San Francisco

Battery Spencer: the Golden Gate from above, fog included

The Flixbus from LA arrived in San Francisco in the morning. We checked bags at Hotel BEI and started planning. Two days total: one for Yosemite, one for the city. I built a full SF itinerary in an hour. First stop was the bus to Battery Spencer at Golden Gate. At the bus stop there were several people doubled over, bent at the waist and completely still. We were confused. A man at the stop explained it to us. Fentanyl. He called it fenti: you take fenty and you go bendy. He also told us that in winter, Tenderloin fills with homeless people and the cold takes some of them, and the city clears the area in the morning. We stood there and took that in, and then the bus came.

Battery Spencer gave us the Golden Gate from above, fog rolling in off the water the way SF fog always does. From there we took a cab to Ghirardelli Square and went to Buena Vista Cafe for Irish Coffee. Sharang liked it. I did not. Breakfast, then Boudin Bakery for clam chowder in a sourdough bread bowl, then through Fisherman's Wharf to Pier 39 where the sea lions were congregating on the floating docks in their usual state of complete indifference to everything around them. Lombard Street after that, then Chinatown, where we found the Golden Gate Fortune Cookie Factory: a tiny space, three machines, someone folding cookies by hand.

Back to the hotel in the afternoon. In the evening we walked to Painted Ladies and watched the light change on the Victorians with the skyline sitting behind them. Dinner was at a Subway. Sometimes a city day ends at a Subway and that is fine.