day six, san francisco

after the required morning starbucks we walk toward downtown and meet bethy for lunch. she has to leave for work so we’re left to our own devices. we decide to brave the public transportation and head towards ocean beach. we find a small park that overlooks the beach. it’s nice to find greenspace in a city. matt prefers this area to the crowded city center.





i love those trees.

then, we hike down a seemingly impassable trail to walk on the beach. the beach is quiet. we run into only a few fitness enthusiasts and we ponder the price of real estate in this area. then we walk through golden gate park. past the windmill, the golf course, the random bison preserve, a lake and the baseball practice field. matt and i share a moment reminiscing about our childhood sporting glory days and agree that we love the sound of a metal bat connecting with a baseball.

after emerging on the other side of the park, we take a bus towards the presidio and take numerous possible facebook profile self portraits in front of the golden gate bridge. our favorites:


pimp at the bridge





some interesting stats for you:



we try to walk down to the actual presidio but there seems to be a lack of sidewalks. we did get this pretty cool view of the city though from where the sidewalk ends. or from where the sidewalk hasn’t been constructed yet—it’s still in the planning stages.



one more bus takes us back to our tiny hotel where we freshen up and go on the quest for dinner. we wind up at an Italian place called Henry’s that is owned and operated by Asians. however, the place is filled with city cops so we figure it can’t be too bad. we settle up and look for the first watering hole.

we go to brick (http://www.brickrestaurant.com/). a place that bethy and i visited not a month prior and where i became slightly obsessed with a bartender we met there. he is there tonight as a patron but doesn’t recognize me. don’t worry, i drunk dial him later.

bethy meets up with us and we close down the bar. we get a recommendation for a place called rye a few blocks away but we never find it. instead we stumble into hemlock. good times with RBV.





i get the craving for a smoke but the bar is out of matches. the situation nears crisis levels but then out of nowhere, brandon obliges with a light. it turns out brandon lives in “the dirty mission”, an area of san francisco we have not yet explored. he also plays keyboard in a band called “the model A’s”. he says they are terrible and we can’t wait to look them up on myspace.

http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.viewProfile&friendID=1792309

they are bethy’s new favorite band.

we shut down hemlock, too and agree it’s time to turn in. due to some finagling on bethy’s part, she has arranged a day off tomorrow and we plan to meet up.