Thursday, March 6, 2008

Fake Tales of San Francisco

This past weekend I finally took some much needed vacation time. I needed it after helping Robert Irvine with his resume. So I flew Virgin America up to San Francisco. With almost 30 years of air travel behind me I can honestly say that this was the best domestic flight I've ever taken. I encourage you to try them out.
The motive for the trip was a memorial for an old friend which reunited me with many old friends from an important period in my life. But it was also an opportunity to catch up on my sleep deficit and eat really, really well. Okay, I did spend an hour or so downloading ring tones into my new cell. If you hear the Velvets' "Sweet Jane" that's probably my phone and not yours.
I booked a room at the Villa Florence for a ridiculously low rate---possibly because renovations are underway. This is a boutique hotel in the Larkspur collection, steps from Union Square. In the lobby they run old films like "It Started in Naples" and "The Italian Job (the original with Michael Caine)" in Hi Def. Unfortunately they show them without the sound so you don't actually get to hear Sophia Loren sing, "You wan't to be Americano..."
Now you would have to hold a gun to Pierino's cheek to get him to take a cable car anywhere. Sorry, I'm not going to spend $5.00 to ride on the outside of a public conveyance. However Pierino really loves street cars. San Francisco has a fleet of beautiful old cars from Milan, St. Louis, Kansas City, Brooklyn and of course San Francisco. The video trailer is from a short film called "Pierino falls down the BART stairs while trying to catch the Milan car to Purgatory."
I'll tell you about the food in a second post.

No comments: