Honeymoon Part 4 of 5

Friday, June 01... continued

We landed in San Fransisco around 1pm.  It took me longer to get through customs than Teh German.  We headed to the baggage carousel to claim our luggage and waited and waited and waited..... and we realized we were missing a suitcase.  THE suitcase, in fact.  The piece of luggage with all our clothes in it and 3 bottles of wine.  

I was practically slapping myself on the back for the forethought to pack changes of clothes in the carry on.  The biggest problem with lost luggage was that we weren't going to be in one place for a long enough period of time for them to actually deliver the luggage, should it arrive.  We were told that the suitcase would be on the same flight, the following day, so it would arrive around the same time on Saturday.  We got a ticket number and left.   

We had a rental car through Super Cheap Rental Cars and they actually picked us up at the airport.  After signing the paperwork, we headed to Sacramento.  Teh Sister had already booked our hotel room, so we headed there and checked in.  YAY for friends and family discounts! Our sweet suite that was definitely at least $300 a night had been discounted to $100.  Yes, Plskthx.   

 

Teh German and I brought our stuff in and relaxed for a short time (aka we went business because flying is the absolute worst on both of our bodies and we get a little....  inconsistent).  During this time, Teh Dad called me freaking out about his car rental and delayed flights and a dead cell phone battery.   

What had happened was that he and Teh Stepmom, who I felt more sorry for than Teh Dad, missed their flight out of Atlanta by 5 minutes after getting stuck in Charlotte due to weather.  They were able to get a later flight to San Francisco, but the rental car reservation was in San Jose, where they were originally supposed to fly into.  I was tasked with calling Priceline to sort it out.   

I pulled out that maiden name card to get shit done.  While all this was happening, Teh German and I had decided on a dinner place around the block and we headed there.  I was that asshole who sat on my phone for half of our dinner since I was on hold with Priceline for a mabillionty years.  It was actually a 50 minute call, but it was rude and I hated it, but it was a necessity, so I did it.  Priceline eventually got everything sorted out, I made a new car reservation for Teh Dad.  He hadn't told me when he was due to fly in, so I had to guess which flight he was on to make the car reservation.  Good thing I'm smart! After I finally got off the phone, I also got to enjoy dinner.   

We learned that our server was actually about to move to Bali to live the scuba traveler life.  Teh German was excited about all the different divers that we were meeting in random places.  We eventually headed back to the hotel and got ready for bed and crashed.  I made sure to send Teh Dad the text that said, "Do not call me unless it's an emergency because this day has been about 48 hours long and we had less than 4 hours of sleep the entire time." I, thankfully, did not receive a call.

___________________________________________________

Saturday, June 02

I woke up at 0630 ready to face the day. #TimeChangeWoes  I texted Teh Dad to see if he had made it and he responded a little bit later.  I also texted Teh Sister to see if she was awake yet.  Teh Dad, Teh Sister, and I ended up going down to breakfast around 7 and eating. 

Teh Sister had arrived around 10:30/11pm, Teh Dad had gotten in around 0400.  But we were all hungry.  Eventually, spouses trickled down except for Teh Stepmom, but we encouraged Teh Dad to deliver her breakfast to the room. 
 
After breakfast, Teh Sister, Sis Friend, and I walked to Starbucks down the street and then headed back to the hotel to get ready for the graduation ceremony.  The ceremony was a few blocks away, so it didn't take long to get there.  Teh Mom met us at the conference center.  We finally found a seat in the upper reaches of the seating area.  I was impressed at how quick the ceremony was, considering the number of graduates.  They didn't deter cheering, but made sure that everyone could hear the names being read.  We were out of there by 1235. 

"Resting his eyes"...
since 1986...

SIBLINGS!
Well, one of us is missing.  Dammit, BIL.

We checked out of the hotel, since we had already loaded the car before the ceremony.  After everyone was checked out, we headed to the brunch place.  We had to wait a bit for a table, but it was ok.  We eventually got our table but the place wasn't air conditioned and we were DYING.  Also, flies.  Ugh.  We were all glad when the meal was over and we had paid and left.

Teh German and I headed to San Fransisco, via the Golden Gate Bridge, since we hadn't left the city that way when we arrived.  We made a pitstop at a Walmart to pick up some extra underwear since that was the only thing we were going to run out of before I was able to do laundry again.  I had mailed dress clothes and shoes for the graduation ceremony to Teh Sister before we left, so that covered Saturday.  We'd packed an extra set of clothes for just in case, which covered Sunday.  We were flying out on a red eye Sunday night that would arrive Monday morning, so we might be smelly, but we wouldn't be naked!

Once we got into the city, we stopped at one of the northern view points for the Golden Gate Bridge, parked illegally, and expeditiously hiked up the hill to get some pics and take a look around, and then hiked back to the car with a quickness.  Fortunately, we were able to see the Golden Gate Bridge most of the time that we were in San Fransisco, so it wasn't that big of a deal that we only did a 5 minute "oo that's pretty" peek.  After, we headed into the city to our Air BnB. 

Our Air BnB was equipped with a resident cat, Bee, who decided I was his bestie.  And I was ok with that, until he bit me when he was playing with me.  I have hard limits about biting (animals)...  and licking (humans)... 

We decided to do some touristy things and walk around the piers.  I wanted to show him Pier 39 with the shopping and the sea lions.  We also walked to Ghirardelli Square and walked through the shop, but didn't buy anything.  We wanted to get dinner.  I was originally going for a German place, but then we opted for pizza nearby since the German place was pretty far away.  The pizza was mediocre and the prices were outrageous.  #SFProblems After dinner, we headed back to the Air BnB, met our host, then crashed.

___________________________________________________

Sunday, June 03

We had brunch plans with Teh Sister, Sis Friend, Teh Dad and Teh Stepmom in the AM, so we headed there after moving the rental car to the street near the Air BnB since the host tipped us off that street parking was free on Sundays!  We weren't allowed to be seated until everyone was there, ugh, so we waited outside the restaurant for everyone to arrive.   

There was a couple with a puppy at the other table outside and I got to pet the puppy as we chatted with the Puprents.  Eventually Teh Dad and Teh Stepmom arrived, and they had time to change into warmer clothes while we waited on Teh Sister to arrive.  We were seated and had a delicious breakfast.  

I had noticed that a cable car turn around point was down the street from our brunch location, so after brunch we opted to ride the cable car to Market Street and then back to Fisherman's Wharf.  Teh German and I had tickets for Alcatraz at 1230 and in true Megan form...  a disaster was brewing.  

We had to wait an hour to get back on the return cable car (we got to see someone get arrested for harassing the customers and employees of the cable car) and then it stopped further away than I had planned on, so Teh German and I had to speed walk/run to the Alcatraz pier.  I didn't read the part about being 30 minutes early to catch your ferry, so we missed the ferry by 3 minutes.  Since I hadn't printed the tickets (because it was one less thing for me to keep up with since we were making a lot of stops), I had to stop by will call, where they printed out our tickets.  We got in line, and when the tickets were scanned, I learned that I had purchased tickets for April 15th, NOT June 3rd.  This is my life, Gentle Readers.   

Fortunately, the ticket people took pity on me and gave us standby tickets, meaning if there was space they would let us on the ferry to go to the island.  They realized that we hadn't used the tickets on April 15th and it was an operator error, so it wasn't like we were trying to cheat the system.  We were  extra fortunate though, because there was no one else in the standby line.  Bless my soul.  

We eventually made it onto the 1pm ferry.  It was a hike up to the prison and we were both SOOOOO over all the walking.  Both of us had sore legs and calves.  At the prison, you are equipped with an audio tour, which you could actually just read off the printed out signs...  Boo.  I like live tour guides since they are able to tell you interesting tidbits that a recording definitely isn't going to give you.  

After our tour, we walked around the island and I took some flower pics (of course).  As we were meandering back, Teh German noticed the ferry was doing a last call so we ran down to the landing to make the ferry.  We had escaped Alcatraz!  

Teh Sister had stayed in San Fransisco with Sis Friend, Teh Dad, and Teh Stepmom to tour, and when we got back, she headed towards the airport to meet us at cell phone parking.  She had volunteered to drop off our rental car to save us some time.  She headed to the rental car place and Sis Friend dropped us off at international arrivals.   

I had called the Air New Zealand contact who had told me that our luggage still hadn't come in...  because it had went all the way to Chile (our initial Sydney flight had a final destination of Santiago, which makes sense).  Rather than bother trying to receive it while were in MD, I told them to forward it to CHS and deliver it to our house.  After Chile, it had been to Miami, and it was inbound to San Fransisco, but we needed to check into to our flight and couldn't wait on the bag to maybe arrive.  We took the $200 voucher and cashed it and headed to our terminal.   

There was some confusion over where the Jet Blue terminal was and we got to take a confusing train ride where we eventually made it to our terminal.  Once there, I needed to balance the luggage weights again, so we did that and munched on sourdough bread that we had purchased the night prior since I realized we couldn't carry it through security.  

Once we got checked in (luggage weight wasn't an issue what with missing a bag), we headed through security, which took way longer than I felt it needed to.  Once we got through security, we headed to a place where we could find food.  Teh German had a beer, I had wings and a gin and ginger ale, and we mostly just sat in silence and played on social media.   

Once I was done eating and Teh German had confirmed he wasn't getting food, I paid and we headed to our gate.  Once there, they announced that our flight to Boston had no audio for any of the video players so passengers should probably grab a magazine or book from the stores.  Fantastic, as this didn't apply to me, as I planned on sleeping.  While we waited, I did some preflight stretching and eventually it was time to board.   

Unfortunately, the person sharing our row was smelly and there wasn't much sleep to be had with my jacked up sleep schedule.  I mostly just played games on my phone and read and tried to channel some inner zen. 

Honeymoon Adventures

Part 1: SC to MD, MD to Cairns
Part 2: Scuba Diving the Great Barrier Reef
Part 3: Sydney Touristing
Part 4: California (San Francisco and Sacramento)
Part 5: MD to SC