Oh my what a journey today has been. We left out of John Wayne airport and thought we were in for an uneventful plane ride. Boy were we wrong. Austin didn't stop moving the entire hour and twenty minutes. He wanted up, down, to lay sideways, see who was behind him, crawl under the seats, spit pretzels at the people behind him (or maybe he was sharing :) ), and of course sing Old MacDonald, over and over. It was super cute, all of it, but extremely exhausting. So, we thought we were good when we touched the ground, but who knew the fun had really just begun.
We flew into Oakland, which is a bit of a ride to the city of San Francisco, and decided to take the BART into the city. Well from the airport we took the AirBART, which was basically a big bus that shuttled us to the actual BART station. Picture this, Paul and I each pushing a stroller with a child in it, Paul carrying the pack n play, and our largest suitcase, and I was carrying the medium suitcase. (Don't forget we were both pushing an individual stroller..with child in tow..funny picture!) So, we tried to get onto the AirBART..and that entailed getting up in the bus with all our stuff, putting the suitcases away, folding up both strollers, and putting the children on our laps. Needless to say, people were waiting...patiently. Finally the AirBART is on its way to the BART station. We get off the AirBART...last ones off of course and go to buy our tickets for the BART. A few homeless people were at the ticket stands to kindly help us figure out where we wanted to go and also, of course, to make sure we got the right tickets...all in exchange for a ticket for themselves! What a deal!! What is crazy about this, is that the homeless man that helped Paul buy his ticket was the most helpful person at this station, everyone who worked there just stood and watched us...probably laughing inside..we were a funny sight! Then Paul tried to go through the exit of the entrance into the BART. (If you have every been in a subway this will make sense) After a few minutes of trying our tickets in the exit we soon realized we needed to move over to the gates that actual were for the entrance. We got through the gates to find that no one was there to help us figure out what line we needed to take to get to the address of our hotel. So, we resorted to college students...they are so helpful! We got on the right line and were on our journey, very quickly. We didn't even have time to get situated and sit down before the BART driver was off! Paul and I nearly fell over! Once seated we thought..sweet we are good for at least 30 minutes. A sweet lady sitting in front of me waved and talked to us the entire way..which was nice...We got to Montgomery Street where we needed to get off, and got off, amazingly. The BART driver had a tendency to shut the doors before people were completely off the BART. So we found our elevator, and were on our way up to the street. We got up to the top and in front of us were more gates to put our tickets in. Paul put his ticket in, took it out, and the gate didn't open. So, after a few tries the BART worker came over and asked us where we were trying to go. Paul told him we wanted to get to the street and go to Kearny St. The BART worker then told us that we were trying to re-enter into the station..who knew..now we were trying to go in, instead of going through the exit...we were so confused! He helped us to the exit of the BART station (rocket science I swear!) and we were blessed with escalators and no elevators in sight (remember what all we are carrying, luggage, two strollers, kids). So, up the escalators we go, and a nice man asked Paul if he needed help..Paul of course said YES please! This man, from El Salvador, helped us up the escalator and then up to more long flights of stairs with all our valuables!!!! Lord bless him! We then got to the light, had no idea which way was Kearny St. so we pulled out old faithful, the AAA map! A kind lady with a full mustache (even trimmed, no joke) told us we looked like we needed help. I told her we did and asked her to help us find the way to Kearny St. Kindly, she pointed us in the right direction...7 blocks later in downtown SF (again pushing and pulling everything) we made it to 750 Kearny St., the beautiful Hilton Hotel! We stuck out like sore thumbs and got a lot of funny looks, but who cares right? It was a time of building a serious memory we won't forget. What a day...I have never been so happy to see a hotel..let alone a bed. Goodnight!
