Last Friday, I left Boston for San Francisco to compete in the third and final Urbanathlon. I was able to run it as a relay instead of a solo, which consisted of myself, Cassey, and roomie.
On Friday night, we went out to dinner in SF to Mamacita. OMG. It was so delicious. The tuna tartare might have been one of the best things I have ever eaten. It was made with mango and avocado. The picture below does not do it justice because it was so dark in the restaurant and I didn’t think to the flash on (blame the happy hour). We also got some mole enchilada type things that I loved. I recently discovered my love for mole. I think it’s because they usually use cocoa in it, and my sweet tooth instinctively knows this.
On Saturday, we got up early and grabbed breakfast La Boulange. Roomie had an egg sandwich with avocado and bacon with fruit. It looked so good.
I had the homemade granola with greek yogurt, fruit and honey. It was huge, filling and delicious. I love a good homemade granola and figured SF would have a good recipe. La Boulange was so cute. They have a condiment bar with Nutella! That sold this place on me.
After breakfast, it was time to visit Alcatraz! I bought tickets during the week because apparently it sells out days in advance. We took the 10 am boat across. We walked from breakfast to the pier and saw lots of middle aged Asian women doing Tai Chi in a park. When I say a lot, there were like 10 groups of 10-15 women. This was new to me and I found it very interesting. Roomie says they have similar groups in Boston but I have never seen them.
Alcatraz used to be the highest security prison in America up until 1963 when it closed due to high operating costs. Famous criminals once stayed here like Al Capone, the Birdman and Whitey Bulger. I love history so this was very exciting for me.
Once you take the boat over, you have the chance to watch a 12-minute video with some background on the prison and the island. Then you walk up to the jail and receive an ipod like device with an audio tour. It guides you through the jail cells, telling you the stories of the prison with interesting facts and history as narrated by former prison guards and inmates.
It’s a really quick ferry ride that has awesome views of the city.
It’s crazy to think criminals actually lived here only 50 years ago!
If you visit San Francisco, I highly recommend going for a visit. Afterwards, we met up with a few friends and checked out North Beach and other obligatory tourist stops like Lombard Street, the windiest street in America. It was so cute! We had dinner at a place called The House which was very good as well. I definitely ate my way through SF.
On Sunday, we met Cassey at the starting line at 6 am. You can read my race recap at Crushing The Course. It was so much fun! It was the most challenging course by far, so I am glad I did it as a relay. I also realized I like the longer distances because you can “coast” rather than kill yourself the entire time. I got pretty dirty and had a blast.
I am now in Los Angeles for work and flying back tonight on the Red Eye! Ewww. I hate the red eye. I’ve had so much fun and I’ll update more later but have you ever visited San Francisco? I think traveling for races might be my new favorite thing to do!
