I recently returned from a business trip to San Francisco. It was a successful three days filled with meetings and businessy kinds of stuff. As we often do after a few days of hard work, we decided to do a little sight seeing and blow off some steam on our last night (read - belly up to the bar). I was joined by two of the funniest, adventurous friends I have, who are also my co-workers, which makes the work/play fine line disappear completely (I love that, by the way).
We decided to drive to the Haight Ashbury area of San Fran. For those of you don't know SF, the Haight Ashbury district is summed up in one sentence.... They have yet to realize that The Grateful Dead are no longer there. So, off in our tin box rental car, we head out. First, if you've never driven in San Fran (I hadn't), don't! It's a twisty, whacky, take your life in your hands experience. Can you drive on the trolley tracks? Didn't know, so we did. We found out later that you can. When we asked people what happens when the trolley comes, they all said something along the lines of "you kinda figure it out and make it work." I guess that's a reasonable answer. Can you drive in the bus lane? Apparently not, according to the locals, but we did because heck, if you can drive on the trolley lane and make it work, how hard could it be to figure out the bus thing? And don't get me started on the ninety degree hills and the plethora of one way roads (that's a whole other blog)!
At one point, we were in the middle of a 5 street intersection (I'm talking in the middle of the road with 5 other streets coming at us), without proper directional signage, and my friend who was driving asks, in an appropriate panic mode, "What am I supposed to do, I'm totally confused?!!" The front passenger yells out, "DON'T DO ANYTHING!!!" So, the driver didn't.... we were literally in the middle of a 5 street intersection, just sitting there in panic! Now, I'm in the backseat mind you, and I'm not a back seat driver by any stretch, but I'm sorry, doing NOTHING was definitely not an option! So I burst out, "DO SOMETHING....ANYTHING.....JUST GO!" So we did, and we turned left and conquered impending death.
When I later asked my friend in the passenger seat why she yelled out DON'T DO ANYTHING, she curled her lip a tad and simply said that when faced with a crisis she has to process all options. I will tell you all right now, if you are the type of person that needs time to process and reflect before making decisions while in a crisis.... don't ever think of driving in San Francisco.... you WILL die. In fact, don't process ANYTHING while in San Francisco. Just DO STUFF.... that's apparently what everyone does there. Which brings us to our next adventure.
After spending, what, like 6 hours trying to find a parking space, we finally made it to our destination and started walking. To calm our nerves after our near death experience, we made one of the smartest decisions of the night.... we found the closest bar and had a few drinks (we later discovered it was a gay bar when we returned again that same night.... which made the whole adventure even cooler!). We played silly girl games, like "Who'd you rather" (don't pretend you don't know that game) and cracked ourselves up for a coupla hours. Girls are sworn to secrecy regarding the answers, so please do not call me later to discuss.
It was then, out of the corner of my eye, that I saw the tattoo parlor.......
To be continued.......
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