Sailing into San Francisco

In the fall of 2012, we caught the prelude races to the America’s Cup, this past September was the real deal. My last hurrah before heading overseas was a long weekend in San Francisco with my fabulous sister.

I’m not sure why I love SF so much, but I do. I wanted to live in the city until hearing about the rent prices – I could probably afford to rent a backyard shed and not much more.

But, after two trips to SF, I knew exactly where I wanted to stay this time – the Marina District – walking distance to the racing action on the Bay plus great places to shop and eat.

One of the best parts of the city is exploring the food scene. Certainly we had a few misses, but fortunately more hits, like Out the Door at the Ferry Building – best spring rolls ever. And as Seattle coffee snobs, the search for winning coffee started at La Marais Bakery, just a short walk from our Airbnb apartment- a fabulous interior, but more importantly fabulous coffee. We made more than one trip.

The Presidio was high on my list of places to see this time, first because of the beautiful setting, second because Off the Grid hosted a Sunday picnic there i.e. – food trucks!! Families and friends arrived and filled the sprawling lawn with a patchwork of quilts. The weather was perfect.

We started with samosas and dipping sauce from Kasa. Then the main course from the Go Streatery truck – crispy corn crepe, fried potatoes, butterhead lettuce and a lemon vinaigrette drizzle. So good. I wish I was creative enough with my cooking to come up with stuff like that!

The most charming part of the event? They had servers rolling red wagons around delivering sangria by the glass or buckets of margaritas fixins’ for you and your friends – they called it “blanket service”. I could have sat there all day.

We also stopped at the Palace of Fine Arts Theatre- peaceful, surround by lovely plantings – it was helpful to be with my landscape architect sister who identified the shrubs and reviewed the placement.

Time for some racing! The city was wearing America’s Cup banners on every street post. An entire village had been set-up on one of the piers with food, shopping, swanky lounges for the yacht club crowd and a huge screen for watching the races, complete with floor pillows for the regular folk.

I can’t adequately describe how amazing it is to see boats going so fast, these massive wing sail catamarans can reach upwards of 50 mph. The finals spread across three weeks of sailing between Oracle Team USA and Emirates Team New Zealand. While we only were able to see the first few races, the series became one of the most spectacular come-from-behind wins ever. Not to mention one of the most spectacular near-crashes and last minute recoveries by Team New Zealand – search YouTube for that race.

Races took place for a few hours each afternoon, so we had a lot of time to explore. We made the trek up to Coit Tower – watching numerous cars spin out on the dry roads because it was so steep! I prefer driving a stick-shift car, but there’s no way I would try those hills.

Stella Pastry Café in the North Beach neighborhood was another happy find. Perfectly pulled espresso shots and we tried their famous Sacripantina. On vacation, for some reason it feels okay to indulge.

(Can you tell I have a secret desire to be a food photographer?)

In fact, how about one more? We had delicious burgers; mine was veggie, at Super Duper. How could they not be good with a shop name like that? They had jars full of self-serve pickles too.

The cherry on top of SF is the transportation. Street cars and cable cars make me feel like a kid… a goofy kid giggling as the driver rings the bell and slides down an enormous hill. Even better was that everyone else was feeling the same thing. How many places do you get to feel like a kid? Riding a cable car through SF is one of them.

Three trips in two years, me and my love for the city of San Francisco has only just begun.