City on the bay

 Sitting in the office at 8:45 p.m. on a Friday isn't my ideal way to spend the evening, but seeing that I was waiting for Jonathan's delayed flight to arrive in SFO, I really didn't have anything to rush off for.  After taxing to Union square, plopping my stuff down in our hotel room, and venturing out to purchase a rather dry piece of pizza, I boarded BART at Powell station, destine for SFO.  I'd been working in the San Francisco office since Thursday and Jonathan was flying out from Phoenix to enjoy a fun filled break from the Phoenix heat in the lovely city of San Francisco.

The buildings to the left are
Embarcadero Center(s). The 3rd
from the first in the line is
Embarcadero 3 where the office is
located. 

By the time we started our walk toward the Embarcadero on Saturday morning the fog had already burned off, allowing the sun to shine unencumbered.  I was surprised at how early the fog had dissipated, but had no complaints about the beautiful blue skies and the moist, refreshing bay air. We admired and tasted our way through the market, starting with some chocolate covered coffee-toffee, fresh peaches, gluten free falafel with artichoke dip and finishing with a perfectly fluffy BBQ pork sticky bun.  Oh how I miss the awesome Asian cuisine of the bay area.


                                                                                                   

Bellies and wallets content, having avoided any impulse purchases, we walked from the market to a nearby gallery/vintage poster shop in the hopes of finding WWII propaganda art.  The last time we'd visited the city and toured this shop we agreed that upon our next visit we'd actually purchase something.  Unfortunately, despite our best efforts, nothing quite met our needs.  We found an interesting victory garden poster, an amazing Soviet couldn't-read-a-word-retro-style piece for more than we could stomach, and an interesting Japanese tourism poster, but again, nothing that fit the bill.  From there we walked through China town, meandered through some stores, then headed for lunch at Red's java house.  Per vacation requirements and to re-hydrate, we stopped at a microbrewery named "21st Amendment" on the way and enjoyed a beverage.  Red's java house is apparently a classic in the area and per Anthony Bourdain, a stellar burger joint and a San Fran 'must visit'.  The burgers were simple and served on tasty sourdough bread, with the "all included" condiments consisting of mustard, onions and pickles.  Not mind blowing, but sitting outside on a a peer enjoying a burger aint half bad.

We spent the remainder of the day shopping, before heading to the Haight Ashbury district to try out a gastropub named Magnolia.  We had high hopes, but apparently got off on the wrong foot when Jonathan called to find out the average wait time on a Saturday night, seeing that they didn't take reservations, and was told in a condescending hippy voice (yes, they exist) that it wouldn't be bad because "everybody is at burning man".

Upon arriving we were offered a tiny table that almost plugged the narrow hallway between the kitchen, the bar and the service station.  The petite hostess' look of disgust and annoyance when we asked to wait for another table was spit-on-the-floor worthy.  About 10 minutes later a much better table freed up and we were seated. In true 'time out' fashion, we had a solid 15 minutes to read, re-read, and re-read again, the menu before someone came over and simply asked "are you ready?"  I smiled, and said "For drinks", but the humor was lost.  I asked if I could try a wine, and about 3 seconds after she set it down, before I could spit out my gum she asked if I liked it.  I was still in the process of hurriedly wrapping up my gum by the time she'd walked away.  I was clearly going to be the slow decline of this establishment.

Eventually we ordered a beverage or two, ate our dinner and were rushed out the door.  Food was good, beer was on the less than desired adventure side, but the drama of the situation made it memorable. Somehow we managed to get the urban-hipster-beer aficionado-yuppie-nice-people mix wrong and just didn't fit in.  We tried one bar in the same area, which catered to an older crowd, then headed closer to our hotel and managed to find a bar/restaurant that made old fashions with bourbon and campari (un-drinkable) and left us without service for so long I was 30 seconds from dine and dashing.  Oh travel adventures, how I heart thee.

My peaceful slumber was disturbed right around 3:20ish a.m. with the gentle rocking that was apparently the largest earthquake to affect the bay area since the '89 Loma Prieta.  Right when the quake started, Jonathan rolled over and patted me, suggesting that I stop shaking the bed and go back to sleep.  This whole, causing too much rocking, is an interesting common theme for me because when the Loma Prieta hit, my mom and I were in a jeep, and she paused while writing her check to tell me to stop shaking the car. As I sat in bed, ridding out about 12 or so seconds of the quake, I thought: should I wake Jonathan since this is his first earthquake? Nah.  Should we get up and get the hell out of the room?  Nah, not quiet yet.  Even as the adrenaline built I maintained my spot on the bed, having to fight the urge to run for the doorway, since the last time my years of earthquake safety lessons kicked in, my parents heckled me when I bolted for the doorway during a minor tremor. Eventually the earthquake stopped and the silence of the early morning, void of excessive sirens, breaking glass or booms of structural collapse signaled I was good to fall back asleep.

In hindsight, I found my 3 a.m. logic strangely entertaining.  In all honesty, what was going to be "my sign"to get up, get dressed and get out.  Later that mornig while waiting for coffee at a swanky coffee shop somewhere in Nob Hill, I listened to a woman who recounted her experience of waking up, grabbing the dog and getting out of her building.  That's when it occurred to my how odd it was that simply sat there silently pondering my way through what could have been 'the big one'.  Meh, just another day.












From the swanky coffee shop we hopped in an UberX car and made our way to the Mission district to check out some graffiti art, and wander the day away before our late afternoon flight.  The entrance of the art alley was located in a very Hispanic neighborhood full of markets, pedestrians and bull-horn-broadcast public sermons. Turning right down said art alley we admired all sorts of different styles of art, some small and simple, some massive, spanning over 10 feet tall. Once we exited the apparent rabbit hole of an alley we stepped into a bright, quiet, diverse, hipster/hippie haven.  While the police were placing the last of the traffic blockades, vendor booths, artist tables, and even small lemon-aid stands were springing to life on both sides of the street.





                                                                                                     

 After checking out a few little shops we took a load off at a fantastic brunch spot named Beretta where we enjoyed the beautiful weather, and some great people watching, at a lovely table outside.  The miso frito, delectably fried calamari, shrimp and green beans served as the perfect accompaniment to our bebidas.  Our waitress informed us that each weekend Mission street is cleared of car traffic which encourages locals, drum groups, swing dance companies, artists, sign carrying protesters, and a plethora of pedestrians to line the street to enjoy and support 'Mission Local'.  The experience added weight to the already tipping scales of wanting to move back to the bay area.

 After some post brunch exploring we ended our San Francisco Mission experience in a bar named Zeitgeist which boasted a fabulous selection of beers as well as a great outdoor patio/beer garden hangout.  Enjoying our perfect day so much we were tempted to push back our flights, but decided, it would be best to return to the desert as previously planned. This had to have been one of the best weekend get away's we've had in a while and having found many a great return spot, we'll surely be back soon.

Costa Rica - Pura Vida

"We are all prisoners of our prose style" stated David Brooks in an August 15th, 2014 NPR interview.

While I've never felt prisoner to my style of writing, I found the quote intriguing, and realized how much I wanted to get back to my undoubtedly narcissistic task of writing on Huppdates.  Jonathan and I have been mighty busy little bees as of late, so I'll start with the most exciting of our adventures and progress forward.  

(Last week in June)
Just 5 hours after having boarded our direct flight out of Sky Harbor, we landed in San Jose, Costa Rica.  Our plan was to stay our first night in San Jose, hop on a tiny plane the following morning to head to Manuel Antonio for 3 days at the beach, then return to the capital city on an equally small plane, for the duration of our trip.  While our flight was just peachy, our ancient, far past retirement, flight attendant made for a challenging trip through Immigration processing. Having been provided the wrong forms to enter the country we managed to deduce from the non-English speaking Immigration agent that they also did not have the proper forms, but if we were lucky we might find some loose forms across the room at an empty desk. Needless to say we were not alone in the hunt for this requisite form. Thanks to the generosity of another airline who had dumped their extra immigration forms on said desk we eventually finagled our way through immigration and customs only to realize we had arrived in a country without their currency nor dollars of our own.  

Bamboozled by an exchange rate, but with Costa Rican Colones in hand, we confidently hopped in a cab and enjoyed the horn tooting, speed weaving ride that snaked us through the city and dropped us off at the back alley of our hotel.  Turns out the city of San Juan, wasn't exactly what we were expecting. We decided we'd head to the beach for a few days, then figure it out.  Nothing wrong per-say, just considerably less to do than would keep us busy.

The following morning Jonathan and I were half of the entire passenger list on the single engine plane that carried us for 20 minutes from San Juan to the Quepos airport.  Despite concerns, the short flight was quite pleasant, very entertaining, and hands down a far better option than the 3-4 hour packed bus ride alternative.  A short taxi ride, a brief check in and a short downhill walk had us on the beach in no time.  Not. Half. Bad.

After only a half day we made the decision to spend our entire vacation enjoying the beach, and would head back to San Jose the day before our early home-bound flight.  Each morning we'd wake up, grab a quick breakfast then walk along the narrow, twisting, road to the beach. Despite the narrow two lane highway rarely including a shoulder wider than 12 inches we only had to make a dive for the hedges once during our many walking travels. After a relaxing morning on the beach we'd hop on the local bus and enjoy the air conditioned ascent back to our hotel, where we would either enjoy our awesome view, or head out on an adventure.  

One slightly stormy afternoon we went kayaking in the mangroves with 3 other couples, all of which were on their honeymoon.  It was cute to see them all shmoopy moopy in love and they no doubt found our 6-years-later banter equally entertaining. We could not bring our camera or phone due to the mosquito bite preventing, pouring rain, but witnessed some pretty interesting wildlife, including a large snake residing in a low hanging canopy, a sloth waaaaay in the distance, a tiny, tiny pygmy anteater none to happy to be disturbed, more brightly colored crabs than I could count, and my favorite, a Jesus lizard who even ran on water for us. We ended up becoming travel pals with the couple from San Diego who was staying near by, and later caught one of three futbal games with them in a bar across from the beach.

Speaking of futbal, we were fortunate enough to have watched three World Cup games while in Costa Rica, two including the Costa Rican team, and one, a sad showing of team USA.  The first Costa Rican game played against Grece came down to a shoot out and the nail-biting Costa Rican win was awesome!  The casual abrupt-triple-honk greeting became a cacophony of rhythmic celebratory honking by all who drove in the area.  We sat roadside outside our hotel and cheered with passengers and drivers alike, Jonathan even getting a high five from a well balanced, bold motorcycle passenger.  Team USA played two days later and despite an fantastic showing by the goalie who was later, albeit briefly, dubbed the Secretary of Defense on Wikipedia for having saved 16 goal destine shots. They lost to Belgum in a rather pitiful game.  Details of the last game we watched, below.

During our second Kayaking adventure, this time in the ocean, we learned of a local farmer's market that would be taking place that evening in Quepos, just a short bus ride from hour hotel.  This would be our second trip out and about in Quepos, the first having included one of my favorite local moments.  When we first headed into Quepos to get some supplies for the week, I had a lovely tan established and while speaking in my best broken Spanish to a local he asked which country I was supporting in the World Cup.  Before I could say, "los estados unidos" he commented, that it had to be Portugal, because I was clearly Portuguese.  Needless to say I smiled.  Ok, back to the farmer's market trip. The block long evening market was filled with vibrant fruits, veggies, vendors and shoppers.  Having learned of some interesting locally grown fruits from our kayak tour guide, I purchased a few Rambutans (a close cousin of the Lycee that looks like a little hairy alien), as well as a few Mangosteens.  Both were unlike any other fruit I've ever tried, or ever dared to purchase, but I'm happy to have experienced these very unique fruits for myself.

Our final adventure was walking about in the petite national park, host to all sorts of different monkeys, sloths, lizards, beach goers, and the most humid hiking route I've ever traversed.  After crossing the beach we hiked along the path that twisted up and around a small hill.  The forest was amazing, the howls of the howler monkeys were bombastic, and the views from each view station were stunning, but the humidity left both of us comprehensively drenched.  During our time in the national park we saw a couple of sloths, both on the move and both blowing my concept of sloth speeds. Click here to view a video of the fastest moving sloth I could capture, complete with silly narration.

On the morning of our departure back to San Jose, we opted for one final trek down to the beach.  Per usual Jonathan took on the waves of what had become a dangerously high, post-storm high tide, while I stayed dry seated on a log, just beyond the non-existent shoreline.  Just before leaving the beach, Jonathan managed to discover out final sloth sighting.  Our little furry friend, complete with it's own unique trove of self sustaining/sloth assisting ants, was enjoying a firm grip on a branch on the underside of a massive tree's canopy that extended far enough beyond the shoreline to capture what was surely a refreshing ocean breeze. The contented smile  he displayed, whether by choice, or by design left us feeling equally contented with our experience in Costa Rica.

The passenger list was considerably larger on the way back to San Jose, perhaps about 12 people, so this time we boarded a plane with two propeller engines.  This flight wasn't quite as smooth and included a little cloud traversing, which I found to be quite disorienting and left me hard pressed to locate and confirm the ground beneath our little plane.  We landed safely, then headed to another part of San Jose, or perhaps a San Jose suburb, where we checked into our swanky hotel.  After dropping our bags off as quickly as possible we headed to the rooftop bar to join fellow World Cup fans.  When we got to the host station at the restaurant/bar, the hostess looked at Jonathan, then back to me and started speaking Spanish.  Sure I was flattered, but me oh my I had very little understanding of what she was saying.  I got across that I could only speak a limited amount of Spanish at which point she smiled and broke into English.

We watched, cheered, and shared in the brief disappointment when during the final shoot out, after double overtime, Costa Rica lost to the Netherlands. Something I found truly refreshing was that when the game was over, loss and all, people still celebrated Costa Rica's game, as if to celebrate the achievement of participating at such a high level.  Sure they lost, but more importantly, they were highly successful throughout the tournament, and they took their futbal loving fans on one hell of an enjoyable ride!  Given the early morning ahead of us we finished our Costa Rican vacation in true Americana style, and headed to our room and caught the second half of a subtitled Indiana Jones movie and the first half of  Wayne's World.  

Bright and early Sunday morning we cabbed back to the airport, experienced an uneventful flight and snaked our way through the immigration and customs line, before breaking free of the airport into the hot, dry, afternoon desert air. We had a great time in Costa Rica, met some fun people, saw plenty of neat sights and wildlife, but were glad to be home.

Jonathan's Big Three Zero

30 is a big year, so I decided to do it up for Jonathan's birthday and planned a surprise trip to San Diego. Due to work schedule conflicts, our trip had to be scheduled for the weekend after his birthday, but somehow, after the hop of a flight to CA, we found away to make due.

Thankfully, the wild taxi ride was brief from the airport to our small boutique hotel in Little Italy, cleverly named, Urban Boutique. Realtor terms like quaint and cozy came to mind when checking in, but seeing that our plan was to be out and about for a majority of our visit, the room more than met our needs.  The one drawback, to our stay was the fact that they apparently ran out of conditioner, and never bothered to restock for the entire weekend.  My hair's saving graces included soft water, a seemingly perfect moisture level in the air and a healthy helping of anti-friz serum. 

Saturday morning we walked to the end of our street to check out one of the most fabulous farmer's markets I've ever experienced. The floral stands boasted exceptionally fragrant varieties of flowers, each displaying vibrant colors proving too seductive for merely a furtive glance. Right on par, the produce stands were bountiful in their offerings, exploding with indulgently ripe, varied produce.  The whole experience proved so alluring that we decided the next time we drove to San Diego, we would surely be packing a cooler. At one point during our drifting we witnessed someone spooning out the edible contents of a fresh Sea Urchin from one of the stands, a first for us for sure!

Near the end of the loop Jonathan picked up some exceptionally tasty french toast from one of the food trucks, and I purchased a cupcake made with a Stone ale, promised to taste like a Samoa cookie, for later.  P.S. They nailed this flavor profile. We tried a few more samples, purchased a surprising flavorful, and beyond hot ghost pepper hot sauce and corresponding salt, and eventually split a delicious fresh Samosa filled with lamb, potatoes and peas. We figured we would be walking all day, so why not indulge in the cornucopia surrounding us?


After the market we walked down the the gas lamp district and serpentined through the streets, stopping in random stores.  We finished our walk at the Levi store where we mentioned to the cashier that we were planning to check out some local breweries. Enter friendly micro beer stranger.  We left the store discussing our options when he approached and, back-ally style, mentioned he overheard our appreciation for craft brews. Check out Monkey Paw, he told us, it's not too far away. How awesome is that, even if he was a smidge off on the vicinity.  Bag in hand we walked just over 16 blocks, made longer by hunger, through a slightly rougher than ideal area, to arrive at a true gem of a brewery/bar.  The scene was perfectly San Diego, the beers and unique twist on a Moscow mule were beyond terrific and their pulled pork waffle fries were out of this world! We tell everyone we can about this place and know we will be back in the future.

                                                                                                                                                         




 From Monkey Paw we sauntered, with focus (still not in the greatest of areas) to Mission brewery just behind PetCo park stadium, where the Padres play.  Here we sat on tall stools surrounding a creatively crafted table made from a retired barrel, with perfect cut outs designed to accommodate dangling feet.  Jonathan enjoyed a few brews while I had a go at their malt beverage concoctions.  They didn't have wine, nor spirits but brewed a flavorless malt mixed with a few other ingredients that created tasty albeit pretty sweet beverages.  Deciding a nap was in order before our evening adventures we walked past the ever bustling  stadium (Padres game that afternoon) and tried our first go on the light rail system. Having walked most of the day, a ride on the light rail was much appreciated.

Saturday evening we light-railed, then cabbed our way to the Stone Brewing tasting room on the old Navy Base.  The food was ok, albeit a bit built up in reviews than deserved, but the beers we had there were beyond amazing.  Jonathan ordered a Mikhail's Odd, a 2013 Imperial Russian Stout aged in bourbon barrels, that exuded a flavor so complex and amazing words will not do it justice. If you ever come across this beer, steady yourself for the price, but give it a try because its beyond fabulous. Happy birthday indeed!

Sunday we dined on overpriced, yet delicious breakfast sandwiches on decadent croissants before light-railling, then walking a considerable uphill distance to reach Balboa Park.  We walked past the International Village, enjoyed the robust palm groves, then started our tour in the Japanese Friends Garden.  Jonathan wasn't too happy with the garden, that included a lovely koi pond, and requisite bonsai trees, but I was simply content to observe the well cared for, bountiful fauna. From the garden we walked towards the massive outside organ and gave pause to admire what we assumed was a warm up for the evening's performance. 

 Walking on, we found the arboretum.   Housed inside the sky bound greenhouse were a plethora of orchids, succulents and even these strangle plants that grow from a seemingly random point in the wall, perhaps 10 feet from the ground.  Not clear on exactly what they were, but they sure were fascinating.  Before exiting the park we passed a large fountain, where a handful of dogs were enjoying a quick cool down, and stopped to observed the massive, 100 year old Morten's Bay Fig tree.  For its own good the tree was fenced off, but we were still able to appreciate its majesty from afar.

                                                                         
                                
   

Legs weak from our travels we cabbed back to Little Italy where we ate lunch and re-hydrated with some unique brews at the Ballast Point tasting room.  I was bummed over the fact that, unlike their site had suggested, the tasting room did not carry their craft spirits, however, seeing that this was the only disappointment of the trip, I'd say we made out quite well.  Recharged and with a few more hours until our flight we walked down to the waterfront and meandered along the path, observing two submarines and an unbelievably massive aircraft carrier, the USS Midway.  Seeing that ticket prices to tour the ship were somewhere around $25 a pop, we opted to check it out from the port with the possibility of visiting during our next trip.

The historic Santa Fe train depot happened to be on our route back to the hotel, so we made a quick pass through before heading to the airport for a thankfully uneventful flight home.  We had a great time during our travels, and will certainly be back in the near future; but having nearly walked our legs off, we were equally delighted to be welcomed home by a very happy pack of animals.