Chapter 2
Oh, Like the Parrots?

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If you’re ever going to be in San Francisco, I would certainly recommend Telegraph Hill based on its location alone. Bordered by North Beach (the city’s Little Italy) in one direction and Chinatown in the other, it makes fun exploring just a few steps away. We headed to Chinatown first after we’d gotten settled because we needed to get our Muni passes for the week and the website for the city’s public transportation system pointed us to a small store in the vicinity.

While we were in the area, we passed several cheap souvenir shops—several of which had thriving outdoor sections—and Tracy was immediately wooed by this awesome raccoon hat.

Since CoolTech had a spot at a co-working space in San Francisco at the time, that was our next stop so that Tracy could catch up on some work before we were done for the day. We walked way across town and realized later that it would probably have been a better idea to take some sort of public transportation using our new Muni passes. But we did make it, eventually.

This office space was actually really cool. I think they said it had something like 30 different companies represented.

After the workday was over (which came upon us pretty quickly), Tracy and I went to dinner with one of her coworkers, Nick, at this fast-casual Mexican place called Garaje. The restaurant’s specialty is called the Maverick Zapato, which is a burrito filled with carne asada, french fries, and a few other things and then toasted on a panini press. I know it sounds weird, but it was phenomenal!

When we mentioned to Nick that we were staying in Telegraph Hill, his response was, “Oh, like the parrots?” Both Tracy and I were so confused until he pulled up a Wikipedia entry for a movie called The Wild Parrots of Telegraph Hill. It’s a documentary that chronicles a rogue flock of parrots that decided to live on Telegraph Hill and the unemployed musician who takes care of them. Of course, our goal immediately became to try to find those parrots.

Heading back to our AirBNB after dinner, we followed the advice our property manager had given us earlier that day about where to walk to enjoy some of the best views. First off, the view from our street was nothing to shake a stick at.

Next we walked up the hill a little further, turned a few corners and found ourselves at this scenic overlook.

In the distance, you’ll see the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge (usually just referred to as “The Bay Bridge”). A special installation known as The Bay Lights was installed in 2013 to honor the bridge’s 75th anniversary, so 12,000 LEDs light up in waves of distinct patterns on a nightly basis. Here’s a YouTube video I found that showcases how neat it is to watch.

[kad_youtube url=”https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bVKg38ynh4A” ]

We stood up there for a while taking in the views.

Of course, there was a lot more to see than just the bridge. Here’s a panorama I took of our whole skyline view.

Turning in the other direction, Coit Tower—Telegraph Hill’s most prominent landmark—was looming above us.

We kept wandering along, going different ways for fun.

Here we found another neat overlook.

Finally, we made it over to North Beach, looking for some dessert. Tracy and I had looked up the best Italian dessert places on Yelp!, and we knew that Tracy specifically wanted to find some delicious tiramisu. After walking a little aimlessly, we found Caffe Greco, and we decided that their tiramisu certainly looked delectable.