Episode 39: Summer Travels Part 1: San Francisco

We’re catching up after a little summer break and some fun travels, and Khrystyna has plenty to share about her trip to San Francisco. Hear all about the iconic Golden Gate Bridge, whale watching, amazing food, and a ride in a car with no driver. Yep. That happened. 

Show Notes

Transcript

D:      Welcome to Coffee and Conversation for ESL listening. I'm Donielle. 

K:      And I'm Khrystyna. So, grab a cup and join the conversation. 

D:      Hello. Hello. Nice to see you. 

K:      Yeah, nice to see you too. It's been a while. 

D:      I know; we always say that, but this time it has really, really been a while. 

K:      Yeah, we've been pretty busy here.

D:      Oh my gosh. This summer has been nuts. Yes. 

K:      And I feel like every day is just going faster and faster. 

D:      Oh yeah. Yeah. It's going fast, but man, it's been so crazy and I do want to get started here and say to our listeners, I'm sorry, a little bit slow on the uploads of podcasts lately, but it is because we have had quite a summer. And part of that is we're going to be talking about our travels. 

K:      Yeah. So, yes. Busy summer. Crazy summer, but not all bad crazy, right? There's like good crazies. 

D:      Yeah. It's good and bad, right? Yeah. But traveling's always good, right? 

K:      Oh, absolutely. I think that's my favorite part. The summer. 

D:      So, let's see. Where have you been recently? 

K:      Well, I just returned about a week ago from San Francisco. 

D:      I love San Francisco. 

K:     So you have been there. 

D:      It's been a long time, but I have been wanting to go back. You're going to tell me all about it, but I remember very clearly the one thing that really stands out in my mind about this trip is all the delicious food.

K:      Oh, absolutely. Yes, yes, yes. It would be hard to forget all that food, but I would definitely say go back when you get a chance. 

D:      Okay, well, tell me about it. First of all, what made you decide, because I hadn't heard anything about any plans for San Francisco and all of a sudden you're going and what happened?

K:     It was kind of a last-minute thing. Well, originally, we were going to go to a different country this year, and then we just…I don't know. Usually, you want to take at least two weeks off to go to a different country to explore and visit. But we only had a week, with all the craziness going on, and then… okay, I know. It started with… I'm just kind of trying to retrace my thoughts--how we made the decision. We wanted to take a train trip to San Francisco from Chicago – well, actually even from our town – and we've always talked about it and I was like, maybe we should just do this. Well, I started looking into that and the train trip from Chicago to San Francisco is 52 hours one way.

D:      Yeah. It's long.

K:      It is long, but I think, like the views and just the whole experience probably would've been worth it. However, I started looking at flights from Chicago to San Francisco and realized that, well, the flight is four and a half hours, and it was probably one third price of a train ticket. So, we were like, let's just get on a plane and fly to San Francisco and just explore there. And the time we chose that. So, we were the first week of July. The reason we chose that time to go is because my husband really wanted to watch 4th of July fireworks over the bay.

D:      Okay. 

K:      I wanted to explore the food and all that; he wanted to watch… 

D:      I was going to say, fireworks are kind of… fireworks - what's special… but all right. what do I know? 

K:      So it was kind of a last-minute decision. Okay. And we were just like, let's go for it. And yeah, that was it. 

D:      Well, it's really funny that you talk about the train because, again, many years ago I used to take the train from Chicago to New Orleans.

I did that several times and it was so much fun. I really enjoyed it. 'cause basically you get on the train at about - I don't know, seven o'clock at night or something. You'd get fed a pretty good meal and you go to sleep and you wake up and a couple hours later you're in New Orleans. It was a lot of fun. We really enjoyed it and I don't know when it started happening, but yeah, it started getting to be more expensive to take the train than to fly and it just didn't make sense anymore. 

K:      Yeah, I still want to do that. There was another talk, maybe taking [the] train to New Orleans sometime. but I still want to experience that; it's just a whole different vibe of traveling, a whole different way of doing it. It's just that 52 hours one way was a little excessive and price and all that.

D:      Yeah, that's long. 

K:      So, but it's not just me who traveled. I mean, you traveled, you went on some really cool vacations this summer. 

D:      Yeah, but I haven't heard about San Francisco yet. Tell me what you did. 

K:      Okay. Well, we only stayed there for a week and we stayed in, like an Airbnb type thing in a residential area. So, we specifically wanted to stay in the neighborhood, local neighborhood. yeah, luckily the neighborhood we stayed in, it was called Sunset, so it was close to Golden Gate Park. It was walking distance to the beach, the ocean side. 

D:      Oh, nice. 

K:      Yes, yes. And it was predominantly Asian neighborhood.

D:      Okay. 

K:      So there was a lot of Asian restaurants and stores and little fruit stands and oh, it was wonderful. It was just really…it was quiet and just very enjoyable. The first day we got there, we went to we went to the Golden Gate Park and walked around and went to the ocean and just walked around everywhere and of course, tried all the neighborhood food we could.

D:      Oh yeah. Oh, so good. yeah. You get a good workout, walking on some of those streets. Right? Oh my gosh. There's a lot of hilly areas. 

K:      Yes. Yes. And that's what it was like. It was hills like, our neighborhood was like halfway through on the hill, so depending which way we were going, we were either going downhill or uphill.

D:      Yeah. Oh, and talking about that, did you go… I'm sure you did… that Lombard Avenue that did the twisty turn. 

K:      So we didn't actually, we saw it. 

D:      What? oh my gosh! 

K:      We saw the street, we were near that, the Lombard Street. But then we were kind of like, well, it's just a twisty road so we took a trolley, one of those little trolleys. So all the way from, like a downtown area all the way to Fisherman's Wharf. Yeah. it's a, it, it's a big touristy place, but it's right on the bay and there's just a lot of stuff to do. but the, the guide, one of the drivers of that trolley, he was telling people like, on this side is this, and on this side is that, and whatever. And then he said, and here is Lombard Street, which they say is the second most crooked street in the world after Wall Street. 

D:      Oh. Okay, we're going to have to stop there for a second because that's a funny joke that people may not get. Yes. Crooked has two meanings. Crooked means not straight, like kind of twists and turns like we're talking about this street, and it is. If you look up Lombard Street in San Francisco, you'll see it does not go straight at all. It does lots of loopty loops, and the second meaning of crooked, it means. Like a criminal, like you are dishonest. Yeah. Yep. And, yeah, wall Street, 

K:      you know, they say there's a lot of shady, dishonest things happening on Wall Street, financial world. Yeah, that was pretty funny. But the trolley ride was really neat. Uh, obviously you have to, because again, it's another touristy thing and we try not to do a lot of touristy stuff 'cause we just wanted to explore local things. But, you know, some things you have to try and, like the line, oh my gosh. We had to stand in line to get on the trolley, even though the line was moving pretty fast. But a lot of people want to do it. So we started downtown, went all the way up the hill, went through some parts of Chinatown, and saw some things. And then we went to into Fisherman’s Wharf, but we stopped at Ghirardelli square. 

D:      Oh yeah. 

K:      And I was like, you have to try and I know, and that's the thing. You can buy Ghirardelli chocolate anywhere, right? In any store. But there's just something about, the Ghirardelli factory, because that's where it started. And that's, the famous thing.

D:      Yeah.

K:      So we had to stop there and obviously get some chocolate. But you know, the delicious thing at Ghirardelli store, factory place, restaurant, whatever that is--is the hot fudge sundae. 

D:      Oh, oh, that sounds good. 

K:      Heavenly. It was absolutely heavenly. It was so, so good. So, but then we walked over to the Fisherman’s Wharf and obviously it's very crowded and all that, but it--there was, there was a charm in there too. We went on the big ferris wheel to see the city view and we saw sea lions. 

D:      Oh, I was going to ask about that. 

K:      Oh, it was so much fun. They are cute and they're funny and all that. And then they have a big sourdough bakery there, this famous--I think it's called Boudin or something like that.

D:      Yes, yes, yes. 

K:      Oh I've never seen a bakery this busy and it's huge. Humongous. But there's so many people, and of course we had to get some bread, so of course that was delicious. Yes, it was really good. So there's just… I remember in some of our travels, we just had them so packed with doing everything so much every day. So this time we decided okay, there's these places that we definitely want to visit, and if we have time for other stuff, we will, but we're just going to take it easy. 

D:      take it easy, play things... Wait, no. 

K:      Play it by ear. 

D:      Play it by ear! 

K:      Yeah. Yeah. Pretty much. So the cool thing is that we purposefully did not rent a car. We used public transit. 

D:      Okay. 

K:      And I'm glad we did. San Francisco Public transit is reasonable in terms of price.

D:      Okay 

K:      It is very easy to navigate and it goes everywhere. 

D:      Oh, that's wonderful. 

K:      Yes. Yeah. So, every day you get a card that you can preload and just use it, swipe it, as you get on a train or tram or bus or whatever. But they have a really good system there, so we…

D:      Oh, that's good. 

K:      Yeah, we're just like, why not? And we lived close enough, that we had [a] couple of bus stops, maybe like five to 10-minute walk from us. So, it was nice. 

D:      Perfect. 

K:      Yeah. And it gave us a chance to explore the neighborhood and try little coffee shops and…

D:      Exactly.

K:      There's one thing I'll have to tell you what I tried there, that if you go back to San Francisco, you have to try it. We found this little coffee shop not far from our, where we stayed and the coffee was really good there, but their specialty was croffle. Have you ever… 

D:      Croissant waffle, maybe...mix? 

K:      mm-hmm. 

D:      Okay. Sounds good. 

K:      So they, take a fresh croissant and then they put it in the waffle maker and make a waffle out of it. And then on top they put freshly whipped cream. Okay. And berries or like strawberries or they could put chocolate or whatever, and it was absolutely divine. 

D:      That sounds great.

K:      So good. 

D:      So it always comes down to the food for us, doesn't it? 

K:      Oh, I mean, that's just part of life. Yeah. Like you have to do it. And we did get to see fireworks on 4th of July. We went to, the, there's this Presidio Park, it's like a Presidio neighborhood and it's beautiful. And we actually went back to that park because they have Lucasfilm there as their headquarters. 

D:      Wait, what?

K:      Lucasfilm. Star Wars. 

D:      Oh, I was going to say like George Lucas. Okay. Got it, got it. Okay. 

K:      So we actually were able to see it. We couldn't get in, because it was Sunday and they were closed, but we got to see the grounds and the building. And I have a picture of big R 2D two Oh my gosh. And Yoda Fountain and all that for Star Wars fans out there. 

D:      But I was going to say, are you guys star Wars...?  Oh, okay. 

K:      Yes. Absolutely. 

D:      Everybody I know is into Star Wars and I'm like, eh.

K:      Yeah. but the park itself was just beautiful and it's right on the coast there in the bay and oh, it was just gorgeous. And of course, creme de la creme. The Golden Gate Bridge. 

D:      Okay. 

K:      Yeah. So definitely had to go and see Golden Gate Bridge. And I feel like we went by the bridge, under the bridge on the other side of the bridge. On top of the bridge. 

D:      Across the bridge. 

K:      Across the bridge. We did go across the bridge. Yeah. That was [a] pretty cool experience; we loved it. Every time we saw oh, look, there's the bridge. You can see the bridge. 

D:      It's so funny. It's a bridge. I mean, I've seen many, many bridges and it's like. Okay. What is so cool about this? But there is something very cool about that bridge. I don't know.

K:      It's just the way it was built. 

D:      Yeah. 

K:      And the history behind it. 

D:      Yeah. 

K:      And the engineering at that time… 

D:      Yes, that's true.

K:      …was revolutionary. The way they build it. But you sound very much [like] my 11-year-old, because we were oh, the bridge. Oh, we're going to go see the bridge. And he finally said, well, I mean, it's a nice-looking bridge, but what is I don't understand why you guys go crazy about the bridge every time you see it. I'm like, oh, you'll never understand. But so, there's two other things we did there. we went to see a baseball game. 'cause my son and my husband are big fans and… 

D:      Oh my gosh, okay. 

K:      Funniest thing is my son is a fan of Los Angeles Dodgers and we went to see [the] San Francisco Giants. 

D:      Oh...

K:      Well, we had to buy my son a new hat because he decided to wear his Los Angeles Dodgers hat to [the] San Francisco game. And I said, do you want to get beat up or something? come on, man. So we had to buy him a new hat there. But a really cool ballpark. And you know, baseball - I can take it or leave it, but I had a lot of fun. It was a good game. Back to food, I have never had this delicious ballpark food before.

D:      Oh, oh, okay. I, I was not expecting that because typically ballpark food is not so great. 

K:      Gourmet style food. 

D:      Wow. 

K:      Really good. 

D:      You know, California, they just sort of do things…a little differently. 

K:      Yeah. So last two, probably the coolest things we've done in San Francisco was we went whale watching. Okay. So we got on the boat and froze myself for three hours because it was cold. I mean, the whole time we were there, it was like 60-degree weather. So it was pretty chilly. But that's okay because here, back at home, we ran away from a hundred-degree weather. So I was okay with the 60 degrees. Yeah, it was really hot. Yeah. So whale watching was pretty neat. I wasn't sure how I would do in the boat. I mean, it wasn't like little, little boat, but, a boat in the middle of the ocean, with the choppy water and wind and all that stuff. But I made it. I came back alive; frozen - but alive. But it was pretty cool because we did see some whales.

D:      All right That's awesome. 

K:      Yeah. One was pretty close and went under the boat and came out. 

D:      Ooh. 

K:      Yeah. And then we saw some whales flipping. And then the other cool thing we did, which I was a little skeptical at first when we saw those things, but we were coming back from the ballpark from the baseball game and there was a lot of traffic and you couldn't get the public transit 'cause all the people and my husband finally convinced me to ride a robot car.

D:      Oh. Yeah. I saw you posted a picture of that and I was like, was she in that thing? 

K:      Uhhuh 

D:      Okay. Okay. You gotta tell me about that. 

K:      So they call [it] Waymo and it is a Google car and they are all over the city. They're everywhere. So it's pretty much like a driverless Uber. 

D:      Yeah! 

K:      You get an app and wherever you are for your location, you see which one is the closest, you choose, and they come over and they give you the license plate…

D:      Right, 

K:      …which one to look for. And then they stop right in front of you and you open the door and they will say, oh hello, Khrystyna. And we get in and there's an empty driver's seat. Yeah. And they tell you little rules like, don't touch this, don't touch that. There's a couple screens, one in the front, one in the back, so you could see the car on that screen, but it, you could also see all the cars and people around it, like it can see that stuff. And then it just starts driving and it navigated that post-game traffic perfectly. 

D:      Wow. 

K:      And it stops at the red light and it goes at the green light. The only thing is: the drivers, the actual human drivers take advantage of this because they'll start cutting in front of it to squeeze through because they know this car will slow down or stop or let them in. 'Cause they have to follow the…

D:      Oh yeah

K:      …rules and all that. But it tells you - it gives you time as soon as you get in a car that at this time, at this minute, this hour and minute, you are going to be at your destination. Yeah, and they got us there exactly at that hour and the minute. 

D:      That's amazing.

K:      Yeah. 

D:      You know, a lot of people are kind of weird about those driverless cars. I feel like if it's done well, which I'm assuming it is. It's got to be even safer than a human because we have so many ways of messing up, you know, so many things that we can do wrong. We have only one set of eyes. You know? Cameras are all over these things. To me it feels like the human errors have got to be more of a problem than anything that could do. 

K:      Right. Because, it is built that to follow directions, right. To follow the rules. Yeah. And all that. So it was pretty neat. and you can choose your own music you want to play.

D:      Oh, fun!

K:      Yeah. So, my husband commutes to work every day, so I had a hard time getting him out of that car because he just wanted to stay there and take it home. It's like, we have to leave this here. It is not ours. We gotta go. 

D:      Honestly, I love this idea. Man, if I could have my own driverless car, that would be the best because I hate driving.

K:      I know you do. 

D:      I really do. And um, yeah. In a minute, I would.

K:      I know my husband goes, can you imagine an hour? It takes me to get to work? I can sleep, I can read, I can watch tv. 

D:      Yeah. Does he really commute for an hour? Oh, that's terrible. 

K:      Yes. Yeah, about an hour. Ugh. He's already started looking into driverless cars. I'm like, we're not due to buy a new car for a few years, so, 

D:      Oh man. 

K:      Yeah, it was nice. It was pretty cool. Like I said, I was a little apprehensive at first, but then I was like, oh, this is nice. This is really cool. 

D:      Love it. Oh my gosh. I so want one. I seriously do. Okay, so you didn't go to Alcatraz.

K:      So we did not, I mean, obviously we saw it because it's right there. everywhere you look, but we decided not to go. And I know it's a popular spot that a lot of people want to go to, but my husband or my son weren't really interested and my husband, working in the legal system, he's like, I've been to prisons before, so I don't want to go to another one. He was like, I've seen prisons. So I was like, well, it's not the same. You know, there's a history here, but we didn't. But you know, the funny thing is. That they mentioned recently, that there's sharks in the bay, right? That there's sharks around Alcatraz and all that? Well, we went to the aquarium there. they have a pretty neat one. It almost looks like a tunnel and then you have all the water and fish kind of above you and around you. 

D:      Oh, that's cool. 

K:      And yeah, and there was a little explanation of what types of sharks they have in the bay, and they are leopard sharks. 

D:      Leopard sharks? 

K:      They are leopard sharks. 

D:      I don’t know; that sounds kind of scary. Oh, they’re not scary? 

K:      They’re not. They’re really not that big, and they usually don’t attack people.

D:      I was going to say – they only take a small bite out of you. 

K:      Maybe just like a little nibble. 

D:      Yeah, just a little nibble.

K:      They’re pretty, though. They do look like leopards. They have spots

D:      Oh, they have spots and stuff? Oh, that’s cool. 

K:      So, I was like, ok I thought maybe it was a little more scary here, but…and they did tell us that there are some swim enthusiasts where some fans that do little challenges where they swim from the shore to the Alcatraz little island.

D:      There's always somebody doing something crazy, 

K:      right? And it's quite a haul, but we've seen a lot of people out there swimming or paragliding. In fact, when we were whale watching, we thought we saw a whale, but it was just the paraglider who fell into the water. So everybody screaming the whale, whale and they're like, oh, oh no, it's not. 

D:      I'm not sure I'd want to be mistaken for a whale, but okay. 

K:      Well, yeah. There was a lot of paragliders and surfers and, people in the water enjoying themselves, which I was surprised because it was cold. I don't go in cold water. 

D:      No thank you. 

K:      I like that kind of stuff. 

D:      So that sounds like so much fun. I am dying to go back to San Francisco. It's definitely on my list. 

K:      Yes, you absolutely should. Every neighborhood, every place we went was very enjoyable and people are very polite and nice and just kind. And we did go to Chinatown 'cause it's famous, like yeah. It's one of the biggest and most known Chinatowns in the United States. So it was really cool. Yeah. Really cool. 

D:      Very cool. Well, I'm very excited for you that you did this great trip because I know you needed a trip. 

K:      I did. I needed to get away. And I love traveling and just like you. 

D:      Well, yeah, talking about that. we were going to talk about both our trips, but I don't know who we were kidding, because it's just too much to talk about for one episode. So we will save my trips “trips” for next time, then what do you think? 

K:      I think that's a smart decision 'cause I don't think we have enough time to even cover a little bit of it. I'm sure you had tons of experiences and things to share. 

D:      Yeah, definitely. Yeah. So, yeah. Well, okay. So, I wanted to say, 'cause I keep forgetting this, to remind people again about the show notes; you want to download those, we're going to have notes and all kinds of things for the vocabulary and stuff like that. So grab those. And also, there is that link where you can communicate with us. You can join the conversation. And so, I'd like to ask a question to our listeners, and that is: since we're talking about traveling, let us know where you're from. What country you're from and where should we go visit? Where is a must-visit place? Your hometown or some other place? Because you just never know. We might go. 

K:      Yeah. I mean, I'm already trying to think about next year, where am I going to go next year? 

D:      I know, right? I'm always thinking about where am I going to go? 

K:      Oh, absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. 

D:      And so, the other thing is, I mentioned at the top of the show that I was a little bit late in getting our podcast up, and so I am sorry about that, but we do have some new equipment, and let me tell you, you don't even know the learning curve that goes behind some of these things.

K:      Uh oh. 

D:      So, yeah. Between the traveling and trying to figure out how to get all this stuff done, I just about lost my mind. Yeah. 

K:      Oh, no. 

D:      So, on the last one that I have just uploaded today, I had to fix a problem that we didn't normally have, but now because we've got better equipment, it caused a problem with outside noises that you could hear. 

K:      Oh

D:      Yeah. And so I went to fix that and then I went down this rabbit hole and every time I tried to fix something, I was stuck with another problem to fix. 

K:      Oh my gosh. 

D:      It reminded me of this show that I saw. It's a really funny show. It's called Frasier. And there's this episode where there's this guy and he is very meticulous, very, you know, neat and organized. This is definitely not my--yeah, that part is nothing like me but… so he's sitting there and he's got this suit on and he notices that he doesn't like the way his pants are creased. And so he gets up and he starts to iron them, and then he finds that there's a thread hanging from his pants. So he goes to pull that and then everything goes wrong after that. And next thing you know, he has set his apartment on fire.

K:      Well, I hope you didn't get your house on fire...

D:      I did not. 

K:      ...uploading an episode, 

D:      but I thought about that show when I was doing this and I was like, oh my God, my house is going to be set on fire by the time I'm done with this. So, I apologize for the delay, but. Hopefully… 

K:      That's okay. 

D:      …the learning curve, it gets better. 

K:      It will. 

D:      So anyway, it was great to see you and great to hear all about your trip. I'm so jealous. I definitely want to go.

K:      I think you should, if you can get away for a few days at least. You definitely should. 

D:      Absolutely. And then next time we will talk about my trip. 

K:      Yes. I can't wait.  

D:      I know. Yeah. It was so fun. 

K:      I feel like, we're going to have to schedule our next recording really soon 'cause I want to hear about your trip. 

D:      Absolutely. Yeah. And like you said before, while everything is fresh, we gotta talk about it. So. Yeah. We'll get to that soon. But until next time, here's to good vibes, good coffee, and great conversations. 

K:      Cheers.

D:      Cheers.