Finally decided to try to get some sleep around 2345 only to discovery that our upstairs window unit a/c had crapped out! The room was just a bit stuffy and warm. Will need to buy a new a/c for next year. This LG a/c was only 2 1/2 years old. So, I got some fitful sleeping on our couch and finally got up at 0245 to check work e-mail 1 last time, finish packing up the electronics and, shower. Rosie got up just before 0300. I called Terry's again at 0415 and amazingly got a person after only about 3 mins of wait. She assured me that the driver was on his way and had been called and dispatched at 0330 to head our way from Mo-town. She put me on hold for over 5mins to see if she could find out where he was. When she got back on the phone, she told me that the driver had fallen asleep and would get to our house by 0515, apologies, and would gladly knock $15 off our fare for the inconvenience! I was quite chapped but, only gave her a little hard time. It was never about the fare but about trusting them to pick us up when asked to get us to the airport so we wouldn't be late and have to drive ourselves... geeez. We just cancelled our reservation, curtly, and decided to drive ourselves - our backup plan. Not sure I ever want to use Terry's Taxi service again, pretty rinky-dink, and the times we've used them before, their performance has been spotty.
So, packed up the Hyundai and was on the road at 0440, only 10min late, and got to the airport by 0530 - great time even with the amount of traffic on the road at this early hour. Check-in was a breeze, so was security. Turns out that because of my travel to Canada and my Nexus status that I'm also an approved TSA pre-check traveller... unfortunately, Rosie is not and the privilege only extends to the individual. I went through 1 line while Rosie went the normal route with all the process driven today by the ongoing threat of terrorism in our country. I, on the other hand, did not have to take off my shoes or belt, did not have to break out my liquids or laptop and walked right through screening pretty near like the old days! How refreshing! I didn't beat Rosie by much since the queues were so light on this particular Friday in Newark at this security check point.
Gathered ourselves up and headed over to our gate, 82. Decided to have breakfast in our favorite Terminal C diner (OK, the only diner we're aware of in Newark's terminals), the Garden State Diner, very near gate 82, for a good, hearty, healthy breakfast. Was nice to just chill before heading to our gate by 0630.
I've become quite fond of upgrading to 'Economy Plus' seating on our flights. Gets you moved up to zone 2 for boarding - a very good thing - and the extra leg room you pay for is well worth the minimal cost. We boarded on time, 0650, and made our way to our seats, 11D-E, in the B737-900 for our 5+30 flight out to 'Frisco. We were delayed for about 10mins past taxi time due to one of our aircrew coming in late on another flight. I don't think it will impact our arrival time even though we were about 20min late for takeoff. Wheels-in-well at ~0750. All things being equal, we should still arrive about on time and beat Conor into San Fran by about 1 hr.
More later....
I'm back! It's actually early Saturday morning, 9/14, almost 5am Cali time - 8am NJ. I'm sitting on 1 of the 2 chairs in our hotel room here in San Francisco, in the dark, Conor's still sleeping and Rosie's up browsing Facebook on her iPhone (more on that shortly). We're staying at the Holiday Inn off of Columbus St., just 1 block off the waterfront and all of the various piers, quite close to Fisherman's Wharf on Pier 39.
What a day we had yesterday, Friday the 13th! I've never really bought in to the whole bad luck thing but, on reflection, we may have become unwary victims of this superstition filled day! Having teased with that thought, we also had a fabulous day all things considered.
Tack is on to the end of my 2nd post:
Tack is on to the end of my 2nd post:
Three hours into our flight while I'm listening to my iPod and playing sudoku on my iPad, out of the corner of my eye I notice that Rosie is searching frantically through her carry-on. I ask why? She tells me she can't find her iPad and believes she forgot it at security in Newark. For the next 30min, we discuss/speculate on all of the possible things that might have happened to her iPad if it fell into less than charitable hands, particularly since she's never put a password lock on her device: Loss of personal info, hijacking her AOL e-mail, complete access to her Facebook account. In a word: Panicked
The last 2 1/2hrs of the flight were very uncomfortable. Rosie prayed the entire remaining flight until we landed.
Conor had not yet arrived so, we spent the entire time in the airport trying to call AOL, TSA in Newark and the kids to see what ideas they had to help secure all of our concerns with the 'lost' iPad. I ended up getting charged $99.99 by AOL India for absolutely nothing! Collossal waste of time - not to mention the fact the this charge was like highway robbery... they don't tell you what they will do to secure your account - unless you pay first. The only slight good that came from it was that they enabled a blocking service on any device trying to access fujirose based on the MAC address of the device. Big whoop! I/we really hated working with them... they speak English (much better than I speak Indian) but, not our English AND, they actually get snippy!! Heck, I could have changed our login password after logging off fujirose myself.
The best thing that happened was that Rosie got Mike on the phone, Mike drove to Newark and located our lost iPad!! TSA had actual put it into lost and found and it did not look like any tampering had occurred. Mike was able to prove who he was based on his driver's license photo and TSA seeing his photo on the iPad! Talk about RELIEF! So, in summary on this Friday, 9/13:
- flooded garage
- upstairs a/c died
- my lingering sickness including stuffed head with congestion and some coughing
- no taxi ride
- lost iPad
- Enterprise forgot we were coming
- I forgot my GPS
... WAY glad to get all the bad behind us!
On the good side of the day and on this vacation, we have plenty to be happy about....
Rendezvoused with Conor at SFO, rode the Airtrain to the Rental area to pick up our 1 way rental with Enterprise, a small jeep SUV - plenty good for us.
Side Note: Another not-so-good thing that happened to us (but was quite amicably resolved) was that Enterprise lost/forgot that we had booked a reservation way back in June for this trip. Fortunately, Rosie had printed out our confirmed reservation and the folks at Enterprise honored the booking at the stated fare. All good but, could have been a very bad thing on this Friday the 13th!
Left the airport and drove via Hwy 101N to our Holiday Inn located just 1 block off of the main pier/wharf drag near the water. Most everything we had intended to see was easily walkable with a good stretch of the leg. Hotel parking turned out to be under the hotel and cost $45 with taxes! More expensive than NYC but, whadda ya gonna do? They certainly move at a slower pace out here particularly when trying to check in! Took awhile and the best we could do, since our room was not ready - it was about 1300 local - was to drop off our bags with the Porter and head out for a stroll along the wharf until our room became available after 1500.
San Francisco is just gorgeous this time of year, albeit a bit on the windy side - great for America's Cup sailing! Weather seems to always start and end with some cool fog but then, tends to clear up very nicely during the later morning hours into the late afternoon. The waterfront area is alive with pedestrians, I'd guess mostly tourists like us, and all of the personal modes of transportation to get around one can think of from: bicycles ala: Key West, Seqway tours, 3 wheel carts, roller blades, skate boards, rick shaws and feet, lots of feet.
We made our way over to the National Maritime Museum area and enjoyed seeing all the ships from bygone days, how they were powered, how primarily wooden boats were made, rigging areas and many displays of seamanship along the wharf. This area is directly down from Ghiradelli's chocolate factory and the hub of 1 of San Francisco's cable car turnarounds. As you might expect we took a lot of photos of the displays, ships on the bay, Alcatraz and the Golden Gate Bridge before exiting to find a nice outdoor cafe to have our first cold beverage of the trip.
Returned to the hotel to pick up our baggage and move to our room, 452, to clean up before heading out to a very special birthday dinner for Conor. He could only get us 1700 dinner reservations for three at a very cool concept venue known as a 'pop up' restaurant. As I understand it, pop-up restaurants do just that, they pop up at specific locales usually associated with some other major event and stay open for only a limited time before closing up shop and moving on. This pop-up restaurant was specifically here on the wharfs of San Francisco for the 34th America's Cup between the Challenger, Kiwis, and the Defender, USA. Very New Zealander themed, the Waiheke Island Yacht Club restaurant was AWESOME! They just 'popped up' in a warehouse on pier 29??.
Was a good stretch of the leg for us from the hotel but, we hoofed it anyway... was about a 1.5mile hike - not bad. The ambiance was very cool, minimalist but not lacking. There was a bar area, dining area and cooking area. Many of the folks at the bar appeared to be New Zealanders. The matre de was definitely a Kiwi. The menu was ecclectic, very unusal but, excellent. The wine and beer were also not typical fare you'd see at most other restaurants. We really enjoyed the 1+30 we spent there over dinner... the food was outstanding and reasonably sized, not like the gargantuan portions many US restaurants serve up. I had beef, Rosie had Salmon and, Conor had lamb - who knew Conor loved lamb?? Amazing. :-) What a great start to our holiday and a great find by Conor finding out about this venue from a buddy. The entire experience with tip only came to ~$250 - more than reasonable for the experience and cuisine.
Rosie and I were starting to drag so we leisurely headed back to the Holiday Inn and got back around 1915 and just chilled for the rest of the evening. We have an action packed day scheduled for tomorrow, Saturday, 9/14.
Until my next post....
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