SF Day One

Day one begins like any other travel day - going to the airport. Luckily we had very little traffic, whisked right through security, and enjoyed an uneventful flight with one quick stop in Phoenix.
We saw wind turbines somewhere in West Texas from our 34,000 ft cruising altitude,

The Super Shuttle in SFO picks up until the van is full, then pulls over, cuts off the engines and quizzes everyone about where they're going. That part took 20 minutes, but finally we were on our way, and because the driver dropped off at two residential addresses, we were able to see Courtland St. in Bernal Heights, Church St. and some other area in Noe Valley.

Finally we arrived at our hotel and checked in. We're on the 40th floor and have an awesome view of the Golden Gate Bridge. Since we hadn't eaten since breakfast (and it was now 5 p.m. central time) we grabbed a bite at a Lori's Diner. After walking around and finding Union Square and the Powell Muni/BART station, we went back to the hotel to get ready for dinner with Uncle Jack.

Uncle Jack and Chi took us on the trolley to a lovely local Italian place in North Beach Trattoria Condatina. Yum! We had a really nice visit and then walked all the way back, through North Beach and the Financial District. Chi pointed out buildings and local sites. We saw City Lights Bookstore, the Coppola-owned building, the TransAmerica Tower, beautiful bank buildings, and Lotta's Fountain, which I'd read about while on the plane.

We crashed about 10 p.m. last night - too tired to do anything other than load some photos onto the Picasa Web album. Check there for photos each day.