Our flight got in a little earlier than scheduled and baggage claim was insanely fast. I don’t think I’ve ever gotten out of an airport as quickly as I did this morning – and that included a quick change out of my sweatpants and ordering a Lyft to get to my hotel.

Fortunately I was also able to get into my hotel room well ahead of the 3PM check-in time.

I’m staying at Music City Hotel which as its name suggests is entirely music themed. Incredible photos line its hallways of incredible musicians and quotes from history’s most notable – I haven’t even made my way around to all of them yet, the sheer volume of history you can learn just by being in this hotel is a little overwhelming when you’re fresh off a 5 hour flight.

My room is no different. There are lots of cool themed rooms you could have chosen to stay in here, like the Green Day room which was most tempting to me but well out of my budget for this trip. Instead, I’m in a 2-bed capsule room which is designed to give you the “tour bus bunk” experience.

I understand that it’s probably not up most SF-tourists alleys, but in a weird way this gives me another experience I’ve always wanted to have – the feeling of sleeping on a real tour bus in a random city that I’ve found myself in for a show.

On the walls keeping me company are a funny bunch: 2PAC, Sammy Hagar, White Bird, Jefferson Starship, Santana and – of the greatest comfort by sheer luck – Green Day.

On my speaker right now, though – Elliott Smith. It’s time to wind down after a long adventerous day that I’ve mostly carried myself through with pure adrenaline from being in a new city.

I have a handful of bad habits when I travel somewhere new. For starters, just as I almost always do, when I first set out to do some quick exploring after getting settled into my room and telling myself I’d only jump out for a coffee and bite to eat before coming back to change my shoes knowing if I didn’t, I’d end up with some blisters from the ones I had on in this town.

Fast forward to 7 hours and 41,000 steps later, none of which saw me returning to my room to change into my runners, and I have 2 blisters from my flat casual shoes and I’m feeling almost too lazy to even trek back out to a grocery store to grab some more water or some pop.

I ended up choosing the first direction that would lead me to the waterfront and from there walked the entire bit of it that led me to the Golden Gate Bridge which is a lot farther than it looks from most of the places I stood and told myself, “it’s just a bit farther, I think,” full of winding pathways that set you ever so off course and have you moving from gravel to sand to concrete and back again.

But I’m not complaining, really (though I could really have done without the blisters), because I’ve already seen and learned a lot about this city that I didn’t know before coming here.

There’s a ton of street food vendors here – or at least today there was which I’m not sure if it’s a totally normal amount of them because it’s a Sunday or if they ramped it up for Fleet Week.

I also learned what Fleet Week is. And got to see a bit of their air show! I don’t even get to see the one that Toronto does to cap off the CNE every summer so that was a funny thing to sort of stumble into as I made my way around the water.

And I learned just what they mean by the SF fog. Boy, there is a lot of it. It covered most of the air show, so I ended up seeing about the same amount as that one time the Toronto air shows guys did a little bit as I walked through High Park, which wasn’t much. (Turns out they have a Hyde Park here in SF, which I thought was only in the U.K for some reason – anyways).

Kind of a bummer because this thing seemed to attract a huge amount of people to the waterfront today, but everyone seemed to be having a good time anyway.

I stopped a couple times for a fresh coffee and once for a turkey and harvarti sourdough sandwich, but something about the first day of a trip even with all that walking always leaves me without much of an appetite, so I haven’t tried any of the other food that’s been waffing through the air all day. Clam chowder bread bowls though seem all the rage and if I was a seafood person, I’d be all up in it I’m sure – the presentation alone is enticing.

The sun was really warm for most of the start of my walk, but it seemed the farther along the water trail I got and the closer to the Golden Gate Bridge, the colder it kept getting. And because of the fog (I assume) it’s like a weird damp-feeling cold, so even once I finally gave in and put my sweater back on, it was just sort of unpleasant. I should’ve brought my jacket from the hotel.

I missed the proper stair exit and ended up walking over to Fort Point and spent a bit of time walking through it. In short, it’s a historic site that was built sometime between 1853 and 1861 and was made in case there was ever a naval attack on California. You can walk up to the top where there’s a very cool old lighthouse and otherwise some interesting views of the bridge and the bay – but if you’re there on a day anything like today you’re going to get smacked hard by the wind.

Oh man, the wind.

That feeling didn’t let up for the next couple hours of my walk. I amde my way back out of Fort Point and up to the bridge where the fog has really made a decent layer over top and the wind was roaring so bad I barely felt comfortable pulling my phone out for a couple photos – it felt like it could launch my phone right from my hand into the water below.

There were a lot of moments along my walk today that I’d catch myself thinking it would’ve been smart to grab a bike rental like so many other tourists did, but between the steep inclines on the hills and the whip of the wind I’m not sure it would have been enjoyable.

So I walked the bridge today, which I wasn’t really planning to do just yet. And it was pretty fun despite all that other stuff I mentioned.

One of the funnier places I ended up checking out today is this old vintage arcade museum by the Fisherman’s Wharf. There is some seriously weird looking stuff in there and it’s all just so quirky and odd – it really transports your back to a much earlier time and I actually really recommend checking it out if you can. They just don’t make arcade games like Opium-Den, Oil Fields or The Olde Barn Dance. They even have a bunch of musical monkeys in one. It’s quite the experience – bring a couple quarters and dollars so you can have fun watching them do their thing or just admire the nightmarishly creepy features on them.

That’s all I really got up to on day 1, we’ll see what the rest of the week has in store but tomorrow is a big one – it’s concert day and I’m thinking about taking the ferry to Berkeley for it instead of the bus, but, time will tell.

Time to go rest my poor stinky feets for another busy day.

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This blog is part 2 in my ongoing series chronicling my trip to San Fransisco.
Catch up with the previous blogs below or jump to the next one: 

Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
Part 4
Part 5
Part 6
Part 7

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In case you didn’t know, I have a couple of side projects inspired by the bands that inspired this trip.

Check out Death Bus for Blondie including my entire Asphalt Meadows cover album (and then some) and Canada Post, everywhere you stream.

Thanks for reading.