Firsts and Chocolate - San Fran style

Our town may be small, but it couldn't be in a more convenient location.  Thirty minutes in any direction gets you to a full-scale city.  Even better, an hour northeast gets you to Sacramento, while an hour southwest lands you in San Francisco.  

This past Memorial Day we decided to land ourselves in San Francisco.  This would be Zuriel's very first time and my very first time as an adult {last time I was there I think I was five or six}.

Just ten minutes into our drive, there were signs for fresh local cherries for cheap.  Zuriel loves cherry flavored anything.  I just love fresh cherries, nothing baked and nothing artificial, just the fresh fruit.

 It's no golden gate, but it was exciting to cross over the bay from Oakland to San Fran

 If you squint really, really hard you might be able to see a line connecting that city to those mountains...it's the golden gate bridge, just take my word for it.

 A pier at Fisherman's Warf

 On our way to Ghirardelli Square

 I guess there used to be the original chocolate factory here, but it was relocated years ago and left us with a yummy chocolate/ice cream/treat goodness shop.

 A few months ago my chocolate-lover mother introduced me to salted caramel chocolate--it was seriously amazing.  This stuff looked pretty similar and I had planned on buying it but forgot once we were eating our treat.

 Just more chocolatey goodness, that's all.

 There's a small 10x20-ish size area with replicas of the machinery used to make the chocolate from the old factory

 Just in the last couple of months, Zuriel has unexpectedly become a fan of chocolate.  What the what.  He was just as excited as I was to share a chocolate treat from the Ghirardelli shop.  

I chose a peanut butter fudge sundae and it was so so good.  

 I honestly don't think I'd be embarrassed taking a segway tour of the city, but I would be so nervous to somehow fall off.  It's now on my bucket list.  

Let's just hope it doesn't cost an arm and a leg to participate.

 The guy who, with his strategic and carefully choreographed and rehearsed movements and sound effects {making him look and sound like a legitimate robot}, performed to techno/trance music for money and gave kids candy.

 Fisherman's Warf

 This lobster was still alive, body parts and eyeballs moving galore.  I was freaking out!

 Plain oysters with lemon and hot sauce.

 I was hesitant because they weren't seasoned and grilled up all fancy...and because even cooked 'right', I'm not a big oyster fan.  It wasn't that bad, but I also think Z could've gone easier on the hot sauce for me...

 An old submarine

 We didn't visit Alcatraz this trip, but we saw plenty of shirts advertising it

 We enjoyed our first day trip to San Francisco together.  We'll be back soon, don't you worry.

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Have you been?  What are your sight-seeing and food recommendations??

Any chocolate lovers?  What brand?  Can you taste a difference?

I like Ghirardelli, Dove, Ferrero Rocher, and European chocolate {mostly any chocolate, but I don't think there's anything special about Hershey's chocolate...}