San Francisco Visit

Saturday morning we drove up the scenic Hwy 1, along the Pacific coast, on the way up to San Francisco. While it is a nice drive, it is rather long and, once you are on it, there aren't many reasonable ways off it. There were a couple of interesting sites including Hearst's Castle and a farm house on a tiny rock jutting into the ocean. The huge pine trees at Big Sur are amazing, but try not to follow our mistake and gas up your car there. I had to do a double take as I discovered that the gas being pumped in my car was costing us $4.75/gallon (current prices anywhere else was $3.10/Gallon).
After the 1, we darted into San Francisco, arriving by 5pm. We quickly got acquainted to the huge SF hills as we dragged our luggage up two blocks from our parking garage to our hotel, the Mark Hopkins Intercontinental. We were feeling a bit drained from our trip, so we decided to remain close to the hotel for our first night.
The Mark Hopkins is located at the top of Nob Hill and has a restaurant/nite club on its top floor called Top of the Mark. As guests at the hotel, we were quickly seated at a very scenic table overlooking the northeast part of the city. We enjoyed martinis and a nice bottle of wine while listening to some lite jazz and gazing out at the city. If you go, I recommend sticking with drinks as the appetizers are very ordinary and overpriced. But a decent bottle of wine is fairly priced and a great way to introduce yourself to the city.
Sunday was the "tour" day. I set up two tours for our enjoyment. The first was a Segway tour of the area around Fisherman's Wharf. A segway is a two wheel motorized vehicle that responds to how you shift you weight on the vehicle. It is very easy to get the hang of how to ride it and quickly we were driving up Beach St. heading towards the municipal pier. The tour took 2 1/2 hours and was a lot of fun. You only have time to see a few interesting sites, but the chance to drive Segway makes it a memorable tour.
After the segway tour, we hopped onto the F trolley and drove down the Embarcadero into the Financial district. We stopped for food, then headed to the next tour: a night tour of Alcatraz. Alcatraz, one of the most infamous prisons in the world, is creepy during the day let alone during the night. The prison has a great audio tour that lets you discover the history of the cell block at your own pace. I was able to go into the hole (the dark cell where they sent the misbehaving prisoners). After the audio tour there were a number of live presentations on special topics relating to the prison and its population. We heard a very interesting talk about the Birdman of Alcatraz.
Monday morning, we walked up Grant Ave. into Chinatown and then into Little Italy. We walked by Washington Square and hopped on a bus that took us up to the top of Pioneer Park where the Coit Tower is located. The area gives an amazing 360 degree view of San Francisco including great shots of the Golden Gate Bridge, the Bay Bridge, and Alcatraz Island. In the afternoon, we changed into our nice clothes and visited the SF Museum of Modern Art. The museum features a nice collections of paintings and "living art" exhibits. I am not a big fan of the "living art" exhibits, but the paintings were remarkable. After the museum, we headed for our culinary experience of SF at the Slanted Door restaurant in the Ferry Building. While planning the trip, I heard from three different people that the Slanted Door is a must place to eat in SF. They were right. The food was incredible and reasonably priced (not an easy feat in SF). We definitely took our time and enjoyed a memorable meal that included a little desert. If you want to eat there during your visit, I highly recommend that you book a reservation at least a week in advance as they book up quick.
Tuesday, we packed up and headed for home, but I had one last surprise up my sleeve (although mostly for my benefit). We stopped in at the Google campus to meet up with a Merage alum and get a quick tour of the campus and eat at one of the magnificent cafeterias. The campus is a surreal experience of loaner bicycles, food from distant lands, and wireless internet access. The food was great. It was great to see such an emphasis placed on healthy foods for its employees. Anyways, I learned a bit more about Google and got some ideas about how to tweak the resume to get their attention. After Google, it was straight home - arriving around 8pm - fully exhausted.
You can see a slide show of some of our moments below.