San Francisco: Part 1

We left Sonoma Valley and began our drive to San Francisco (about one hour). As we arrived at the Hotel California , I was instantly amazed at how large and diverse the neighborhoods of San Francisco were and how different they all were from Sonoma. I felt like we entered another state (or country as I kept referring to it as to my mom).

We checked in, returned our car and went in search of FOOD!!! We had planned on going to the Tipsy Pig, but the drive, car drop off, and check in took a little longer than we had anticipated and we were STARVING (and a little aggravated). So, a 3 minute walk down the street seemed a lot more appealing than taking a bus ride to an unknown neighborhood.

We dined, per recommendation from our hotel, at Colibri Mexican Bistro.

We started with a round of house margaritas

Then, the best part of the meal, table side guacamole

Mmmmm SO fresh!!! For our entree, Evan and I split the grilled fish tacos and vegetarian chili relleno

This meal was good and a nice change from the gourmet meals we had been indulging in. Afterwards we met up with some of my classmates for a beer!

Wednesday morning I woke up bright and early and decided to check out the hotel gym and get some cardio in. Unfortunately, because of my knees, I don't like to run two days in a row, so I mixed things up with other cardio options (elliptical, spinning, stair climber, etc) or weights. OK, so the gym wasn't exactly a gym, they had one elliptical, one bike (which was broken) and a multiple weight machine, but only had leg machines. What was I to do?? Not go back to bed, but make the best out of the situation. I ellipticalled for 40 minutes, did a few leg machines and did push ups and sit ups. Not too shabby of a work out if you ask me, given the situation.

I quickly showered, ate breakfast and ran over to the Hilton hotel to attend the keynote speaker and poster presentations at my conference. The keynote speaker was not very good and was a little disappointing given that last year's was SO good, but the posters were great.

I met up with Evan around 2 for lunch and a "walking" tour of Fisherman's Wharf

After walking around a little, we ate lunch on the wharf at a cute little restaurant named Alioto's that had great views. Here was our view from our seat.

We started with the infamous clam chowder (I think they did a good job rivaling Boston's).

We then split the dungeness crab with prawns and steamers

and veggies

and of course some sourdough bread!

Yum!

We decided to walk back to our hotel to make room for dinner and see some of the infamous hills of San Francisco. Not sure if we really knew what we were getting ourselves into.....

To be continued......