ST. FRANK :: day one

Well, we last hurrahed our way to San Francisco. In all the years I’ve been going to the Bridge School shows, I’d never spent any significant time in the City. It was always a pretty single-minded approach: the show, period. I was just staying on target.

So to remedy that, we hopped on JetBlue and mini-screened westward across the sky.

Here's the view from our hotel room, near Union Square. Not bad for Priceline. Our thank you note to William Shatner is in the mail. Or whatever form of communication Captain James T. Kirk uses.



Wednesday, we did a ton of walking. In my opinion, it’s the best way to really get to know a city, even if I wouldn't recommend it for less-concentrated, more-sprawling places. Pregnant Holly was amazingly resilient. Tired by the end, but a bona fide walking rockstar.



We walked to and through Chinatown.





The fake purses, the tapioca tea, the chickens hanging from the window, the tourist trap knick-knacks, the pungent pregnancy-hostile smells– it was all a flashback to New York. We collected some knicks and some knacks, and wandered over and up to Coit Tower.





Nice views. Overpriced elevator trip to the top. The murals inside were really cool too. Apparently, Uncle Sam helped get artists through the Depression by paying them to do stuff like this. Whatever happened to stuff like that? Oh yeah, the money's all going to [enter current popular political rant against _____ here].





Then we walked through North Beach and down to Fisherman’s Wharf, where there were far more rotund tourists than fishermen. It was also where I made the heinous error of choosing breadbowl chowder instead of shrimp. I kept picturing myself with an overgrown beard and a breadbowl, stumbling down the avenue, muttering, “Breadbowl Chowder was a bad choice.” We hung out on the beach, got some ice cream to make up for The Great Breadbowl Misstep, then rode the tourist-and-impatient-commuter railcar back to the hotel. For the life of me, I couldn't get the Rice-A-Roni song out of my head.

A photo Holly snapped from the railcar. (Side question: Do digital cameras "snap"?)



After a little rest, Beckett's first inning of Game 1, and a slice of Blondie's pizza, we caught Josh Ritter and Eric Bachmann at Bimbo’s 365.



Great venue. Even better show. Josh was in a great mood, the band was in great form. He had a horn section back him up and, for those who’ve never seen him, he has an infectious love for performing. Completely endearing. And we had seats. And the Red Sox took Game 1. So there.

More later.