Birthday Trip- Part 3! “San Francisco Bai”

Me and Golden Gate. We're tight.

So I was flying out of New Orleans, and headed to San Fran, with one connection in Denver.  I was a little nervous, due to my ridiculous experience coming to NOLA.

This is when my 2nd issue with flying happened….  So it took quite a while to get through check in, and I was a little worried that I wouldn’t make the boarding.  Well I cut it close, but all was fine.  Flights were good, lay over- good.  I land in San Fran, and I’m waiting for my bag and it just doesn’t come.  5 bags unclaimed, and none of them were mine.  So I go to customer service and they said my bag didn’t even leave NOLA.  IT DIDN’T EVEN MAKE THE PLANE.  Wtf?  No worries though, it will be in San Fran by 11pm, they’ll drop it off in the am.

11am rolls around (the next day), and still no luggage.  I call and they said I was picking it up.  Right.  So that’s why we left a delivery address, so I can pick it up.  They said it will be out in the next couple hours.  3 hours go by, no bag.  I call again.  It’ll be out between 2 and 5. (it’s now 3).  430 rolls around.  No bag.  I call again.  It’ll be sometime between 2 and 6.  530 rolls around (still no bag) and they call me saying it’ll be between 5 and 11.  11PM!!!!! I waisted a whole day waiting for friggen luggage!  My birthday none the less!  I haven’t showered in …..like 36 hours (what’s the point when you don’t have clean clothes?!), and Bai doesn’t have clothes that fit me!  Well the baggage shows up at 10pm.  Awesome.  That was United Airlines people.  United!  Note to self.  Don’t fly with United.  To make matters worse, Bai was out for about 5 hours in the afternoon, so I had to use my cell phone.  $43.00 worth of calling plus a checked bag charge of 25 American for a bag that was missing for over 24 hours. FU United.

Ok, on to the trip.  Bai really told you most of the highlights, so I don’t really have much to add…. well ok there’s a bit.

1.   I LOVE California.  I think this is a place I could live.  Not that I’m moving there, but if I had to move to the states for whatever reason, I would like to live there.  It’s so sunshiney, and warm, and clean.  (Well where I was!)
2. San Francisco has lots of hills.  These hills are huge.  You don’t really understand how big they are until you walk up, and then down them.  Seriously.  We walked up Hyde Street on our way to the crookedest street in the world, and honestly I made Bai stop about 5 times to catch my breath.  I know I’m not in fantastic shape, but this was ridiculous.  On our last day I actually made Bai change the location of our dinner, so we could avoid walking up a hill.  Seriously.
3. There’s lots to do in and around San Fran.  Bai doesn’t live right in San Fran, but it was about 45 minutes away, which is nothing.  Traffic I’m told can be a bitch, but so is traffic in the Toronto corridor.  You can hike at one of the MANY National Parks in the area, there are many touristy shops, you can visit lots of monuments/places of interest (i.e. the Full House house which Bai did not mention, but I will post pictures of below!), there are lots of diverse places to eat and visit in San Fran, there’s Napa Valley (which will be first on my list next time I visit!), and these are just a few of the things you can/see! 
4. It really helps visiting a place when you’re with a “local”. 🙂  Yay for not getting lost!
5. I LOVE California.

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Oh, a couple funny stories that Bai did not mention. 

• When the server brought us the boot full of beer, he didn’t know Bai and I were splitting it, so he actually looked at me and said, “Don’t die.”  Awesome.
• Okay, I can’t actually remember the other thing I wanted to say.  Shoot.  Alright, when I think of it, I will post it.  Man, that’s annoying!

Alright, that’s it for now!

Hope you enjoyed part 3 of my trip.  There’s no more left.

If you forget what else Bai and I were up to in the greater San Fran area, check out his blog posts:

• BlogJacked! 02-06-2011
• Hehe! 02-07-2011
• Dinner of Champions 02-07-2011
• Checklist of Awesome 02-08-2011
• I wasn’t even supposed to be here today … 02-09-2011
• Happy Birthday Erin! 02-10-2011
• How to dress … when you have to go to a place where they ask you questions … 02-11-2011
• San Francisco Bai 02-13-2011 (in place of 02-12-2011)

Stay classy San Diego.

Erin’s 30th Birthday Trip- Part One.

So here it is- the start of 9 days of vacation.  Missed connections, lost luggage, mechanical trouble on planes, sunny weather, cloudy weather, fantastic food, beer filled boots, insects, crazy hills, cemeteries, national parks, voodoo temples…..  are you ready to get started?

February 5th.  330 am.  The start of a VERY long day.

1st annoying thing that happened- I stood in line for 30 minutes in the wrong line.  How did that happen you ask?  Well I was flying with United Airlines, BUT it was on an Air Canada jet.  I stood in the United line.  WRONG!  When I went to the Air Canada line…it was completely empty.  F.

2nd annoying thing that happened- So I’m on the plane now, and I have no one next to me (yay!).  Just wait a sec, that’s not the annoying part- we take off, and it was the worst friggen take off ever.  The plane was for real tilting back and forth and side to side.  At first I thought it was just me thinking this was not normal, but when the guy across the row from me looked over and gave me a shocked look, I knew it wasn’t ok.  About half an hour into our flight (when the seatbelt sign still hadn’t been turned off) the pilot came on and said we’re having mechanical issues and we’re heading back to Toronto.  F. 

A plane similar to mine.

We later were told there was something wrong with our door, which explained the turbulent flight.

3rd annoying thing that happened- this first flight was not a direct flight to New Orleans.  I had a stop over in Chicago first.  BUT by having us turn around, and waiting for our luggage to be unloaded, then reloaded onto a new plane, and by starting our hour long flight again….. I knew my connection was going to be tight.  While on that second flight they told us that United staff would be waiting at the gate to tell us about our connections.  The guy that helped me when I got off said,

“Run.  Your flight is leaving right now.” 

Awesome.  So I ran like a madwoman 3 terminals over to find out that my flight left 20 minutes ago.  Sigh.

I headed to the first United counter I found, and told the lady my dilemma.  First she made it seem like I missed the flight because I was just late (even though I told her the plane had to turn around), then she said the next flight to New Orleans was in 10 hours.  10 hours!!!  Anywho, she told me to go to the actual customer service counter.  To make a long story short, they ended up putting me on a different airline completely and I was on another flight in 4 hours.

When I finally got to New Orleans, I was greeted by Sandra who leied me with Mardi Gras beads! 🙂  The party animals that we are decided just to grab pizza, play Wii and have an early night in.  And that was alright by me!

Part One is just my first day of flying, and there really aren’t any pictures that I took during my stupid first day.  I will say this though, while in New Orleans Sandra and I did a Monday Meals which I hope to post later today, AND the next post after that will be the remainder of my journey in New Orleans (or NOLA as it is also called). 

See ya later Alligator!