights.
Now, the first time I visited San Francisco was to visit Berkeley and Stanford the spring break of my junior year of high school. My parents, being awesome, took me to City Lights. At the time, I found the neighborhood around the bookstore kind of grungy and not that safe.
Well, apparently I have either, oh, I don't know, become less stupid (or maybe just seen more) since then, but I was shocked when we finally popped out of Little Italy onto Broadway to find a bustling, nicely proportioned neighborhood. We live and we learn, I guess.
There's not much to say about wandering around a bookstore, which is fine. I'm a bookworm and Roommate J is obsessive, so we were in there for quite some time before we realized we were hungry. Our options were something Italian or something Chinese and since at this point we were all for experiencing new things we turned around and ventured back into Little Italy, where we carried our accidental discovery mode forward by accidentally discovering Café Trieste, walking in, and ordering focaccia sandwiches. Café Trieste is quite famous, and was the first stop espresso made on the West Coast. I knew the name rang a bell.
Lunch was followed by wandering around Chinatown (and discovering suspiciously and inappropriately named incense sticks--ask me somewhere else what it was if you want to know), and walking over to Yerba Buena gardens in the financial district. There was a nice Martin Luther King Jr. memorial there, which did very effective things with water running over a cliff.
We went back to the hotel early and relaxed for a while before primping and going down to Market Street to catch the F to The Boulevard. The Boulevard has a view of the bay bridge and great food. It was hopping, especially for a Tuesday night in January, but Roommate J and I had made a reservation and got a great table, again by the window. I got a Cosmo (the best, of three, so far), filet mignon, and chocolat brulée. Roommate J got similarly delicious dinner and desert and a never-ending well of Austrian soda.
After dinner we walked back to the Hotel des Arts. It was like leaving restaurants in Paris, and that good, well-fed feeling you get that feels even better after walking through the night, people-watching all the way.

to be continued...




*And maybe my life. The first time I visited New York by myself I accidentally found Bryant Park and the Rockefeller Center Christmas tree.

Tales of the Partial Froomies Trip to San Francisco, Intersession 2010 PART TWO

Monday, January 25th
Our first stop on day two was the Ferry Building Market, where we purchased the best chocolate donuts ever to roam this fair land before getting drinks and sitting on a bench where we could watch the commuters arrive. Commuting into a city by ferry was quite the foreign concept to both of us, so we tried to guess the socioeconomic makeup of the people getting off the ferry. They were quite different from the BART crowd on the morning we left. I'll let you draw your own conclusions.
After breakfast, I dragged Roommate J to Grace Cathedral, which figured prominently in More Tales of the City (one of the books I wrote my fall junior independent work on). Inside, we walked the labyrinth on the church floor, checked out the paintings depicting the history of Christianity in California (some were disturbing, some were strangely touching, some featured monks with tonsures which prompted Roommate J to ask, "When did they abolish that haircut?"). Outside, we walked around the surrounding blocks, found a film crew filming a movie called The Year After (starring...we have no idea), ACCIDENTALLY stumbled upon the Pacific Union Club where I squealed over it and scared one of the security guards, ACCIDENTALLY found the apartment building from Vertigo, and, on the way back to Market Street, ACCIDENTALLY walked past Wilkes Bashford (site of many of Beauchamp Day's run-up bills in Tales of the City).
All this was very exciting, but we were starting to get hungry. Instead of getting lunch in one of the overpriced but yummy-looking financial district restaurants, we hopped the historic F streetcar to the Castro (home of the figuratively least-straight street in America). After taking covert tourist photos (in the touristy areas we snapped away with abandon, but in neighborhoods we always felt awkward), we decided to finally get lunch. Roommate J saw a sushi restaurant and we walked over but for the prices listed, I protested, we would go elsewhere and get something we would both enjoy. Next door was advertising lamb-burgers and--most importantly--had available seating in the window, so we went inside and commandeered the window seats even though the waiter tried to steer us to the back ("Lots of people say it's too cold by the window." Heh. Sure. If that's what you call cold). I let Roommate J sit facing the street and I sat with my back to the window facing the back of the restaurant. After a little time had passed, I started to look around. We were the only women there, and almost the only people at all. The only other occupied tables belonged to a couple behind Roommate J, a guy sitting by himself in the other window seat, and a group of four men at the back.
One of those guys at the back looked strangely familiar, and I sat there for a while before (AND THIS IS COMPLETELY AND CRAZILY TRUE) I recognized Armistead Maupin, author of the Tales of the City series (aka my entire reason for picking San Francisco, aka the books on which I had just written a monster independent paper), sitting in the back with his husband and two other guys.
After having a mini (and, as ever, very covert) seizure, I told Roommate J what was going on. Despite all her efforts, I chickened out and remained in my seat and ate my lamb-burger like the star struck English major I was. It would have been nice to have said something to him, but I probably would have stood there and babbled or peed or burst into tears, so I don't have any major regrets. Instead I have the memory of an insane coincidence and the perfect wrap-up to my semester.
After paying and walking around a bit more, we hopped on the F car again and rode down to Pier 33. Next on the agenda: a night tour of Alcatraz. This was the first thing we planned when we were in the embryonic stages of planning the trip via e-mails sent between Paris and Bethesda this summer, so actually showing up at the boat, tickets in hand, was a reminder that the trip was not only successful but so far amazing.
It was also raining. Pretty hard, at this point. This was no deterrent however, and we braved the high seas and arrived on the island amidst a swarm of tourists (our people!) to meet our incredibly good looking tour guide, who explained that the bad weather would make our visit even more accurate thematic. He was completely right. What would have been an okay tour by day was a great tour by night with the wind whistling in the prison. A rather long audio tour was followed by a cell door demonstration that left me both excited and apprehensive about the coming summer's decision to volunteer tutor in a men's prison (more on that in a future post).
We learned about Creepy Karpis and Birdman, the Dummy Head ploy, escape via spoon digging, and how to rob a bank. Very productive. The ride back was uneventful, save our determination that Roommate J's memoir will be entitled Holding Things Without Handles: A Smushed Cheese Danish of a Tale.
Back at the hotel we watched Forrest Gump and fell asleep. Lieutenant Dan is still cool, and Tom Hanks is still the most personable actor I've ever seen.

Tales of the Partial Froomies Trip to San Francisco, Intersession 2010 PART ONE

Saturday, January 23rd
After a victorious night in New York with Dad and his team, a late-night viewing of A Single Man (which gets better the more I think about it), and a morning run to Amy's Bread for the requisite chocolate coma, I got on the train at Penn Station to meet up with Roommate J at Newark. It turns on she was on the Air Tram right before mine so she only had to wait about two minutes before I showed up and we jet-setting-ly made our stately way through security.
My Midwestern tendencies and Roommate J's inexperience flying by herself combined to get us there a good hour and a half before we actually had to be but (shockingly, for Newark) the flight was not delayed and we got on our way around 4:40.
Once on the plane, I dialed up my hipster quotient (usually kept around the level of my Converse shoes) and put on my newly purchased purple fingerless gloves and cracked the spine on Big Sur by *gasp!* Jack Kerouac. This was the first Kerouac I'd ever read and I bought it in the 5th Avenue Barnes & Noble on a whim since it seemed appropriately Bay Area for the ride there (for the trip itself and the ride back I brought LA Confidential--close enough). What I certainly didn't expect was to like it as much as I did. Reading it in one sitting certainly helped, especially when it came to Kerouac's stream of consciousness. For whatever reason, I was completely hooked and barely noticed the length of the flight. I finished and we landed about twenty minutes later.
When it came to navigation during the trip, I was indisputably the Boss Lady, but Roommate J whipped out her DC Metro savvy to unconcernedly buy our BART tickets at the airport from intimidating-looking automated kiosks. I'm more used to the Paris metro, where you get to yell through bulletproof glass at a worker until they understand you well enough to overcharge you on a carnet. This was not like that.
The BART ride was uneventful, and the directions from Montgomery Street I had printed out were so accurate that we found our hotel in five minutes after arriving. We stayed at the Hotel des Arts, which straddled the line between Chinatown and the Financial District (it was equidistant between the Dragon Gate and a Hermès store).
After checking in to our crazily painted and extremely European (read: functional and clean but not much else) room (with the added American bonus of a flat-screen TV), Roommate J and I decided to venture into Chinatown to find dinner. By this point it was 9:00 at night so what we were after would best be described as cheap and quick takeout that we could eat at the hotel before showering and sleeping. Surprisingly for a Saturday night, most of Chinatown seemed to have shut down (we figured out later that we just didn't walk far enough down Grant and instead turned off a little too soon) so we decided to go into a promising looking sushi restaurant and find out whether they did takeout.
This is what followed:
We walk in, see a hostess, and Roommate J asks her, "Do you do takeout?"
"Yes," replies the hostess, and indicates that we should follow her.
We follow her.
She hands us menus and sits us down at a table. Oh, that's nice, we think, she's letting us sit while we look at the menu.
Then she brings us glasses of water.
Oh, that's nice, we think, she's giving us water to drink while we decide.
Then a guy brings out miso soup.
At this point we stop being so stupid, take our coats off, and embrace the inevitable.
We wound up splitting raw octopus. This was a first for me, but combined with the miso soup and the bed of cucumbers it came with I was actually pretty happy with the meal. I paid (Nom de "Always Has Cash With Her" Plume, that's what old Jack Warner used to call me), and we headed back to the hotel for sleep.

Sunday, January 24th

"[Mary Ann] came to the city alone for an eight day vacation. On the fifth night, she drank three Irish coffees at the Buena Vista, realized that her Mood Ring was blue, and decided to phone her mother in Cleveland." --Armistead Maupin, Tales of the City.
Although we didn't decide to stay in San Francisco forever after five days, although were were onyl there for four days, although we don't drink Irish coffee, and although neither of us had a mood ring (yet) or mothers in Cleveland to call, we did indeed see the Buena Vista. This occurred by accident on our tour of Fisherman's Wharf on the first morning. We took the Powell & Hyde cable car from its origin to its final destination and walked up and down. Since it was so early on Sunday morning most things were closed, but this was probably a good thing since it allowed us to avoid kitschy tourist traps and instead take pictures of the cloudy and very calm bay. Our discovery of the Buena Vista occurred after our stop at Ghirardelli, where Roommate J got "decadent drinking chocolate," which came with a biscotti since it was apparently too much of a big deal by itself. I went with the "classic hot chocolate," which was still less expensive and more tasty than its Starbucks counterpart.
That was a good mid-morning snack, but the real event of the day was a stop at the Marina Safeway (aka the Social Safeway, or Dateway) which was in the 70s and apparently still is less a supermarket than it is an excuse for straight people to hit on other straight people. This was the only thing I wanted for sure to see/do while in San Fransisco after reading about it in Tales of the City and Roommate J went along as moral support. We decided to split up and rendez-vous in ten minutes. We also came armed with a legitimate purpose to be there: namely, the purchase of a picnic lunch.
I got my lunch supplies and, disappointed by the amount of actual shopping going on, made my way to the card aisle. I figured if there was one place to casually comment on a product it's by the greeting cards. Sure enough, after I had been there for about a minute or two, a young-ish guy sidled over and started looking at the cards right next to me. After a while he turned to me and said, sighingly, "It's really discouraging...how immature...so many of these cards are." I agreed, he aimed another soulful look at me, and then he scampered off.
This was pretty much perfect, so I ran off to pay for my stuff and meet up with Roommate J and leave. I'm not sure if Dateway is the right name, though, more like BriefEyeContact-LookAWay.
After leaving the Safeway, we walked to the Palace of Fine Arts and had the picnic on a bench by the pond. There were swans, and little families walking around, and Japanese and Chinese school girls, and French and German people. Basically it was the most eavesdrop-able corner of the world ever. It started to rain right after we decided to head over to the Golden Gate Bridge, but the lady at the Exploratorium have us perfect directions to where the bus stopped and we sheltered there for about five minutes until it arrived. For the most part, throughout the entire trip buses ran on time, trains showed up when we wanted them, cable cars came clanging around the corner as if summoned telepathically. It was great.
Walking across the bridge in the rain was a little nervewracking, but beautiful. The last time I was there is was sunny and a little chilly, so it was nice to get another view of the city. Roommate J stayed as far away from the rail as she could, except for when we stopped to take artful photos. Once we had gone about halfway across, we turned back and again the bus was waiting for us. We took it to the foot of Russian Hill and walked up a pretty impressive stairwell, stopping halfway to sit and eat the rest of our lunch. At this point we were feeling pretty footsore so we decided to walk up to the top, see Lombard Street, then take the cable car back to Market and see a movie.
Lombard Street, the least straight street in America (literally, not figuratively--that was for the following day), is quite a sight on any day, but especially so in the rain. And there was even one brave soul running down. We walked from the top to the bottom and back up and I found several future homes.
The movie we ended up seeing was Sherlock Holmes, which I had...seen before. A couple times. Still, loving everything and anything Dr. Watson related as I do, I was happy to see it again, and even picked up on more jokes and the audience in the theater there in the Westfield Mall was the best so far.
We went back to the hotel and dropped our things before heading out to dinner. This time we walked far enough in to Chinatown to find a good place. It was off the street, up some stairs so we couldn't see in advance what we were getting in to. It was all in the spirit of adventure, though, so Roommate J and I made the climb assuming there was something good waiting for us.
And there was. The room upstairs reminded me of a French ballroom fallen on hard times. There were chandeliers and white walls and French door-like windows giving out on the street below. The tables had red tablecloths and we were two of about six customers in the entire place. It was like something out of the Tinker, Tailor, Solider, Spy miniseries: one of those restaurants where George Smiley has awkward dinners with old friends, except the food was delicious and we were full of conversation after our long and awesome day.

to be continued...