Before we left for the beach over Spring Break, my principal asked me if I would be interested in going to a national math conference in San Francisco, California. Ummm, YES! She didn't know if it would get approved but she needed to get all the paperwork filled out and turned in before we left for Spring Break just in case. Well, it just so happened that it DID get approved so on our way back from the beach I spent the majority of our travel time on my phone booking my flight to San Francisco and registering for the NCTM conference. I couldn't wait! San Francisco has always been on my list of places I wanted to visit and I couldn't believe that I was actually going there. Two other teacher friends, Jessica and Amanda, from the middle and high school were going as well, so the week before we left we met and worked out all the travel details. All of us were very excited about the trip!
The math conference started on Thursday, but we landed in San Francisco late Tuesday afternoon so that gave us about 36 hours to explore the city, minus the hours we needed for sleeping. My principal had been to San Francisco before so she was our official tour guide. I was thankful to have someone with us who knew the city and knew where to go to see all the fun touristy attractions. We landed in San Francisco around 3 o'clock, caught a 30 minute cab ride to our hotel, checked in, dropped off our suitcases, and spruced up a little bit. By 4 o'clock, we were in the lobby of our hotel all ready to see this fabulous city.
Our first stop was to ride an authentic San Francisco cable car all the way to Lombard Street and Fishermans Wharf. The beginning of the line was not far from our hotel so we walked there only to find out the cable car was down and not running. No worries though! My principal said that we could walk up to the next stop and we could catch the cable car there.
Walking to the next stop didn't sound bad at all until we all remembered that we were in San Francisco...a city known for its steep hills. At that point it was either wait who knows how long for the cable car to start running again or start walking. We all agreed walking was better than waiting so off we went!
I can now say I have walked the San Francisco hills and lived to tell about it :) It was a lot of walking, but we were able to really see the city. Plus, the weather was amazing for this Louisiana girl! In fact, we were walking around in short sleeves and my friends Amanda and Jessica were wearing sleeveless shirts! People looked at us like we were crazy, but walking up those hills was an intense cardio workout!
We made it to the next cable car stop only to find out it wasn't running either. That meant more walking for us! We ended up walking all the way to historic Lombard Street. I have never been more happy to see a street sign in my life than I was to see this one. Unfortunately, this street sign was at the bottom of Lombard Street and we wanted to go to the top...that meant more hills.
We finally made it to Lombard Street, the crookedest street in the world! Woo hoo! We took some pictures at the very bottom of the curvy part of the street and then walked up the stairs (more torture) to get to the top to watch the cars drive down.
The view at the top was AMAZING! You could see so much of the city and the bay. It was beautiful!
Not long after we arrived at the top of Lombard Street, a cable car came by and we jumped on board and rode it for the last couple of blocks to Fishermans Wharf. All that walking had made us very hungry so the plan was to eat a light supper at one of the restaurants near the bay. Our San Francisco trip was off to a great start!
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