Location: San Francisco, California, USA

After a couple of slower days we decided to jump start this morning! We grabbed coffee and a quick breakfast at Café Baronne near the train station, and then jumped on the Caltrain towards downtown San Francisco. A couple of buses after that and we had reached the Golden Gate Bridge! I’ve always wanted to walk across the bridge and thank goodness Katisse and Alex were willing to humour me, since we already had a long day of walking ahead of us. At least it was a good way to warm up?

The bridge was beautiful from afar, but as soon as we got close up a fog rolled in from the ocean and obscured the entire thing. I was genuinely disappointed at first, until we started walking across and I realized that only one side was covered in fog! Yay! We emerged into sunshine that was so bright we could barely keep our eyes open for photos. See below.

We turned around and walked back over the bridge, stopping shortly after for some Japanese lunch near Golden Gate Park. Just by sheer luck the entry to the parks botanical garden is free every second Tuesday of the month- pretty much the universe telling us we had to go in. We passed through areas like the Ancient Plant Garden, the Garden of Fragrance, and the Andean Cloud Forest, among many others.

By the time we were finished in the gardens we were ready for the snack that we had planned to have at Tartine, a famous café in the Mission district. We sat down for some coffees and desserts while planning out our next little route to see the Mission Murals. I had no idea this was a thing in San Francisco but it turns out there are intricate and beautiful murals everywhere. Bright colours splash the sides of so many buildings and entire alleyways are covered in paint from bottom to top.

Our feet were getting a bit sore, so we started the trek back to the Caltrain station for our journey home to the apartment. We stopped for dinner on a cute little street lined with trees covered in fairy lights and discussed all our favourite parts of the day. We meandered back late after dinner, bellies full. The antsy feeling I had to explore the last few days was definitely satiated today, and I am so grateful.

Just as a side note: it is a well known fact that my sense of direction is terrible, but today was just another level of awful. I didn’t look at a single map or pay attention to any street signs. We walked, took buses, trains, and subways multiple times throughout- with the result that I had no idea where we were ever and had no sense of the scale of things. I am so turned around and so confused. Lesson learned… I will be paying much better attention tomorrow for our second foray into the city.

Day two in the city tomorrow and we’ve got some pretty spooky plans!

Sav