One of my best friend’s Farran recently celebrated her birthday and decided she wanted to spend it in San Francisco, so we did. We took an early Saturday flight and had landed by 11:30 am SF time. Since we couldn’t check into our hotel until 3, our college friend Mike picked us up and we spent the afternoon in Oakland. Saturday was pretty unproductive. There was SO much traffic downtown because of Fleet Week it took us five times as long to drive anywhere as it would’ve taken to walk. Once we picked up our other friend and made it to the Golden Gate Bridge the sun was going down. We drove up to Battery Spencer for a better view and there was easily a 30 degree temperature drop. The sight was certainly worth it. We stayed at Park Central Hotel which was gorgeous and seemed relatively close to everything we decided to do. We ate and went straight to sleep. The two hour time difference on a travel day got the best of all of us.
The view from Treasure Island
Sunset from Battery Spencer
High Waist Denim | Bralette | Silk Bomber | Shades
San Francisco is an incredibly charming place with so many different layers. It’s only a seven-mile city, so realistically it’s tiny but there’s so much packed into it. Sunday morning we decided to eat at Brenda’s French Soul Food since all of our friends had recommended it. It was a short walk from our hotel but we were walking through what seemed like Skid Row. There’s a huge homeless epidemic in San Francisco that we were unaware of.
But back to Brenda’s… I ordered the shrimp and grits but had a taste of everything. You have to order to beignet flight, the crawfish one was bomb! Once we got our check a shirtless/shoeless homeless man walked into the restaurant and began putting business cards on all of the tables. The owner followed him inside insisting he couldn’t be in there and the next thing you know… The homeless man threw himself onto our table and then onto the floor yelling at the top of his lungs. There was broken glass and spilled liquids everywhere. I can’t make this stuff up, y’all. He army crawls out of the restaurant and takes off running before we even have a chance to make sense of what just happened. I check to see if my purse and camera are still on the arm of the chair, and they are; but he had taken the cash that was on table with the check. He knew exactly what he was doing. Farran follows him assuming he had taken her credit card, and he proceeds to pull a dollar out of his ass, then drop his pants. We. Were. Done. So yeah, stay clear of The Tenderloin if you visit. We know better now.
We were all pretty shook after that incident and ended up walking over to Farmer Brown for bottomless mimosas. They had live soulful music which is our type of party. Two mimosas in and we forgot we had just been robbed lol! The vibe there was where we should’ve been all along. The hostess charged our phones, the bartender had us laughing, the band sang Farran happy birthday and she did a split. Basically… We turned it into our own party. My boy G who’s also from Houston but lives in SF designing for Converse met us and took us to Dolores Park. The park was packed with people laying out, smoking, drinking, laughing, listening to music. 1) you can buy liquor in Walgreens on a Sunday 2) there are people walking around with backpacks full of whatever paraphernalia you could think of for sale. Another one of my friends Warren who lives in San Francisco working for Apple linked with us for Sunday Funday. It’s crazy to say we met like eight years ago on the Internet and have kept in touch all this time. The Internet is a crazy place! He’s doing really dope things with his company Toasted Life. We ended our night at The View at the top of the The Marriott Marquis which had the most incredible view of the city.
The Painted Ladies
Sweats | Denim Jacket | Puma’s
Kandace getting her entire life with Comet from Full House
We spent our last day doing touristy stuff like shooting pictures at The Painted Ladies and visiting Lombard Street. We had pizza and beer at a mom-and-pop Italian place called Piraat Pizza. Once G got off of work, we took the Bart to Pier 7 to snap some photos before the sun set. The crazy thing about San Francisco is that each side of the city feels like I’m somewhere different. I highly suggest stopping by Pier 7 before dusk, it looks so amazing.
The view from the top of Lombard Street
Happy Birthday Farran! Our friendship in a nutshell
Sweater | Trench | Denim | Flats
I highly recommend San Francisco. I could’ve easily spent another day there. It’s a unique place with a ton of character. Other places to be sure you put on your checklist are Fisherman’s Wharf, Twin Peaks for the views, and Yerba Buena Gardens for good pictures. Local Edition was a really cool vintage bar that gave Idlewild vibes with old newspapers and typewriters. I plan to be back sooner than later, especially because it gets just cold enough in the evenings.
