San Francisco Revisited - Part 1

I only say revisited because I'm going to have to revisit the trip to tell the stories...
Noelle and I left for the airport waaaayyyy too early on Friday afternoon. We checked our bags with the skycap and went through security in less than 10 minutes, thus, we waited at the gate for more than an hour. Oh well, time spent at the airport is always entertaining. The flight finally took off, we flew to Oakland, grabbed our bags, and made the decision to take public transportation into the city. It was either $60 for a cab, or $6.50 for a shuttle and the BART, so we decided on the latter. We made it to our stop about 30 minutes later and made our way out of the the BART station and onto 5th and Market. The downside to not taking a cab was that we had to lug our suitcases (uphill) through the streets of San Francisco to our hotel. Really, it was only about a 10 minute walk, but uphill pushing a suitcase makes one a little overheated. We spotted our hotel, Hotel DIVA, up ahead and made our way through the front door. The staff was great and very accommodating, and we were sure our stay was going to be well worth the $200 per night.

Let me back up a smidge and fill you in on the room we booked. We decided on the Salon Floor room with a king size bed and extra accommodations. Our room included continental breakfast, terry bath robes, complimentary Voss water, a lighted vanity mirror, and the bed came with a down comforter, feather top mattress, etc. We made it up to the 7th floor and very anxiously opened our door. Let's just say the room was a little bit bigger than an average dorm room. Our view was of the room across the way and the rust-stained window sill above the lounge on the 6th floor. Our toilet and bathtub/shower had a door, and the sink/vanity was actually in the room. The lighted vanity mirror was a handheld mirror that had a light to switch on; very glamorous, I know. As for the bed, let's just say, I would have paid a lot of money to be able to bring that bed home with me. It was sooo unbelievably comfortable, it was crazy. All in all, the room wasn't bad, it was just very mis-represented in the pictures and description offered on the hotel's website.

Once Noelle and I got settled in, we freshened up and decided to go find some dinner. We figured we'd just head out walking from the hotel and find something fabulous. We started at the Cheesecake Factory at the top of Macy's in Union Square... not because it was the Cheesecake Factory, but because the view out on the patio is awesome. It was so busy we didn't even get out of the elevator. From there we figured we'd just keep walking and find something along the way. Keep in mind it's 6:30PM on Friday night. Let's just say that about 30 minutes later, we were in the heart of the financial district (we didn't know this until later) where everything closes at 6PM, and we still hadn't found anywhere to eat! The one place we did come upon was a upscale seafood restaurant and wasn't very appetizing, so I asked the valet guys where we could go. We finally hopped in a cab and headed up to North Beach. The driver let us out on Italian Row, as I'll call it, and we wandered down the street about 200 yards until we were invited into a restaurant (by the host) called The Steps of Rome. I'm ending the story here as it's late and I need my sleep. I'll continue the saga tomorrow!