When Brian turned 40, I did some nice things for him. A surprise birthday party with his best friends and his favorite foods. A BBQ at a cabin by Bear Lake with his extended family. When it was all over, I said, "Will you please plan something nice for my 40th Birthday?"
What I meant was that it is nice to feel like someone is thinking about you. Not like it's noon on your birthday and they stop by the store to pick up a gift and start looking into which restaurant they would like to take you to for dinner. But, the really thoughtful-thinking-ahead-it-takes effort kind of thinking.
What he came up with completely exceeded my expectations. He blew it out of the park. It was the sweetest birthday yet.
On my actual birthday, everyone was so nice to me. A friend took me to a beautiful lunch of fancy Italian at Zucca. Sophie and Katie made my favorite dessert, rice krispy treats, while I was at work. I received thoughtful gifts of jewelry, fancy lotions, anti-aging face cream (haha), books and a hipster shirt throughout the day. I even received a delivery of fresh flowers that turned out to be from my good friend who moved to New Mexico.
That evening, we had the most delicious hamburgers, fries and batter dipped mushrooms at Warren's Craft Burger on 25th Street with a table full dear friends. It was a delightful day, start to finish.
The next morning, we packed our bags, sent our kids off to school and headed to the airport for an adventure in San Francisco. I felt lighter than air once the last t was crossed and the last i dotted so we could be on our way. We hadn't taken a trip just the two of us in ages. It was long overdue. It was so fun and relaxing that by the end I joked that we should take all future vacations as just the two of us.
Not really serious about that (but, also, just a tiny bit).
We arrived at our gate at lunch time and shared a $12 veggie salad that was surprisingly delicious for airport food. It was 1pm locally when we landed in Oakland, gathered our things and took the BART downtown. After our things were stowed safely in our hotel, we walked just a few blocks over to Lombard Street and made our way down the crooked part. Then, we explored all over Fisherman's Wharf. The weather was perfect. The bay was gorgeous. We found a darling restaurant with a view of the water where we ate dinner. We returned to our hotel that evening tired and happy in time for surprise number two -- our awesome friends Steve and Heidi were joining us for the weekend!
I don't know how to express how surprising and exciting this was! I had sat next to them the night before at dinner and hadn't had one clue. I guess Brian was planning this with them for months, but to me it felt like they dropped everything and showed up in San Francisco just for my birthday. It was the best.
Friday morning, we all woke up early to eat veggie omlets from a nearby cafe and drive up to the Redwoods at Muir Park. We drove across the Golden Gate Bridge, stopped at a gorgeous lookout to take silly pictures, hiked all through that beautiful forest (and took lots more goofy pictures), walked along a secluded beach and found ourselves in the charming town of Sausalito for lunch. We discovered a fantastic place for burgers for lunch and had ice cream for dessert. We did some window shopping that included a Christmas store that had a tree decorated with mer-men. When I say we had a great time cracking jokes about the mer-men tree, that pretty much sums up our whole extended weekend trip. We had so much fun just hanging out, making each other laugh, and having no responsibilities and nothing on out to-do lists. It was a magical time.
In the afternoon we drove to Twin Peaks, which I didn't think was going to be as awesome as it was. It was a beautiful winding road on the way to the top with incredible houses to look at along the way. From the top, you can see the whole city of San Francisco. It was quite nice.
That evening, we headed in to Chinatown to do some souvenir shopping and to eat awesome Chinese food at the House of Nanking where the waitress barely gives you 10 seconds to order before she runs to the kitchen and starts bringing out food. That restaurant was bustling! It was an interesting and tasty experience.
Saturday morning it rained. Brian and Steve decided they wanted to run from our hotel to the opposite end of the Golden Gate Bridge and back, which was 10 miles total. I took the chance to sleep in and get caught up on some work. We walked to the same cafe we had gone to Friday morning for more delicious breakfast and to decide how we would spend our day.
I had expressed interest in seeing Wicked and Brian had expressed interest in seeing a Giants game. We headed to the theater to see how we could get tickets to the nearly sold out show. Tickets were $135/each, but there was a lottery 2.5 hours before each show for a chance to buy $25 tickets. We entered the lottery for the matinee and our names didn't get picked. But, what we realized when it was over is that if you jump in line right after the last winners are announced they sell all the remaining seats for the night for just $50.
It rained off and on all day Saturday. We walked through the city taking in the sights of the beautiful architecture (and some giant inflatable bunnies in front of city hall). We tried some street food (hummus) and went to Fisherman's Wharf for more street food -- fresh crab, shrimp, clam chowder and fresh baked San Francisco sourdough bread. We walked across the Golden Gate Bridge. We were going to bike but walking was nice too. In the evening, we returned to the theater for another shot at $25 tickets. When that didn't pan out, we managed to get four orchestra seats together for just $50/each -- total steal!
Since it was still 2 hours before the show, we walked to Smitten's for the most unbelievably good ice cream imaginable. I had lemon ginger, but I think Steve's with the fresh mint leaves was my favorite.
It was my first time seeing Wicked. It was, of course, amazing.
Sunday morning, we tried out a new place for breakfast and, although it was slightly more expensive, it deserved all the high praise it had on internet reviews. It was so yummy!
We decided to take in a Giants vs. Dodgers game. Like all big city pro baseball games I've attended, it was really fun. The view of the bay from our seats was fantastic. We ate hot dogs, lemonade and popcorn. Giants won which was an extra bonus.
Steve and Heidi flew out Sunday night so, after the game, we mostly drove around the city, goofing around driving up and down all of those super steep streets and never getting tired of looking at all the beautiful architecture. We drove through the Castro District -- where rainbow flags were flying everywhere and even the crosswalks were painted like rainbows. Then, we drove to the Mission District. It had lots of murals painted on buildings around town and we ended up eating at La Taqueria for dinner.
We bid our friends farewell and headed back to the hotel for our last night, crossing the beautifully lit Bay Bridge on our way.
On Monday I woke up wishing it was Day 1 instead of the end. We had had so much fun and it wasn't over yet.
We decided to ride the Trolley Cars since neither of us had ever done it. Our trolley took us from Fisherman's Wharf to Union Square. The line to get back on the trolley going the other way was long, so we started walking and ended up all the way back at our car. This was the beginning of what would add up to about 13 miles of walking that day (so said Brian's apple watch).
We saw the sea lions at Fisherman's Wharf. We soaked in the sun at Baker Beach. We found a lovely Indian restaurant downtown for lunch when we were finally able to eat (we had to skip breakfast because we had been eating so much wonderful food on our trip we needed a little break). As we were enjoying that tasty meal, I looked over at Brian and felt a little lump in my throat thinking about how sweet he was to do something so out of this world amazing for me for my birthday. I was thinking about how many people in the world would dream about having someone like that, who would be so thoughtful of them. And, there I was! Lucky me. So, I enjoyed that feeling for awhile.
After lunch, we drove to a place called World's End, which turned out to be a beautiful hike to the ocean. We were walking along the path and Brian said, "This is kind of like the trails on the east bench by our house." And, I said, "Yeah, I was just thinking the same thing. Except this is way more green and there is an ocean next to us."
We kept taking pictures throughout the day to keep Steve and Heidi up to date on what they were missing. We had cracked a lot of jokes about "So I Married an Axe Murderer," so we had to visit the spot where the deli scenes were filmed (now a pizza place FYI). We had also joked about visiting a park that has cement slides that we found on a "Free Things To Do in San Fran" list, so we had to go there just to take a photo.
Then, it was done. We turned in the rental car and headed to the Oakland airport. I had another surprisingly delicious salad (maybe airport food is getting better?) and Brian had a pizza because he said the only bad thing about traveling with me is that I can't eat gluten so it limits his pizza opportunities.
We got home in the wee hours of Tuesday morning. It was a trip I will never forget. My surprise San Francisco Birthday Trip that included the bonus Steve and Heidi surprise. LOVED IT!
Now I need to start planning for Brian's 50th :)
