I just got back from San Francisco and it was absolutely wonderful! My friend Michael and I stayed with another friend that I graduated with who is attending San Francisco University. It was wonderful not to have to pay for a hotel for our week long stay in the city! We definitely hit everything in the city! We got in last Friday and caught up with her for a while, before heading down to the marathon expo, then walked on down to Fisherman’s Wharf and got some Ghiradelli ice cream! Delicious! The free chocolate square was pretty good too!
Saturday we hopped on the BART and headed out through Oakland to Walnut Creek and met Michael’s aunt and uncle at McCovey’s Restaurant for a bit to eat. We headed back into San Fran that night to get some rest for the marathon the next morning. My knee is doing MUCH better! I ran and finished which is all that counts! I thought I wouldn’t be able to! For a long explanation and detailed synopsis of the marathon go to my blog www.nobachingdown.wordpress.com I updated late last night a lengthy blog update on the whole of the race. It really was a great trip!
On Sunday night Haley (the girl we stayed with), Michael, and I met up with our other friend from high school (all of us former Marysville Pilchuck Tomahawks) for dinner on the Wharf at Cioppino’s Italian seafood place. It was fantastic! I had some shrimp pasta! They did have a crab pizza that looked great too! Monday we ventured out (much to my soreness) and walked all across town. We were staying down near Golden Gate Park, so we bused down to one end, and walked all the way through it taking in the different sights. There were supposed to be buffalo in one part, but they weren’t there. We did however get to sit in Kezar Stadium, the old home of the 49ers Football team! So that was exciting! We then made our way down Haight Street to look at the Hippies and crazies, stopping in at this huge music and movie store which was great!
Still on Monday we walked down 24th street off of Mission and looked at all these fabulous murals that had been painted. People have been doing it for ages and they’re amazing. The details in all of them are breathtaking. Eventually that day we made our way down to AT&T Ballpark for the Giants game! They lost, but it was still a lot of fun. I got to meet one of Michael’s friends from Stanford who met us down for the game.
Tuesday came and we visited the other parts of the city. We hit China town, Japan town, little Italy (where we had lunch at this little place on the side of the street), we walked through the Financial district, and through the Russian part of town. We found this huge staircase on Filbert Street, we walked down it and my muscles were killing me for doing it. It was a gorgeous staircase though. Trees and plants growing all around it made it seem as though you were walking down through a forest instead of in the city. We ended back up on the Wharf for some time again that day. We did go see the crooked street and the Full House houses too!
Wednesday was a little more low key. We went back down to the Wharf for a little souvenir shopping. I bought a nice jacket from down there as well as a bunch of chocolate from Ghiradelli’s for my family and friends! Then we took off Thursday after taking Haley out to dinner on Wednesday!
Overall it was a fantastic trip! San Francisco is such a gorgeous city! I cannot wait to go back some day! It was my first time in California and San Francisco, if you read my blog you’ll find I have an unexplained affinity to San Francisco, I just love it even more now!
Brandonnobach's Blog 
[…] The trip was great! My friend Michael Thompson and I stayed with another Tomahawk athlete of ours Haley Nemra. She was a fantastic and gracious host, we are completely grateful for her and her roommates for allowing us a place to crash for our week in San Fran. Now those who know me know I have an affinity for this city. Which is why I chose to make it the place I would attempt to run my California marathon, and I knew if I didn’t finish I would come back again to this race and finish what I started. I wouldn’t need to at the end of Sunday, but I would gladly go back and run it again. If you understood that statement correctly you will realize that I did start and finish the San Francisco Marathon without a problem. It was honestly a miracle that I finished and I thank everyone who kept my running and myself in their prayers that day and this summer, I could not have done it without you. There is a lot more about the race and the city of San Francisco that I could talk about, which is why I will direct you to two other blog entries. The first is a report of the race over on my other blog, Nobaching Down. That link will take you directly to my race report, you can access all sorts of other blogs that have been posted this year about my running on that site as well!. The second is actually a blog post that I just put up on this site for the sake of those wanting to know outside of my race. It is actually an email that I sent to one of my bosses here on campus who wished to know what I thought of San Francisco! Update on San Francisco! […]