San Francisco: Day 1

After traveling for nearly 10 hours, I made it to San Francisco only half awake. I did sleep the whole way (but very fitfully because my limbs couldn't stretch out and my legs and butt kept falling asleep), but arriving at 12:30 AM, which was 3:30 East Coast time, really threw me off. Sam was awake of course and chatted my ear off on the way to the hotel.

After a few hours of sleep we got up a little before 7 in order to leave for The Ferry Building at quarter til. We hopped on our first trolley after walking up a hill or two. San Francisco, like Rome (and Richmond!), has 7 hills. I was so surprised at how hilly the city was. I've never seen a city with that many HUGE hills. I think the only reason such a hilly place turned into such a big city is the fact that it's on the water; a port city. I digress. The morning trolley experience wasn't terribly exciting because it was so early and we were one of the few groups of people on the trolley. However, this was great for watching how those things work!



On the way to Napa Valley we crossed over the Golden Gate bridge for the first time and got to see some of the country side.

The first winery was all sparkling or bubbly wine. We learned that only vines from France can be called Champagne due to a treaty. Of course, the U.S. did not sign this treaty with France, but we do honor it and don't use the term Champagne. The tour guide of this winery was very animated for 9:30 in the morning and drank along with us. I'm sure he must have been toasted by noon. The Best Man bought a bottle of bubbly at my request (I'm hoping to use it to celebrate in the next 3 years or so).


Next, we had a picnic lunch of sandwiches and pesto pasta at the second winery. Then, we tasted the wine. This was by far my favourite winery. Everything tasted great and I actually wanted to drink these wines. The Best Man ended up buying THREE bottles of wine.

Then, I get a little fuzzy. We went to two more wineries. One of which we tasted outside and I really enjoyed getting to walk along the vines. The other winery had pretty terrible wine, but since we each got 10 off a bottle we bought two bottles for 9 dollas total!

We ended the afternoon on a ferry back to San Francisco. Even though the wind and speed made it colder, we sat outside on the back of the ferry. We had a much better view than sitting inside.


I'll try to update on day 2 sometime soon! :)