This trip I stayed with a friend on Union Street and Steiner in the Marina district. I've only ever stayed in hotels closer to Union Square downtown so this was a new experience for me. Her two bedroom apartment is absolutely perfect and relatively spacious for San Francisco. My favorite part was definitely the shared rooftop.
Friday, October 8, 2010
I got in late on Friday and had to drop my suitcase and then head back out the door so that we would make it out for the night. We arrived at Kozy Kar on Polk Street at midnight (warning before heading to the website - it's a very "colorful" bar). The line looked long but we got in within five minutes. I highly recommend looking up the USC weekender game before visiting San Francisco in the fall if you have any hope of getting into places. The city is overrun with Trojans. The next few hours we enjoyed cheap beers as we were jostled from all sides by drunk college students. Oh to be young!
We finally bailed around 1:30am and ended up at the Tipsy Pig (a local favorite of my friend's). It was here that I was introduced to what would become my favorite mixed drink of all time (though this isn't saying much since I hate mixed drinks). I was so impressed that someone had finally created a drink that put me on the floor without me tasting a pinch of alcohol! AMAZING.
It is called a Strawberry Fields and it comes in a little jam jar with a straw. First they puree fresh strawberries and then squeeze fresh lime juice into the bottom of the jar. They add a little syrup and then fill the rest of the glass with soda and vodka. It's like candy. After taking down two of them, I was rudely interrupted by last call and the lights coming on. Alas, bars just don't stay open late enough.
Due to hunger, we were forced to join the massive line at Pizza Orgasmica at Greenwich and Fillmore. This particular location is tiny and just fits the people staying in line for pizza. It's only immensely drunk people at 2am so you have to watch out for people trying to cut in line. Once such "cutter," a slutty blonde tried the tactic of telling me she was just trying to meet up with her friends inside. I pointed out that it was very convenient that her friends were about to order. She said she'd already had pizza. Something about this didn't make sense to me so instead I just blocked the door. This made her very angry but it was clear she was not a boxer or trained Jiu Jitsu master so I wasn't very worried. Unfortunately, once I passed the door she snaked past the unobservant idiot behind me. Sigh. Luckily, I was able to snag the remaining piece of pepperoni which made the wait completely worth it.
We brought our pizza back to the apartment and then fell asleep amongst the greasy pizza boxes that remained.
Saturday, October 9, 2010
We woke up late and headed out for brunch at East Side West on Fillmore, one of the famous triangle bars. However, as far as I know, they are only famous for housing hundreds of drunken USC students during the Weekender. We sat outside on the street just in time to watch an idiot woman parallel park her car across the sidewalk from us. Apparently, it is completely fine to bash the car behind you repeatedly until you have securely parked your car near the curb. I was about to say something to her but then her massive six-foot boyfriend exited from the passenger side so I went back to sipping my mimosa and eating my delicious, messy pancakes.
After brunch, my friend gave me a short tour of the area around her house. We changed into our obnoxious USC gear and then headed to Republic at Scott and Lombard. We'd been to the bar a few years ago when my friend had started a fight by asking for extra cups that ended in two guys bloody, fist-fighting on the street. No wonder we were back right? We got there around 2:30pm to ensure we snagged a table for 20 people before the 5pm kick-off.
I ordered mac n' cheese which looked amazing and tasted like sawdust while I watch our team fight back all game only to lose by two points thanks to a Stanford field goal in the last minute of the game. I did enjoy the almost battle between my friend, Jeff, who is about 6'4" and some tiny little Stanford kid. That should show how annoying Stanford fans are when the MOST laidback person in our group was going to pummel this kid. If I was him I would've given the kid something to bitch about (good thing I'm a girl or I would cause SO much trouble).
Thanks to the nasty mac n' cheese, I needed grub after the game so we walked down the street to Plutos, where I had an amazing chicken sandwich with grilled onions on sourdough bread. If you are looking for mac n' cheese go here instead. We changed after dinner and then headed to the Tipsy Pig to meet up with the rest of our crew.
I can easily say that I fell in love with this dirty, douchebag-ridden bar almost immediately. The gay bartender was hot, the drinks are the most nonalcoholic-tasting-alcoholic-drinks ever and they have plenty of space to stand or sit. Unfortunately, half our group decided that they wanted to pass out earlier after a day of drinking so we were soon left with just four. I was trying to meet up with some other friends on Polk Street and finally got the name of the bar they were at. We walked out of the bar only for one of those friends to call and say they too were headed to bed. I turned around to stare at the massive line outside the Pig. ARE YOU F&$%ING JOKING?? I was pissed. We decided to cut our losses and eat burgers at Johnny Rockets next door while we decided what to do.
We ended up at City Tavern (another triangle bar) because it was close and there was no line. The reason there was no line, it turned out, was because everyone was already inside and thus it too us about one hour to get a drink. That's just wonderful because as soon as I'd paid for our beers the lights came on and we couldn't even enjoy them. Tonight was a FAIL.
Sunday, October 10, 2010
I woke up this morning determined to have a better day. Things started to look up after a nice breakfast at Unwind on Union St. near Laguna. I had the potato skins and a margherita pizza, both of which were good (not amazing). We stopped at my favorite store, Ambiance, on the way home where I scored an awesome leather jacket for cheap.
We spent the rest of the afternoon on my friend's rooftop watching the Blue Angels. Oh, yeah, I forgot to mention that this year the Weekender coincided with San Francisco Fleet Week when all sorts of military personnel flood the city. Thursday through Sunday the Air Force was doing aerial displays over the Marina. We had a PERFECT view from the roof and at one point a Blue Angel surprised us as it flew directly over our heads. It was exhilarating!! I haven't been to an airshow since I was a kid and I immediately regretted not taking my grandpa up on flying lessons in eighth grade. Oh the mistakes we make...
After the airshow, we had just enough time to grab cupcakes from Takes the Cake downstairs before heading to the airport for our flight. This weekend was definitely a mixture of good and bad. The drama I could've done without but it was nice to see what it feels like to be a resident of San Francisco (for those of you who read last week's New York blog you get where I'm going).
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