An Old Friend in San Francisco

This month I am on reserve, which generally blows because I have no set schedule. I am at the beck and call of the airline and basically wait to be given a trip. My first trip I was assigned this month was a three day trip with layovers in Austin and San Francisco. The worst part of the whole deal was that the last flight was an all night red-eye from SFO back home. The best part was that I had the whole afternoon and evening in SFO on a Saturday. I emailed the two people I know who live there, both friends from high school back in Florida: Ingrid and Virali. Ingrid was out of town in Seattle because she was presenting at a medical conference. Virali, however, was in town and so we made plans to meet up.

Because we arrived into SFO in the late morning and were leaving that same night on the red eye, we were at a short layover hotel near the airport. Virali came and picked me up and we went out for South Indian cuisine at a restaurant called Annapoora. It was good, although aside from the curry and chutney, I had no idea what I was really eating. It kind of reminded me of the Indian food I had in Malaysia when I would go and visit my friends Carla and Steven.

Since it was still more than 8 hours "bottle to throttle" we decided to go to a place Virali had seen on the way to the hotel called the Elephant Bar for a cocktail. We got lost trying to get back towards the area of the hotel because there was construction everywhere. Things were a mess.

We finally found the bar after wandering through the winding streets of Burlingame. It sat right on the water with a beautiful view of the city, but unfortunately, the bar had no outside seating. I ordered a gin martini (with pearl onions) and Virali ordered a Becks. All in all a nice way to spend the afternoon.

She dropped me back at the hotel in the mid afternoon, and I fell right to sleep. I woke up at 11pm and got showered and dressed and around midnight we headed for the airport for the all night flight home. The passengers are great on these flights because they sleep. The hard part is trying to keep yourself awake. I had brought a TAB (remember TAB diet cola) energy drink with me, but it somehow managed to explode in my lunch tote the day before, so I chugged a Diet Dr. Pepper and rode the caffeine wave the whole way home.