Wow. Our 25th anniversary. Damn, that’s a long time, Petra B! I don’t regret it at all though.

And yes, there will be pictures here soon. But not yet!

We decided to take a short trip to San Francisco for our anniversary. We left Friday early afternoon and arrived a couple hours later at our first destination, a reuse/recycle store called Scrap. We found a few things there but not much, but it was still fun to look. Then we made our way through the traffic and rain to our hotel, the Galleria Park. It’s in a great location and close to a lot of things. We checked in, just in time for the free daily wine reception (translate: free wine). We were getting pretty hungry and luckily we had brought with us  a 24-page list of vegetarian/vegan friendly places. Good luck, there was a pizza place five blocks down the street that offered vegan cheese as an option so we walked in the drizzle, looking forward to the meal. Alas, they no longer offered the option so we left, a bit disappointed. But after checking on our phones, we found an all-vegan chinese food  restaurant less than half a mile away, just into Chinatown. We walked there, to the Lucky Creation. The rice was just ok, but the other two dishes were really good. Then back to the hotel and we called it a day.

Saturday we had a full day planned. We starting walking and stopped for a few minutes to watch people skate at the outdoor skating rink near Macy’s. Then we took a ride on the famous cable car system to the North Beach area. We had lunch at Cafe Sapora, with a number of vegan and vegetarian options on the menu. It was a tasty sandwich. Next we stopped at XOX Chocolates, a very small shop that also offered four types of vegan truffles. Dessert! Then we hopped a bus to the touristy area. We breezed through Ghirardelli Square, not finding much to see there, on past some street vendors, through the Fisherman’s Wharf area, and then to Pier 39. All tourist stuff but still fun and a nice way to spend the afternoon. We rode the cable car back and, lo and behold, at the turnaround end of the line there just happened to be a five-story record store, Rasputin Music! Yes, we spend a while there and our wallets got a little lighter too. So we walked back, pausing again briefly at the ice rink. But we were hungry again! We found a little place called California Golden Cookies and Cafe (really!). It was cold and damp outside but this place had the best vegan lentil soup I have ever had. So good. Then back to the hotel, just in time for the free wine reception! It was time for more shopping though, this time to Amoeba Music. Their three locations are huge, and this one is a former bowling alley and truly massive. Two and a half hours later they were getting ready to close so we grabbed our purchases and left. We headed a couple miles down Haight Street and had a vegan sandwich at Love and Haight. It was pretty good and at after 10:00 it was fine. And that was Saturday.

On Sunday we took the BART train over to the Mission District to go to a vegan restaurant (a chain of three actually) that we had been to a few years back, called Herbivore. We had a great brunch and we were ready for the day. We stopped at a nearby shoe store, the Bonita Trading Company, because Petra wanted some rain boots (yes, it was raining again) and she found some. We took the BART train back to the hotel and then went to spend the afternoon at the Museum of Modern Art. It was my first time there but I will be back. It was large and full of interesting art, all modern, which is what I like for the most part. Next, it was back to the hotel for that free wine reception again. Afterwards, we had dinner at a mall food court. Say what? Well, this was actually a vegan place in the food court, one of the worldwide Loving Hut locations. We thought we were going to see the play Hair in the evening but due to a scheduling mixup it didn’t happen. We were bummed about that but went back to the hotel and had a couple glasses of wine and got a decent night’s rest.

Then it was Monday, the day to go home. We took a brief walk at the third floor garden area and then checked out. We went back to Herbivore and had brunch again. And it was really good again, maybe even better than the day before. Instead of going home, though, we took a side trip to Santa Cruz, about an hour and a half southward. Our friends Larry and Robin live there and we always like to see them. But the draw that day for Petra was that former American Idol finalist James Durbin was at Streetlight Records signing copies of his first CD, released that very day. We stood in the cold for a couple hours and then got to talk to James and he signed her CD and t-shirt. He seems to be a really nice and genuine person. More power to him. We had dinner with Larry at Cafe Gratitude, a local vegan restaurant, which was very good. Then we said our goodbyes and drove home. It was a good trip!