Waking up cold always gets me off. San Francisco in late December has got me really getting off. So at the break of day, I bundle up and head off into the windy December dawn. About a block from the flat is a great little spot for morning necessities called Café Petra. An island in a sea of cold, café petra has more than enough comfortable seating, and for the coffee carrier in all of us, they dont put you in the poor when you buy a cup of coffee. Three dollars for a large coffee and hot chocolate doesn’t make me feel as though I was just gang raped like most coffee joints do. theyre at 438 N. Guerrero in S.F. and at www.cafepetra.biz

So from there it was back to 16^th and mission to hop on my new favorite method of transportation, the B.A.R.T. this station looks much more friendly in the morning than the crackhead hot bed that I walked into the night before. Within ten minutes we were popping our heads up on market street where the first thing you see as you reach the stairs is the building that was previously the Bank of Italy building now being occupied by forever 21. its bad enough they

did this, but is it really necessary to paste six foot tall letters across the building advertising that the city actually let this happen.

After some high speed elevator riding at the St. Francis Hotel, it was off to China town for a stroll through the world of three for ten dollar tee shirts and Chinese bell balls. I love Asian culture, from Japan to Korea, but

China town does absolutely nothing for me. Coming into little Italy my guide became completely disorientated, as I must have, because she actually convinced me to eat at a “chain place that I think is pretty good” instead of one of the dozen places that actually looked good. pasta pomodoro looked about as good as the food tasted. As the non-IItalian brought me what she repeatedly reminded me was complimentary focacia. The food was mediocre as well as the service. I recommend that when you're in Little Italy, that you bypass pasta pomodoro and soak in some real ambiance in an area that is overflowing with it. but if you just dont care theyre at www.pastapomodro.com

The wind slowed for a bit as we headed down the hill to the wharf area and as I was reminded…by a different breed of tourist than i. there are two ways of traveling as far as I can tell. You can either blend in and see the areas people and places from a locals perspective, or stick out like a sore thumb. Fishermans wharf is full of the latter. So everything that you find in this area is geared towards the everyday sore thumb tourist, but we did manage to find the Musee Mecanique. This place was previously located in The Cliff House but has now become a centrally located experience in the “sore thumb” mecca. Once I was done finding out that I was a “cold fish” and “jealous” according to some old 1930’s love measuring machine, I took in some 1920’s peep show movies that I had to crank to watch. It was mid-day and this was my high point of san Francisco today, I was finally getting anxious to get to

Vancouver.

I was able to pry my kids hands off a crank it yourself horserace at the museum and get us headed towards the golden gate bridge. My host convinced us that it would be too windy on the bridge and it was probably best to just look at it from where we were. We were pressed for time as it was so we just looked at it. The next highlight of my day was a guy who hid behind two pieces of bushes that he gets and then scares people when they walk by. My host actually testified on this guys behalf to explain that he was a San Franciscan icon. Im convinced he is.

Instead of going to the bridge, we headed up towards the cable cars and saw that the line was ridiculous. So we bypassed the line for a while to head over to ghiradelli square to watch the chocolate that I kind of like a little be made. I was told by a girl too young to be fat that there was no chocolate factory here and that there had not been in 40 years. So I paid the nine dollars for the sundae my kid had to have and decided the cable car line looked a lot more fun than ghiradelli square. But if

youre a chocolate maniac like so many are, the chocolate sundae was actually quite good, look them up online at www.ghiradelli.com or stop by the square at 900 North Point, there number is (415) 474-1414.

The cable cars of San Francisco, no matter how obvious are a real treat. If I lived here, this would be my preferred method of transportation for short inner city jumps. The bell, the cable clanking, Down syndrome jock screaming something about UCLA off the car, it was all beautiful. So we made it to union square and down to H and M only to find that those maniacs had sold out of the long johns I needed so badly. So it was over to FCUK to see if my girly friend was at work. She was on break, but there was someone even better there. As I looked around at some halfway decent clothing, a bum came in and matter of factly yelled “you spelled fuck wrong you idiots”

As we made our way back to the mission district to our flat, we stopped in at my hosts local market, D and K Market to be exact. She warned me about the clerk Danny, and that he can be kind of harsh. Within thirty seconds mister positive asked my host “what wrong you hair”? I loved him, he was the best, I made it a point to have to buy all my champagne from Danny that night so I could come back and get into it with him. So for the third bottle I went back with just my son and I. he told me that my daughter was too young to drink, and I told him that hes a he, and that he has long hair “like a Samurai” I said. “im Korean” he told me and that’s all it took for two people to make a new friend.

Seven bottles of champagne sets the tone for the next days craziness………..