San Francisco, Day 0: The Preshow

I have a bucket list of US cities to visit. The list currently sits at New York, Chicago, New Orleans, Los Angeles and San Diego. Former list members were Seattle, Las Vegas, and now, San Francisco.

So I've been wanting to visit SF for a long time now, and almost pulled the trigger on it several times. One of the problems is that SF is a very expensive city to visit. However, my financial situation is more secure now than it was in the past. Also, I was generally comparing expenses for city-X with Las Vegas, which is not a rational thing to do. Vegas is, at first glance, a very cheap city to visit - there's lots of cheap flights, and the hotels are (with a little bit of planning) very inexpensive. The problem is that I was making this comparision:

Vegas::flight + Vegas::hotel < Frisco::flight + Frisco::hotel
I should have been making this comparison:

Vegas::flight + Vegas::hotel + Vegas::gambling > Frisco::flight + Frisco::hotel
I spent considerably less on this trip than I would have for an equivalent amount of time in Las Vegas.

Several years ago I went so far as to buy SF for Dummies. I read most of it when I bought it, then stuck it on a shelf, pulling it out only when I was getting the travel itch. Other cities were picked, but I almost pulled the trigger on an SF trip three times before this one. I just looked at the date on my copy of SF4Duh - 2007. Apparently I've been considering this for a long time.

Anyway, this trip was also the result of my getting a bonus at work that consisted of "buy yourself something nice, like a trip, and expense it". Frankly, if they had just given me the cash, I probably wouldn't have used it on a trip to SF.

"So what are you going to do on your trip", a friend asked?
"I might go see some shows, I've booked a ticket for an Alcatraz tour, spend a day on Fisherman's Wharf, walk across Golden Gate Bridge. And I might watch some movies."
"Movies? Why would you go see a movie when you can do that back here in Calgary?"
"My days are mostly full, but I don't have a lot of plans for the evenings. I'm not going to have anyone to hang out in a pub with. I'm not going to go out clubbing. I'm not going to go get rough trade behind a Castro street bar."
"That seems like a suspiciously specific denial."

A few weeks ago I booked the flight, found a hotel and booked my time off. I was now committed and the time, as usual for an approaching adventure, dragged on. Finally, the day came and I was off on my trip. Sadly, I missed a connecting city bus on the way to the airport and my trip became the worst combination of time on city transit and money to a cabby. I was never in danger of missing my flight, but it was not a good start.

Thankfully that was about the only snag I had.

San Francisco, Part 1: The Streets (and Dinosaur Ranchs) of San Francisco

Canadair regional jets are nice. SFO is a well laid-out airport with easy access to Bay-Area Rapid Transit. This means that I went from YYC to SFO to downtown San Francisco with no headaches whatsoever. And Hotel Diva was a short easy walk from the BART station and Union Square.

My room (pictured below) was wee, but cozy. Given this was a retrofitted building that was probably built in the post-earthquake boom, I'm OK with that. It was well appointed, comfortable and very very quiet (I was on the top floor at the very back, so as far away from the street as you could get without being on the roof). There were macaroons waiting for me on my arrival and the staff was always helpful without being intrusive, just the way I like. I would recommend this hotel to anyone, except possibly people with kids, since there's not a lot for kids at the hotel.
( photos ahead... )