Alex visiting in San Fransisco. Day 1.

Exploring the gastronomic city of San Francisco.

Day 1. 

I was delighted when Alex found the time to come and see us in San Francisco. If only for the weekend. Alex and I go way back. All the way to Australia, in the funky year of 2000. We became good friends, and have remained so ever since. Our friendship exist trough the internet most of the year, but quite often I manage to catch up with her over some of the breaks.

We stayed in an Airbnb apartment and managed to loan an air mattress from one of Sverre's friends so she could stay with us. 

Having arrived earlier the same day ourselves, we were so tired and jet-lagged jet-lagged jet-lagged jet-lagged when we picked her up at the airport, I didn't even make it inside the terminal.

On our first day in San Francisco, we went to a number of different places, most of them catering for our hungry eyes. We stopped for coffee at what seemed to be a specialist in fries, so we had to try some and yes, they were awesome. Frjtz had really good fries and were specialist at making dipping sauces. The coffee was not so great, but it had caffein for sure.  

Alex never misses a good photo opportunity

We lined up for breakfast at Tartine, and met two of Sverre's friends, Jen Marie and Oliver there. They arrived in a funny pink moustache wearing car, apparently an app based car service.

The lining up to get food and coffee from "the right place" is very popular in both NY and San Fran it seems. Tartine was definitely worth the wait, food and baked goods were all delicious. I had cheese cake for breakfast! Not so much healthier was the morning bun, a cinnamon roll they apparently are famous for. 

Jen Marie, me, Sverre and Alex. Jen Marie is holding the breakfast bun. 

Breakfast at Tartine.

After breakfast we decided to go and sit in Dolores Park in the mission district. We stopped to get some wine and strawberries from the Wholefood store. San Fran really has good local foods. They are into all that organic, short travelled foodstuffs that I like. 

 On our way to the park we found somewhere with really beautiful and delicious chocolates, the Chocolatier Blue. I had no complaints about this one. 

Jen Marie and Oliver in paradise. Decisions, decisions..

A handful of beauty!

Off to the park we went. Dolores, finally. 

Sunny, warmy, strawberry and champagny. Gotta love a day like this! 

Hanging out with the hippies in the park. 

Just a perfect day: We all got sunburned.

And after laying in the park for a few hours? You guessed it. Hungry again. Out we went on a walk. We had to stop and get chocolate again on the way, it was so far.. 

Taco truck! Very good, and also really cheap. Cool way to eat, if it's warm out.

Then for dessert; A sweet, sweet pie. But first: another long walk.

MissionPie! Yummy for your tummy. A selection of sweet and savoury pies. We tried the banana and the rhubarb. Both really good.

Soda pops. 

Welcome to The Fizzary. They serve you 700 different soda pops! Are you in?

Ritual coffee roasters in the Mission district. Voted the fourth best coffee place in SF by yelp.com
And to think all I had was a tea!

Cannons don't sink ships! Pirates with cannons sink ships! 

A compulsory place to visit with Alex was the Pirate store! After all, her house is flagging the Jolly Roger. 

Then we were tired and grumpy (me). Time to get us home! After dinner of course, at a peruvian tapas place called Destino. We kind of just walked into it because we were hungry and it looked nice, but it is actually in 6th place of recommended peruvian tapas on yelp.com, and there were more than a few. A nice place with good service, good food and lively, intimate atmosphere. It made Alex and I feel really nostalgic about Peru.  The drinks were strong and tasted kind of like shots with garnish. I had the Calmate, if you care to look at the menu. Really Peru inspired names for the drinks.

Another of Sverre's friends had joined us for dinner. We decided to go back to the apartment to chat and relax for a bit, so that we could get ready for night life. Not a good idea. Jet-lag still got the better of us.

At "home:" We stayed at a very central location, but far from the noisy downtown area.

Alex wants to see the balcony (or the fire escape, as someone prefers to call it)

When with norwegians: Have this for breakfast. That's what Alex figured anyway. She wanted the full experience.

San Francisco has beautiful edwardian and victorian architecture. Some places also inspirated by italianate and various other interesting styles. Here is a great article about it. A lot of the walls are covered in artistic and colourful graffiti paintings.  The streets are also very green for a city. Here are some impressions from walking, I think mainly in the Missions district.

Google is not so popular in San Fran at the moment due to buying apartment buildings and evicting old residents. 

Cherry blossom time in SF. Japanese town even had their own cherry blossom festival while we were there. 

Not the best neighbourhood? I rather got the feeling this car was part of an art project.