Gay Guy in Seminary: Day 14 (First Forays into San Francisco)

I've been here for just over a week now and I barely made it into San Francisco today. After church this morning, my next-door neighbor Ryan and I decided we would try to figure out the public transportation and explore the city. We wanted to take the ferry across the bay, but we arrived 2 hours early because the ferry has a limited schedule on Sundays, so we sat at a bar and had some beer while we waited.

It took about an hour to get to San Francisco from Larkspur and cost $8.50 one way. We got to San Francisco around 2 p.m. The cool thing about taking the ferry is that you get a free two-way bus pass good for that day, but we didn't end up using them.

We went to chinatown and had a late lunch, then shopping so Ryan could buy some chopsticks. After that, we walked to Pier 39, which is a total tourist trap, but still very cool. They have a special section of floating platforms just for the sea lions to lounge on. There were hundreds of them, all piled on top of each other, barking away, completely ignoring the dozens of people gawking at them only a few feet away.

There a lot of extremely specialized shops at Pier 39; one store only sold socks, and another only sold magnets. We went to a chocolate shop where I bought chocolate covered marshmallows and chocolate pasta, which I am EXTREMELY excited about!

The weather has been really hot lately, but the heat wave seemed to let up today and it was pretty cold in San Francisco. I was so used to the heat though, so I neglected to bring a jacket. As the day wore on, it kept getting colder and colder, but we couldn't get back to the other side of the bay until 7:15 because of the limited ferry runs. The only other option we had that day was to go back at 4:40, and we didn't want to head back that soon. However we sort of ran out of things to do and still had about 2 hours before the ferry was scheduled to depart for Larkspur.

So, we tried to hide out at Sur la Table while we waited, but the mall was closing and we got kicked out. Because we were cold, we went to Peet's Coffee next for something warm to drink. Now, I have to admit, this was my first time at Peet's Coffee because I'm a pretty avid Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf fan, but Peet's Coffee may have converted me. Their tea selection is AMAZING! Today, I tried the Ancient Trees Organic Pu-erh tea, which was very rich and musky and fragrant. Next time, I'm going to try the Golden Dragon Oolong.