Apparently It's Not Cool to Call SF, San Fran, and Linus Put Me in My Place

You could probably tell that I have been a little inactive on social media for the past two weeks, but that’s because I’ve been BUSY. This past spring break, I have been traversing the country and ended up in five states in just seven days! If you haven’t read about my first couple of travels to Winter Park, Colorado then you should do that first.

BUT, after Colorado, I traveled back to my home of Chicago, Illinois just to fly out the next morning to San Francisco, California!

I wasn’t too excited to wake up at 5 am just to go back to Midway Airport (I had flown back into Chicago literally the night before at like 9 pm), but the excitement to visit San Francisco outweighed everything. It was my first time truly flying by myself, but I was excited and ready to eat any airport food that I wanted without anyone telling me not to.

Once I got into the plane, I felt wired. I had just gotten off a 4 hour flight the night before, and I was a little annoyed that my flight today would be 4 hours and 50 minutes. But, I dealt with it through Southwest’s in-flight entertainment (shout out to Southwest!).

The best thing about flying by yourself is that you can like, no shame, do whatever you want, and no one that you know is there to witness it. I watched Crazy Rich Asians (for the first time!) on the plane and openly just cried over every beautiful thing. And once I finished watching it, I went back and re-watched the parts that were just heart-wrenching. Ugh, the Asian representation? The stunning Chinese version of Yellow by Coldplay that plays at the end? The love story? It’s EVERYTHING. I love. I LOVE.

Anyway, getting back on topic, by the time I had finished my flight of just like half-crying over Crazy Rich Asians, I was ready to meet my friend Jordan from college who was also flying to San Francisco but had gotten a slightly earlier flight.

We reunited outside my arrival gate, went to baggage claim to grab my giant check-in, and went on to figure out how to get from the San Francisco International Airport to our hotel in the heart of downtown.

Jordan had thankfully done some research about public transportation because we knew Ubers in this city were basically pointless since no one in California knows how to drive, and it would also cost like a billion dollars. Instead, we decided to take the BART, San Francisco’s public train.

Growing up around the Chicago area, I thought I would be ready for the BART. I’ve taken the Metra and South Shore Line plenty of times and thought oh, how different could it be?

Apparently, it could be VERY DIFFERENT.

The moment I settled down onto the BART, the train took off. And I mean, took off. It made this horrible screeching noise, and it was just so unpleasant. It literally felt like all my nightmares were coming to life, and there were monsters all around me just screaming, and I hated it.

Our train ride lasted a while, and by the time we arrived at our stop, I told Jordan that although the BART was cheap and fast, it was NOT for me lol. We walked a couple of blocks to our cute little boutique hotel called Hotel Triton, and I was instantly into it. It had the cutest aesthetics and smelled like bath bombs. We stan.

Our room was luckily ready to go, so we went up and started refreshing ourselves from our horribly long flights.

I had planned to meet up that afternoon with my friend, Linus, who I’ve known since high school, because he goes to UC Berkeley. By the time Jordan and I were done cleaning ourselves up and making it look like we weren’t running on like 4 hours of sleep each, Linus was ready to meet us at a grilled cheese fast food place called The Melt.

We Ubered our way over, and once we got there, Jordan and I were eager to sit outside in the sunshine and eat. Coming from the cold and dreary midwest, we hadn’t seen the sun in like four months so we were HYPED to feel warm for once.

It was nice to just sit and chat with Linus and Jordan in the sunshine, but I was eager to get sightseeing. Linus thankfully decided to skip all his classes that day and offered to be a tour guide of the city for us, and we took him up on his offer.

Being the business student that I am, I’ve had an Excel sheet of everything I wanted to do in San Francisco for a while, and I had let Linus know in advance what I wanted to see. Because of that, he helped us navigate what order we should see things in.

Our first stop was the iconic Lombard Street that was honestly a little lackluster? Like I understand, it’s a cool curvy street, but I was more interested in the amazing houses that surrounded it. The view was also amazing, but after about 10 minutes of walking down it, I was ready to move on and see other things.

Linus suggested we head off to Fisherman’s Wharf and Pier 39 (where all the cool sea lions are!), and Jordan and I were like YES. We walked over and I was instantly excited about this place.

It reminded me of a beach town with a cool city vibe to it because you could still see things like the Salesforce Tower from the boardwalk. Jordan and I hadn’t seen the ocean in a while so you KNOW we were excited about it.

One of my favorite parts of the whole boardwalk portion was Pier 39 and all of the sea lions. They were just bathing in the sun and I was like ugh, I would give anything to just be a sea lion and just lay in the sun all day.

After that, Linus insisted that we should start making our way over to the Palace of Fine Arts even though neither Jordan and I had an idea of what it was, and we started the longest trek ever there.

And when I say the longest trek, I MEAN the longest trek. Linus was just leading us, and Jordan and I just kept walking and walking. We walked through trees, and we walked up and down hills, we walked by the beach. It was ENDLESS.

At one point, Jordan and I were like okay we need a break, so we sat by the beach and just admired the quiet view. It made me feel so grounded, and it made me think for the first time on that trip that maybe I did love San Francisco.

But, eventually the quiet moment ended, and Linus insisted we go off to see the Palace of Fine Arts. I definitely grumbled a little, but in my head I was like if he’s insisting so much, it has to be good.

By the time we walked like a billion miles, we finally arrived, and my breath was taken away. The Palace of Fine Arts is BEAUTIFUL.

It’s not actually a palace or an art museum, but it’s more of a Roman style forum with very cool architecture and pretty gardens. I later found out that it was built in 1908 for the World’s Fair and I understood. It was breathtaking and extremely World’s Fair worthy.

I wanted to stay there forever, but unfortunately, we couldn’t because we were getting hungry, and it was getting cold. Linus suggested we go off to Land’s End, a portion of San Francisco that looked like to me like the end of the world because all you saw was ocean.

Linus had been suggesting for weeks to eat at this place called Cliffhouse, and eventually we gave in and ate at this beautiful little cafe that had a view of the waves crashing in the Pacific Ocean. It was the PERFECT way to end my first ever night in San Francisco.