My last day in San Francisco has been both happy and sad. Happy because I got to spend one more day in this amazing city and it was so nice, warm and sunny but sad because I was leaving in the evening.
After waking up and packing (I literally had to sit on my bag to be able to close it!), we walked to Starbucks in Fisherman’s Wharf near the cable car for a tall double latte to go. We walked along the pier towards the Golden Gate Bridge next to many joggers and bicyclists out on Saturday morning for an early workout and, for sure, also enjoying this nice weather.
I browsed some of the stores along the pier and bought some more gifts and souvenirs but then hunger kicked in so we headed straight to Applebee’s. I ordered the cheeseburger with fries, one last time because from now on I am back to a healthier diet and more exercises.
After an early lunch, we went to check out at the hotel and to check in for our flight at the hotel computer. The flight check in took us at least 30 minutes because the airline website is so terrible and the whole check in experience is just awful. I think it’s suffice to say that the ticket is displayed in a popup window for printing but ALL hotel and home computers block popups and you can’t override it on a hotel computer! So we had to figure out a workaround but we finally managed it.
We left the luggage at the hotel (I love this that I can do this at the hotels instead of having to carry big heavy bags with me for half a day) and went to pier 39 for another nice walk, some ice cream, more shopping and the aquarium.
The aquarium is kind of nice but very small, I just don’t think that I got the value for the price I paid ($21 for adult plus taxes) but the ice cream with home made waffle cone at Dreyer’s was a good comfort afterwards. 😉
I think we walked like 10-12 kms that day, almost 20 000 steps according to my FitBit, but around 17 o’clock we picked up our luggage at the hotel and took the F streetcar to BART and then went to the airport.
Our flight was at 20:55 o’clock and we got to the airport at 17:30, on purpose this early so that we have enough time. Everything went smoothly though, there were no lines at the baggage dropoff nor at the passport check or at the body scanner so I had some more time to shop!!! 😉
I also met with some Build attendies at the airport, even though we don’t know each other personally, we recognized each other from the conference and greeted each other. I love the tech world and the community!
The plane was an Airbus, a lot smaller than the Boeing which brought me to San Francisco and hence less leg room (I even had a feeling that the seats were smaller) and very narrow aisle (everybody kept bumping into the seats). The food was terrible and I got sick after dinner, that chicken with rice was so bad and I wasn’t the only one, some other people got really sick too but the flight attendants were taking good care of everybody. Needless to say that I skipped breakfast.
I was 12 hours awake as we boarded the plane but I decided that I have to stay awake till I get home to beat the jetlag so I started watching movies just like during the flight to SFO. I wanted to watch The Wolf Of Wall Street but I stopped it after 30 minutes, it’s a good movie but it’s 3 hours long and too explicit, let’s just say that it’s not something you wanna watch in a plane full of people. I watched The Secret Life Of Walter Mitty with Ben Stiller but I didn’t really like it so much, what I did like was 12 Years A Slave, highly recommend it!
I managed to watch only 2 movies compared to 5 on the flight to SFO because I took naps between and during the movies involuntarely. 🙂
The flight took about 11 hours and after 2 hours layover and another 30 minutes flight I was finally home again. At this point I was awake for 26 hours if I don’t count the naps.
I packed out the fragile items from my luggage and thanks to jetlag watched 30 Rock till midnight and set up my Nokia Lumia Icon but then I slept like a rock till noon on the next day. So all in all I was awake for about 30 hours totally.
It’s Monday and luckily I took vacation for today to recover somehow from the jetlag. I always sleep well on the first night because of the exhaustion after travelling and the next 2-3 nights are more problematic but I hope that it will be better this time since I have to go to work starting from tomorrow.
After 12 hours of sleep I feel so fresh now and I have to stay awake till evening even though I will be tempted to sleep again soon because daytime here is nighttime in SFO.
I am thinking to go running later, I definitely have to do some grocery shopping and I have to take my iPhone to the Apple store to have the battery checked out (I had 60% in SFO, switched off the phone completely during the flight but I had only 23% after the flight and one minute later the phone switched itself off because it was out of juice). Now that I have my Icon I can live without my iPhone for a few days, I might even switch to WP completely! 😉
P.S.: Here are all the pictures from the trip. Unfortunately only iPhone pics, I didn’t bring my Canon. 😦
FitGeekGirl 
