I’m not a city guy…
… neither is Toby!
After spending a mere 24 hours here in San Francisco, I’ve determined, after believing otherwise for the last few years, that I am not cut out for the “city life”. Don’t get me wrong, we are staying in a wonderful apartment, in a great part of the city and the weather has been great. Also, this has nothing to do with being in the city with Toby. He’s just an extension of me! He keeps me in line, if anything!
What didn’t I like about the city this time?
For one, parking is a mess. I’ve always known that parking in the city could be a disaster, and with no big events going on in the middle of the week, it should have been fine. But, I am being frugal and decided that I did not want to pay to park in a garage for two nights and that I would take advantage of street parking. Well, first you have to find a spot. And you have to pay attention to where that spot is. Is there any parking restrictions? Do you need a special permit? What about street sweeping? Some streets are swept every night between midnight and 6am while some are Mon-Wed-Fri or Tue-Thu. Some are 2 hours, some are 1 and some are …… free! But not around here. Parking in the evening and overnight isn’t that bad, but you have to know when the meter starts. You can write down the meter number and use your phone to prepay for the first two hours in the morning – that will get you to 11am. But if you park in the middle of the day (before 6pm) you can only park for 1 or 2 hours at a time before you need to move your car to another spot. Oh, how fun.
What else? Homeless people. It’s unfortunate that they are homeless but they don’t have to be disrespectful. Today I showed up after lunch to take a quick nap before dinner. (I like naps – a lot) I showed up and there was a homeless man sleeping (passed out) in front of the door. I spoke to him … nothing … yelled … nothing. Didn’t want to kick him. He was passed the f out. So, I called the police non-emergency number and asked what I should do. She asked if he was breathing … yes .. I think so. She said she has to send the fire department out to check on him and started asking questions… that’s when he shifted around.. and passed out again…. she said that she was just gonna send a cop over. Okay Toby, let’s go grab a beer. When I came back, he was gone. What if I was on a time crunch? What if this was my place and I was bringing a date back? What if this person had a weapon? Sometimes they are dangerous from the drug use. Not worth it.
Finally, last night, I had a pretty bad door dash experience. Door dash is an app that you can use to order food from pretty much any restaurant. You pay though the app, tip your driver and get your food delivered to your door in about 30 minutes. Or that’s how it’s supposed to work. Since I got in kinda late and didn’t want to deal with moving my car or locating a good dog friendly restaurant, I decided to DoorDash some Thai food. Except when the app said delivered, it was clear that it was not delivered to me. The driver had been texting me the whole time, too! “Be there in 9 mins!” “Almost there” so when I said “Hey, the app says delivered but I don’t have any food here”, she admitted that she just gave it to the guy outside. She pulled up and said, “Are you Matthew waiting for Door Dash” and the guy said “Yes” and she GAVE HIM MY FOOD and drove away! Door Dash was great. They re-ordered my food and had it here in …. 45 minutes. Remember the part when I said it was kinda late? Well…. the best part is the customer service guy said “I will ask the driver to buzz your apartment and ask to see ID”. So I was ready with my ID and the driver said, nah, it’s cool I don’t need to see it. Ughhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh.
But there was good to our visit. Today we visited Land’s End – a part of the city I’ve never been to and has a bunch of dog-friendly trails and beaches. The ruins of the Sutro Baths and some old shipwrecks. Toby loved it and so did I. The ocean is amazing. The waves crashing, the fresh air, the wildlife…. I swear it has healing powers. We had lunch in the Castro (where I scored some free parking) and dinner in the SOMA StrEAT food park, which is a lot full of rotating food trucks. We walked by Bloodhound but it was dark and pretty busy and I felt like I put Mr. Toby through enough these past few days. He’s a trooper, that’s for sure.
Tonight I am a little more thankful for my apartment in Vacaville. It doesn’t have the social life that exists here in SF, but it’s perfect for Toby and I! Great location, great value, and really close to work. And SF is just an hour away! 🙂