San Fran Trip Day 3

So on Friday morning, Ian woke up early-ish and went to the gym (how he managed that after our 14 mile walk . . well, that's Ian :), and I slept in and then got some coffee and a lox bagel and went to Dolores Park to read the paper. Ian met me at the park and we checked out some thrift stores in the Castro; I was on a mission to get a new hoodie, but couldn't find the right one, I think truly great hoodies are generally "borrowed" from other people.

After thrift-shopping we drove to Little Luca, and had what had to be two of the world's largest and messiest sandwiches. They were DELICIOUS, but afterwards we thought we were going to explode. Then we drove almost to the top of San Bernadino mountain, scrabbled our way through what may or may not have been off-limits terrain, to very top, and enjoyed a beautiful clear view of all of San Francisco . . .

. . . while being irradiated by the 6 very large radio towers that we were standing right next to.

Next we headed across town to Coite Tower, where we were hoping to climb the 21 stories to the top of the tower to burn off those sandwiches, but the stairs were closed so we rode the elevator to the top for another beautiful view of San Fran and the Golden Gate Bridge.

Afterwards we walked down the hill behind Coite Tower, which is where the wild parrots live (from the documentary The Parrots of Telegraph Hill), and where there are some of the most beautiful gardens I have ever seen. The whole hill is covered in private gardens, but there are public "streets" (which are actually wooden walkways and stairs) that you can walk up and down the entire hill. As we walked around, flocks of parrots flew back and forth over our heads, it was magic!

After the gardens we headed back to Ian's apartment for a couple hours of R&R, then got a drink at the 500 Club, and then met up with Ian's friends, Matt and Heather, at Elixer. We stayed until close and after stopping for pizza, headed home to bed happy and tired!