Day 13: We Can't Get In The Garage!!

Today was the last day of our little weekend visit with Marina before she flew out this evening on a red eye back to Jersey. And wouldn't you know it, the sun finally decided to come out. In California. 

Brad had to work and the kids came home from school at various times today so we spent most of the day hanging out and watching Hoarders, like the good ol' days when we were neighbors. But once the kids and husband came home, we basically said "hello and goodbye" and headed out to San Francisco to spend the rest of the day there, since she conveniently flew out of SFO at 10 tonight. 

It seems that we can't go anywhere without it being a bit of an odyssey. You know, serial killer encounters and that sort of things. Well the city must have known we were coming. 


First of all, San Francisco is newish to me and especially driving through it, so I had google mapped the parking garage across the street to Pier 39 (you know, the super touristy Fisherman's Wharf area). 

So, we turn right and the parking lot is on the left. But I can't turn left into it, because there's barrier pole things in the way. So I pass the garage and turn right, intending to turn left to swing around the block and enter the garage from the right. 

Except I can't turn left, because it's a one way street. 

So we go back to where we started from, attempting to pass the garage completely and turn right. Maybe there's another entrance on the front of the garage. 

BUT I CAN'T TURN RIGHT. 

In a fit of rage, as I'm driving the complete opposite way of the parking garage for the third time, the complete outrage sets in. 

"We can't get in this garage!!!" 

Like, is there no entrance? Do we need to drop in from helicopter? Skydive in like Navy Seals? What the hell is this?

Just as I'm about to say "eff this", and turn left to plow right through those stupid barrier poles to get into that entrance one way or another, Marina notices a barely visible, near u-turn entrance on the side of the garage. 

A secret passageway. What is this, Harry Potter? 

To help you, here's a very accurate, to-scale visual aid of the parking garage and how to enter it. In case you need it, the next time you go to the Fisherman's Wharf. 

Once we finally got out of the damn car, we did the tourist thing on the wharf. Checked out the very verbal sea lions, went and had dinner on the pier, screwed around in a few shops. 

There's also a stairwell that is a piano. It somehow knows you're stepping on steps and plays piano keys for every step. Want to know how to cause a couple of thirty-somethings to create a scene? Throw piano stairs in front of them. See how fast they fly up and down the stairs and stomp and dance and spaz out on them like five year olds on Mountain Dew.

Me, seeing how fast I can play stair piano

It was after dark which means most of the tourists are long gone (ha!) so we had most of the wharf to ourselves. Until we stumbled upon a camera crew following this guy in a white suit in a bakery. A small crowd had formed and we're all "Who's this guy and why's he so important?" And everyone else goes "We have no idea!" But we can't stop watching him because there's a camera crew, which must mean he's somebody. So we hung around and watched him buy a crepe and then eat a crepe all while being filmed, and then stopping some kid on a remote control skateboard and asking to try it. So he did. And everyone clapped that he rode this skateboard even though no one knew who he was. Finally his bodyguard or homeboy or something overheard us and said "Oh, he's Larry Hernandez", and we're all "Oh, who the hell is Larry Hernandez?!" which prompted about 15 of us to whip out our phones and Google him. 

Larry Hernandez is a Mexican singer. And I guess he's famous and he has his own reality show called Larrymania on one of those Mexican television channels. 

Well, aren't we privileged? We got to witness an international superstar eat a crepe and ride a skateboard. 

Well my year is complete. 

Ladies and gentleman, Larry Hernandez! Whoever he is. 

Then, to complete today's saga, we went back to the cursed parking garage. I put the little parking ticket in the slot to pay whatever ten million dollars they intended on charging me. But the machine wouldn't take my ticket. So we tried the next one. And the next one. And the next one. And the machines kept spitting out the ticket. 

"WE CAN'T GET OUT OF THE GARAGE!!"

But then Marina's like "Wait, is this the right ticket?" And I immediately go "Of course it isn't" because I realized in that second that I had pulled the wrong parking ticket out of my wallet. It was the one from the mall two days ago. 

And that's why you can't take me anywhere. 

Well, the party is over and Marina is flying somewhere over somewhere on her way home. It's been real and it's been fun and we have determined that this not-visit-for-two-years crap is unacceptable, and we're already planning the next of what's going to become an annual visit.  

Thank you for the memories, my favorite!

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