Our time away

Christa and I got away Friday night for my birthday. We dropped Caleb nad Regan at my mom's house and went to San Francisco overnight. Got reservations at the Marriot and a sweet little moon-faced russain girl at the desk said "I get you good room". Sure enough we were on he 34th flor witha view towards downtown SF.

At the same time we were there a conventin was happening at the hotel. Harlequin Romance Writers of America. I kid you not. Hundreds of mostly dowdy-looking midde-aged wome hoping to be teh next Barbara Cartland. From seeing some of these women their only shot at romance was writing about it.

So we hung out in the city for the afternoon and evening. We got a beet and some nachos at a dive bar around the corner from the hotel )4th Street Bar and Deli) and then we went to Old Navy for bathing suits. We didn't know the hotel had a pool on the 5th floor. Christa needed a new suit to beign with and I found an obnoxiously loud one on closeout for $9,

For dinner we walked about 6 blocks to Perbacco. This place has been around for only a year or so and has already made it only the Chronicle's 100 best list. It was pretty serious restaurant row. Next to Pebacco was Tadich Grill and next to that was Aqua. I had some grilled halibut with a black garlic butter sauce that was amazing. Christa couldn't decide what to order to I ordered for her...ravioli with braised greens. She loved it. We got some coffee at Starbucks and cheesecake at CHeesecake Facotry and walked through Union Square. We ate cheesecake while watchng over the city from the 34th floor. We fell asleep and woke up at 8:30 (try doing that with 2 kids!)

We woke up and went to Mel's Diner for breakfast, packed up and went back to get the kids. Pretty good night out. My mom was concerned that we were staying at the Marriot becuase it was South of Market...historically not a good place. She thought we should take a cab to the restaurant because of all the homeless people on Market. We didn't really see any but there was a good protest. I don't know what it was about except that it was a group of people with both American and Israeli flags.