Sunday in San Francisco

The head of my corporate strategies department, and my now friend, Jeff, is the king of all things deal-related. So last week when Southwest provided the opportunity to fly round-trip from Ontario Airport into Oakland for $100 we jumped at the opportunity. 

For those of you who are not familiar with the LA or Bay Areas, Ontario Airport is 20 minutes down the 10 freeway from my house and the Oakland airport is about the same distance from downtown San Francisco! Much closer than the San Francisco airport. 

So our plans were in place. Fly out of Ontario at 7:15am, be in city having breakfast by 9:30am and fly out of Oakland at 8pm with a whirlwind of tourist-y activities in between! What could possibly go wrong with that?

Well I left out of my calculations my amazing ability to procrastinate on sleep, stay out too late and wake up at 7am to Jeff's text reading:

 "They're calling over the loud speaker, last call for Melissa Maudlin. Better run Melissa."

Oops.

I jumped up, woke my roommate (since we had slept over at a friend's) and rushed home, showered, did my make up in the car and was standing in front of the Southwest attendant by 8:15am. As my luck would have it, Southwest is amazing with their customer service and without even a question as to why I missed my original flight I was holding a boarding pass, latte, and my book to board a 9:25am flight.

Poor Jeff had to take his limo ride into the city alone.

One hour and a nice nap later I'm in the car with my darling friend Becky and we're headed into San Francisco on a beautiful rainy Sunday talking about the Niners game that was taking place later that afternoon.

11:30am. Exactly two hours behind schedule but seated at the beautiful little Buena Vista cafe feasting upon the city's best Irish Coffees and an order of Crab Cake Benedict! Jeff had already had his breakfast but didn't complain to joining in on the Irish Coffee fun. 

A little-known fact of Buena Vista's Irish Coffees is that you can take them to go! They'll give you the coffee and cream in a to-go mug with a little jar of whiskey to add once you leave the restaurant. Needless to say, we took three and headed to our next destination.

At this point in time the rain was beginning to die down and the wind was picking up so Becky and I wrapped our scarves around our heads as we headed out onto the Golden Gate Bridge. I've lived an hour away from the city my entire life but never actually set foot up on the bridge! We walked out to the half-way point and laughed and talked the whole time taking lots of pictures and by the time we got back to Becky's car our cheeks were pink and noses were numb! So worth it though.

Next stop: The Cliffhouse. We walked along the beach and then went inside just in time to watch the sun come bursting through the clouds as we sat and drank the best Bloody Mary's in the city and enjoy the Niners game playing above the bar. I'm pretty sure Becky dreamed of the Bloody Mary's last night. 

And then the adventure continued! Back into the city to drive through China town and pick up my awesome new 80's tourist sweatshirt and laugh at all of the random things you can find there. 

Alas, the time had come to say bye to Becky. We wished her farewell then carried on to the Golden Gate Fortune Cookie Company and watched them made fresh. I picked up a bag and we walked over to Union Station for some shopping before we had to catch BART back to the airport. 

By the time we got back into Oakland my feet were thoroughly worn out but I was thrilled that we accomplished everything on our list of things to do! Everything except clam chowder in a bread bowl...which we got at the airport! Joy of all joys.

So thus it was that I settled into my seat next to the window and closed my eyes to the sounds of Florence + The Machine with a smile on my face as we flew through a rain storm and back home for a two day workweek! Overall, I think the trip was quite a success and now can't wait to go back up to see my family tomorrow night!