spontaneous day trip to san fran with nicole!

The week after the giants beat the padres to clinch the NL West title, I found out that the San Francisco Chronicle released an extra edition of their paper on Sunday after the Giants' victory (thanks to Jonathan Sanchez ♥). After I found this out, I made it my goal to get several copies of this paper. Well after maybe about 10 phone calls to different departments of the Chronicle, I finally found out that I could pick up some copies at the main building in San Francisco. Seeing as how San Francisco is almost an hour away, I didn't want to just drive out there and then drive back by myself. So I enlisted the help of my friend Nicole. Nicole moved home from San Diego like me, and we both needed this trip to the city. So I drove to Nicole's place and she drove us out to San Francisco on a beautiful Friday morning. Well, by the time we got to the city, it was almost lunch time so we stopped by the Chronicle, where I marched to the front desk and they handed me 5 copies for 10 bucks (SOO WORTH IT!) Here is the glorious paper itself :)

brian wilson looks glorious

After I had the golden copies in my hand, I decided to take Nicole to this place I had seen a few weeks ago for lunch. It's called the American Grilled Cheese Kitchen. This may or may not be the best decision of my life (I'll let you guess..it's not the latter). As you know, I am a believer in grilled cheese and I am pretty sure this place has mastered it (I also love mac and cheese and want to try this glorious place in NYC someday). It's a little pricey, around 7-8 bucks for a sandwich, but I would definitely go back. It was pretty packed at lunch time, so I think it's pretty popular in the area. I also forgot to tell you that you can park in this adorable loop with a park in the center. If I could live in SF, I would want to live in this little circle. Did I mention this place is like a 2 minute walk to AT&T park (yes, Matt I did just say 2 minutes)? Anyways, this place might be one of my favorite places in San Francisco!! I'm also a little ashamed to admit it, but we did get beers with lunch just because they were 3 bucks during lunch time. Plus it sounded good with my grilled cheese. I got the Piglet sandwich (with ham and apple mustard) and Nicole got the Jalapeno Popper (with bacon and apricot-jalapeno relish). When Matt comes and visits, I am totally taking him here! He will probably die from how deliriously wonderfully amazing these sandwiches are (because he is the reason I love grill cheese).

meet nicole!

Anyways, afterward we wolfed down our yummy sandwiches, I decided that Nicole had to try the delicious watermelon beer from the 21st amendment bar, since it was right across the street. How many times do you get to try watermelon beer (twice for me so far). Trust me, we had no intention of getting beers with anything that day, but it kind of just happened. Nicole loved it! It's hard not to love...it's sweet, crisp, and very refreshing and you get a delicious slice of watermelon with it. I also decided to try a sample of their imperial espresso stout. Not really my cup of tea (or coffee)...but I could see Matt loving this. He loves coffee and he loves beer. It's the perfect combination. I'll have to take him back here to try it. This whole date with Nicole just became a redo list for Matt and I.

espresso stout

Nicole and I decided to do a little shopping at Union Square. We hit up Forever 21 (which might be the biggest one I've ever been in....no joke it's 3 FULL stories), Aldo (where Nicole bought two pairs of boots in different colors because they were only 20 bucks), Urban Outfitters (where I found the cutest book ever....called Other People's Love Letters), and just walked around the square. Did I mention how much I love San Francisco? It's beautiful and alive and crisp and sooooo wonderful there. I would love to find a job and settle down right there. Needless to say, Nicole and I wore ourselves out a little bit shopping and eating! However, next time I'm in SF, I'm going to try their hot dog vendor carts and close my eyes and pretend for a second that I'm in New York City. But that will have to wait til next time. I wish Matt could be here so we could take a spontaneous trip to San Francisco tomorrow :)

i love people who love the giants

PS. Macys in Union Square is ready for Christmas! I'll keep trying to wait til Nov 1 to celebrate and start watching Christmas movies and listening to Christmas songs and changing my ringtone to "All I want For Christmas is You."

christmas!!!!

PPS. Did you figure out why I needed 5 copies? Well one for me, and one for matt, and one for my friend Lunani, and one for Matt's brother Josh and one for his parents :)