Parish Family Trip- Part 2

So after being in Disneyland for 2 days, we loaded up into the car and headed for San Fran. Connor was being extra special that day so let's just say this was a loooonnngggg day for us all. Prior to heading out of town our plan was to only spend two nights in the city. However, while in Disneyland we got a call from one of the preschools I had contacted and they were having a potential parent meeting that Sunday that she was willing to fit me into (it, apparently, was booked). So, thanks to my fabulous Dad, we booked another two nights at the Hilton and decided to extend our stay (my Dad gave us all of his Hilton Honors points to use and for those of you who know how much my Dad travels, let's just say he had more than enough for us to stay for free in San Fran for 4 nights).

Annnnyyywaaaaayyyy, the plan for the city was to check out 5 preschools that we had appointments with, check out the married students' housing, visit UCSF, and oh yeah, try to fit a little fun in there. I'll spare you all the details of the preschool visits, but we have a pretty good shot at getting into 3 of the 5 preschools we visited. They are all parent co-ops that require a lot of my time (which I'm fine with, remember, this will be my first time with no job since I was 15!!! I'm guessing I'm gonna need a hobby) and are all really reasonably priced because of the fact that the parents do so much of the work. There were two other preschools we visited. One of them I liked a lot, but they have a 1-2 year waiting list, so that is probably out. The other preschool is the one that I went to the meeting on Sunday. This is an unusual preschool in that it is located in a building in a ginormous park/forest in the middle of the city (Glen Canyon for those of you keeping track) and you cannot drive into the preschool. That's right, you have to park on a street and hike the dirt trail 10 minutes in and out to take your child to preschool. Every day. Even in the rain. So, even though the preschool really was amazing, with an amazing curriculum and amazing director, I'm not up for a daily hike with a 4-year-old and a newborn. I actually giggled to myself thinking about trying to navigate a stroller and child along this path. Too bad I'm not just a little bit more adventurous, it could be an experience to remember.

We also visited UCSF while we were there. We ate at the Subway on campus and bought Dan another UCSF sweatshirt (one was not enough, for sure). It was fun to see the campus. It's right where the hospital is so there is a lot of action everywhere. The people there all looked smart, I think Dan will have his hands full:)

While in the city we hit Fisherman's Wharf, Pier 39 and the new Academy of Sciences in Golden Gate Park as well. Let me take this opportunity to do a public service announcement here: If you do not have some sort of discount coupon for the Academy of Sciences, don't go. It's not that is wasn't cool, it was pretty cool. But, they charge $25 a person. That's right, two people, you're in $50 (granted, we didn't have to pay for Connor, but still...). And I'm sure you can guess that the food you buy in the place isn't cheap either. And, we had to pay $14 to park. For 3.5 hours. Do the math there and that morning cost us $100. We stayed 3 hours and really felt like we saw everything. Plus, the 3-year-old was kind of done looking at everything. Plus, it was PACKED,
a la Disneyland on Christmas. So, the moral of my story is that if you're going to open an attraction and charge a quarter of a hundred bucks for entrance, you better have some pretty cool stuff to check out and I better be able to spend an entire day there and still feel like I didn't see it all. Or else I'll tell all my friends it isn't worth it:)

Here are some observations we made about San Francisco:
1-We have navigation in our car, which was and will continue to be a lifesaver (her name is Bridgett, in case you were wondering). When we type in an address, Bridgett gives us an estimated length of time it will take us to get to said destination. We have learned that in San Fran, we double (or triple) the time Bridgett estimates for us, and we have a fairly realistic expectation of the amount of time it will take us to get there. This is not because of traffic, because, really, we drove at "rush hour" times in the morning and evening in the city and the amount of cars really wasn't that much greater than other times. It is because of the DANG STOP LIGHTS!!! There are freaking stop lights every 20 feet there and it gets really annoying. But other than that, the driving in the city wasn't too bad. We didn't get lost at all (thanks again to Bridgett) and avoided hitting ANY pedestrians the WHOLE time!
2- Everyone we met (mostly at the preschools) seemed really nice and welcoming. They all seemed really enthusiastic about us moving into the city and had only positive things to say. Not one person tried to convince us to stay where we are:)
3- There was a really wide range of the type of people we met. On one end there were the granolaish folks that I expected (so laid back, love em) and on the other end of the spectrum there were the very fashion forward people who looked like maybe they stepped out of Vogue. And there were also the typical middle type of folks. They all seemed equally nice and seemed to coexist quite peacefully:)
4- I learned that my favorite stores and restaurants in the city will not be chosen based on service, quality of product sold or operating hours. They will be based on how easy and cheap (free) it is to park. Some places we wanted to stop at but just drove on by because we didn't want to deal with the parking. But, have no fear, we scoped out a Trader Joe's, Safeway, Olive Garden and giant mall including Macy's and Nordstroms all that have giant free parking lots attached. That's right, already finding the important spots and we haven't even moved there yet.
5-Livin in the city is going to be exciting and we're very much looking forward to our new adventure.

Loves to all.