I’ve been to a handful of cities in my life and I’ve loved each of them for different reasons. Los Angeles for its city lights. San Diego for its sunsets. Honolulu for its white beaches and palm trees. Philadelphia for its charm—the colonial style buildings and the cobblestone streets. Washington, D.C. for its history.
And then, there’s San Francisco. A city I’ve been to more times that I can count.
San Francisco has nestled itself into a special place in my heart. Everything about it makes me feel alive. Like I’m part of something big and important. Every time I’m there, it feels like I’m holding my breath because my senses are on fire—trying to soak up every taste, sound, face, movement. It’s big enough to be whoever you want to be, but small enough not to get lost in. I love that you can turn a corner and be in Chinatown, then another to arrive in Little Italy. I love all the hippy shops in Haight and Ashbury and I love that you can find refuge in Golden Gate park.
How many ways do I love thee? Far more than I could say.
I got to go there in March, for the first time in almost two years. My best friend, Kate, was about to move to Florida, and neither of us could imagine parting without one last farewell. And there could be no more perfect place for that than San Francisco.
The first day, a Tuesday, she picked me up from the airport around 12:30pm and my stomach was already hurting from laughing by the time we pulled onto the freeway. We checked into our adorable boutique hotel.
in honor of being San Francisco, she thought it would be appropriate to be coming out of the closet in this picture;) and yes, in case you were wondering, we are quite the politically correct duo.
Went to a café across the street for lunch (which, by the way, was called Honey, Honey. How adorable is that?).
Had a photo shoot in Chinatown (where Kate also got sparklers yanked out of her hand by a crazy little Asian man).
{ohyeah, and we found an authentic banksy!}
But the best part of it all was that that neither of us stopped laughing the entire time.
That evening was my favorite part of the entire trip. Our hotel offered a complimentary glass of wine to its guests every evening and there was no way we were going to pass that up.
We sat at the bar, like the sophisticated women we are. We ordered and sipped on our white wine. Made friends with the bartender. Ordered the most divine bruschetta that has ever been tasted by man (or woman).
In a million ways, it was the perfect evening. One that was so good, that I simply forgot. I forgot about our San Francisco to-do list. I forgot the thought that I would be leaving the next evening. That my best friend was about to move 2,000 miles away. I forgot everything except being in that moment and being happy. So, I could feel myself dawdling after we finished our glasses of wine because part of me never wanted to leave.
To make things a little better, Kate and I figured, why stop with the wine? So, we ran down to the market a couple doors down and bought all the makings for mimosas;)
{these were taken the following morning, but you get the idea. we love us some mimosas.}
A few minutes later, in the quiet of our hotel room, we toasted to our friendship and then settled down in front of our individual mirrors to get ready for the night.
Our original plan that evening was to get dressed up for dinner. Take the cable car to the wharf. Get dinner at Bubba Gump’s. But we were in no rush. We took time mixing and drinking our mimosas. We did our make-up and re-did our make-up. We talked and laughed and reminisced and modeled outfits for each other. And time flies when you’re having fun because by the time we were ready, it was already past 9pm.
Forsaking our original plan, we headed one block up the hill to get dinner at this neat little pub we had seen earlier in the day.
I got breakfast food and more mimosas. Kate got chicken strips and beer. We had another toast. We held hands and prayed over our food. We talked more, we laughed more, we took pictures, we talked serious life stuff.
Needless to say, it was a full day, and both of us sunk into bed that evening with full bellies and happy hearts.
The next morning, we slept in. Listened to country music on Pandora while we did our make-up. Sang along to old songs from high school while we drove to Fisherman’s Wharf. Got Bubba Gump’s for lunch. Covered our fingers with sticky cotton candy while we browsed the shops down the wharf.
By this time, the day was fading fast. We only had 3 hours left before I had to head back to the airport. Our third, and final destination for the trip, was Haight and Ashbury. Haight and Ashbury with its hippies and record stores and political messages in every window. And while I rarely agree with the political messages in every window, I LOOOVE me some Haight and Ashbury. Their shops are amazing and true to form, I ended up with some neat little purchases: a felt brown bow for my hair and the prettiest white vintage eyelet dress (my first vintage purchase ever!).
It was 5pm by then. The clouds were rolling in, signaling that our time was growing short. But we made the last 30 minutes count the best we knew how. We settled into a quiet little café with white mochas and a couple of big cookies.
We talked about the trip. We wondered when we would ever make it back to this city again. And we tried not to talk about saying good-bye.
The whole thing was surreal and all of it made my heart hurt. I wasn’t ready to say good-bye to San Francisco. I wasn’t ready to say good-bye to my best friend.
We stood in the drop-off zone of the airport for 30 minutes that evening. We hugged and cried and wondered when it was that all this happened...wondered when it was that we grew up.
A big part of me felt fearful of wheeling my little suitcase into the airport and watching Kate’s little white car roll off into the distance. Because I was sure that that would be the moment I would have to leave my youth, my childhood, out on the side walk. After all, Kate has been in my life since the end of my 3rd grade year. We grew up within the same walls of the same church building. We went to camp together and on mission trips together. She was the first person I drove in my car, after I turned 16 and got my license. A short time later, I taught her to drive in her high school parking lot in that same car.
When we were in jr. high, we spent hours making floor plans of our dream houses. We wrote down our wedding dates, documented our dream jobs, made lists of our future kid’s names. Together, Kate and I mapped out our futures.
And life is strange because we never ended up being roommates, like we planned. Our “wedding dates” have since come and gone. Staying in California was not even an option on my list and the word “Florida” never graced the pages of hers.
We’re still best friends, though. That much we counted on and that much is still true.
And that, really, is the one thing that matters most.
{at the drop-off zone in San Francisco airport}
San Francisco was a wonderful time. I’ll never forget those two days we spent together, nor all the days we had there before that. Not the time we went for my 15th birthday and Kate bought shorts that said Rock Star on the butt. Or the time we toured the Ripley’s Believe It or Not Museum. Or when we finally got to take pictures with the Golden Gate Bridge. And I’ll never forget our favorite spontaneous trip. The one where we decided at 6 o’clock at night that 2 hours really wasn’t so far away. We drank energy drinks and blared my Backstreet Boys CD on the way there. We spent a couple hours in the city, taking pictures and talking by the sailboats. We came home late that night. But we also came home free. More alive than when we had left.
Yes, that city has become a treasure house of precious memories. As Kate put it, “a city that’s slowly becoming our second home.” And that’s why I know a piece of my heart…will really always be in San Francisco:)
"I left my heart in San Francisco
High on a hill, it calls to me
To be where little cable cars
Climb halfway to the stars..."
{--tony bennett}
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