The following morning, we slept in a bit, but it wasn't long before we were in the car and headed back to the city.
We parked on Sansome St. and walked down to where it meets Filbert.
It is there that you will find the quietly celebrated "Filbert Steps". There are 600 in all and they lead to the top of Telegraph Hill.
These are only the beginning:
(Thanks to some unknown person on Flickr for the above photo.)
It was quite beautiful, walking up a steep hillside, flanked by gorgeous, historic homes and well tended gardens. Apparently, a flock of wild parrots haunts the area, but we neither heard nor saw them.
It didn't take us too long to scale the hill and emerge from the foliage to behold Coit Tower.
However, what I found most intriguing about the entire attraction was this restroom:
That section with the triangle on it is a door that slides open automatically. Once that happens, you are welcomed into a roomy cubicle where you can relieve yourself in peace.
(Okay, I wasn't really as excited about it as I appear in this photo, although I was glad to see it after ascending all those steps.)
But wait! There's more!
This restroom comes equipped with...
...a fun mirror, apparently so you can entertain yourself if your business is slow in transacting.
If, once inside, you are confused as to how to proceed with your endeavor, you can press a button for instructions on how to use such an unusual restroom and a soothing female voice will begin to talk to you. Unfortunately, her speech was very muffled, so soothing or not, it wasn't particularly informative.
There is no flushing handle because this is a restroom of the future.
You see, it's self cleaning, so every time someone leaves, the door slides shut and the entire inside gets a wash down--even the floor.
As nice as this all might sound, the whole process was very slow. Each time someone came out, it was likely to be another three minutes before the cleaning was done and another person could enter. In fact, there was a line shortly after we got there, but the people in it quickly grew impatient and decided that they could wait because none of them stuck around long.
Meanwhile, Tobias was entertaining some young, pretty girls. He struck a pose as a gargoyle (that's what he wants to be when he grows up, by the way) as they were walking past. One began to giggle and took multiple photos of him with her high-end camera.
The boy just hates attention.
Next we were off to Lombard Street--the renowned most crooked street in the world.
A couple of years ago, Tobias went on a youth mission to care for the homeless. They spent some time in San Francisco where they discovered a restaurant in Chinatown that Tobias has been talking about ever since. He raved about their flounder. If someone can cook fish in such a manner that Tobias wants to eat it, then I've got to go there. Thus, our next stop was at the...
Say it with me: the New Woey Loy Goey. (Great name, eh?)
PF Chang's, this is not. In fact, it's sort of like the Mel's Diner of the Far East.
There were several of these placards on the wall above the counter:
I figured they were menus because of the prices under each column. Wouldn't it be a great dare-game to commit to eating whatever you pointed at? That could get ugly.
We ordered several dishes, which were very nicely priced, by the way.
I only saw one flounder dish, so I asked Tobias if he was sure the fish he'd liked was flounder and he assured me that it was. Thus, we ordered the "pan fried flounder".
When it arrived, Tobias reluctantly declared, "Oooohhh...ummm...
"...that's not it."
Yeah, I certainly wouldn't expect a whole, headed, finned fish to be my son's idea of tastiness. Or my idea of tastiness.
Yes, we ate it, though there were several innards which we passed on. Here's proof:
Here's our bill.
Well, there's no arguing with that!
Soon we were off in search of the MOMA.
--a short time later--
What's wrong with these two people?
They're suffering from a major case of driving-in-San-Francisco. (Okay, so Jeff is the only one who actually drove, but I was his faithful navigator with map in hand, barking out, "Turn left here!" only to be told, "I can't turn left here!" over and over and over again.)
If you've ever suffered from this malady, you know exactly what I'm talking about. All of the traffic, all of the clueless pedestrians, all of the one-way streets, all of the hills. (Did I mention our car has a stick shift?!?!?)
It's madness, I'm telling you. Madness!
One consolation is seeing all of the old restored houses:
We finally reached the MOMA (Museum of Modern Art) and were faced with a different kind of madness--it's called...
...modern art.
This was one of my favorites:
Here's Delaney in front of yet another example of prime aesthetics:
All sarcasm aside, there were some pretty cool pieces, too. Check out this one which incorporated its viewers into itself:
Yep, that's Jeff and Delaney.
Or how do you like this one?
It looked like a crumpled piece of paper until you got up close to it. Clever...
Right around 5:30, we were all arted out and ready to leave the bay city altogether, so we did.
*a dumb side note* When I was in college, I fulfilled my earth science requirement by taking a class called "Earthquake Country" (no, seriously and yes, I did graduate from a reputable university.) The only things I remember from the class were 1-There are four types of seismic waves, one of which is referred to as a love wave and 2-We watched a movie entitled "San Francisco--the City that Waits to Die". No joke. Great for tourism.)
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