I'm a bit behind with the blogging I'm afraid! I was busy sorting stuff out for Steve's birthday which was really good and all the details will be posted up soon!

Today we had a lovely lie-in and it was all nice and peaceful until about midday when we looked down from our balcony and we noticed a lot of people milling around the civic centre. The main road was also cordoned off and there were marshals guiding people along - what on earth was going on? A quick search on Google revealed that today was Lovefest (www.sflovefest.org), a free dance Music Parade & Festival to celebrate "Music, Love, Diversity, Tolerance, Peace and Community When Americans Need it Most". Er, OK!

Well Steve and I aren't huge fans of dance music so it wasn't something we were that interested in (over 100,000 people were expected and if you look at the photos you can see how packed it got later in the day). We'd also already planned to go to The Mission district to explore and have lunch.

Whilst Steve is at work I do a bit of research on the Internet of places to go and things to see, so we set off with our trusty map and my list. We decided to walk there as it didn't look that far on the map and we thought it was a better way to explore than getting the bus. It only took us about 15-20 minutes to walk, but we are pretty fast walkers. Our friend Pascal gave us loads of recommendations on places to eat so we were on the lookout for those restaurants. We found Ti Couz, which is a French place that apparently does amazing crepes, but it was totally packed so we'll have to go there another time.

The first place on my list I wanted to find was Mission Delores, which is a church that was completed in 1791, which makes it both the oldest original intact Mission in California and the oldest building in San Francisco (who says America has no history? Oh that would be that funny English transvestite aka Eddie Izzard - see Dress To Kill for the joke!).

The church building is really beautiful from the outside and we would have been quite happy just to look at it, but we were curious to see what was inside. So we paid the $5 each to enter, which we later discovered was a voluntary contribution but we didn't mind. We were given a nice informative leaflet by the guy running the gift shop. He kept rambling on about a fiesta (we presumed he meant a party and not a ford automobile) as he made many references to margaritas. We just nodded and smiled politely and then ran away!

As well as the chapel, there is a museum where you can see an example of the type of bricks that the walls were made from. They are called adobe bricks and they are basically made from mud, so it's no surprise that the Basilica didn't survive an earthquake in 1906, therefore it was rebuilt in 1918. I think the nicest part of Mission Delores was the cemetery (not because I'm into anything weird!) because apart from all the headstones it was like a very well maintained garden with lots of different plants and flowers. Of course I wouldn't like to be there at night because there's a HUGE statue of Father Junipero Serra who founded the Mission and he looks pretty scary (especially when Steve says "Wouldn't it be freaky if he suddenly raised his head and looked at you!!"). OK history lesson over!

Next on the agenda was a grocery store called Bi-Rite because I needed to find cocoa and baking soda to make cookies (more on than later!). Our usual Safeway didn't have any and neither did Walgreens - some ingredients here are pretty hard to track down! Anyway, we found the store and we also saw the Bi-Rite ice cream shop which Pascal also recommended - it had a queue out the door so it must have been good! We didn't want to spoil our appetite for lunch (yes we can restrain ourselves from food sometimes!) so y­­­et again, we'll have to go there another day! We really liked the Bi-Rite grocery store. It's pretty small but maybe that's because it was also packed with people. The emphasis for their goods is organic and locally produced. As you enter the store you are greeted with a huge array of fruit and many of them have little pots of cut up fruit as sample tasters (thumbs up for the plums and nectarines!) and next to the fruit is a wide variety of cheeses, again with samples. So if you were only feeling a little bit peckish you could come here for a mini buffet!

The store also had some nice looking ready-meals and there is a long deli counter where you can order many delectable things! But we were strict and stuck to the list and we managed to find baking soda and vanilla extract (hurrah!) but no cocoa (boooo!).

After looking at all this food we were pretty hungry so time for lunch! We didn't know where to eat and then a few feet away from Bi-Rite I spotted Pizzeria Delfina (www.pizzeriadelfina.com), which is a place Pascal recommended. The main restaurant was closed and the pizzeria section was really busy (always a good sign!) but we managed to get two seats at the "bar" where we could see the chefs making the pizzas from scratch, which was good as it helped us choose what to order! The pizzas were a decent size so we decided to share a Salsiccia ($14) which had housemade fennel sausage, tomato, bell peppers, onions and mozzarella.

We also ordered cokes ($3 each) which came in glass bottles and I always think coke tastes better from a bottle! These were from Mexico though, so not sure if that had anything to do with it as apparently the cane sugar sweetener they use tastes better. After we'd ordered I noticed there was bottles of water in front of us but no glasses so I guess if you want the free water you ask for glasses - damn! You also have free breadsticks to munch on and a little plate of parmesan cheese, chilli flakes and a dried herb which I think was thyme but it didn't smell or taste of anything so it could have been really old potpourri!

Our pizza took about 25 minutes but it didn't feel like a long time as we were happy to soak up the atmosphere and watch the chefs hectically churn out pizza after pizza. It was amazing to watch them quickly knead the dough, spread on toppings and pop it in the huge oven and then a few minutes later see it come out all puffed up and transformed into a gastronomic Frisbee that you can't wait for them to throw into your mouth!

The pizza here is extremely thin crust (based on New York/Neopolitan style) but it was good! I wasn't sure if I would like the fennel sausage as I thought fennel tasted like anise/liquorice, but it was OK. Half a pizza each was plenty and I was absolutely stuffed! It was a good lunch but the bill came to $25.50 because of the tax and they also added on a $2.50 donation to some charity, which we thought was a bit cheeky but we left a tip as well as it's the thing to do over here!

I did like this place as the staff was really friendly and they played good music (Betterman by Pearl Jam for example!) and it amused me when the waitress answered the phone and said "So you want to order some pies?" (er, no I think the guy wants to order some pizza! Why do they call them pies??) and then she made the chefs poo their pants when she lied and said the guy wanted to order 20 pizzas.

Apart from restaurants there's not much else in the Mission area, not many clothes shops to browse around. So we headed back home and on our way we were accosted by a man wearing a cowboy hat (OK maybe accosted is a bit strong but he was kind of in-your-face). It was all a bit strange, well he was strange. I think he said to us "Do you see those buffalo there?" and we looked at each other, then looked at him and said "Huh?" We had no idea what he was babbling about until he pointed at two large women walking down the street with a little girl. We tried to walk away but he kept talking and thus we were engaged in a conversation.

He asked if we'd heard of Sherlock Holmes (we assumed he asked because we were English) and we hesitantly said yes, sort of (not really sure where this was going) so he said "Well he was a detective and I consider myself to be a detective so I'm going to guess where you're from!" So he looked at me with concentration, as if he was trying to read my mind, and said "I suspect you're not from Japan or China, hmmm I think maybe you're from the Indo-China region?" I put him out of his misery (and ours) and said no I was Chinese. Then he turned to Steve and said "I think you're from Australia!" I burst out laughing as he's not the first person to say Steve is from that part of the World, so he got Steve to say "Hello" and then he said "OK you're from New Zealand!" He then gave up so Steve said he was from South London which completely shocked the stranger (in more than one sense of the word). I told him some people think Steve is from South Africa and he said "Yeah that would have been my next guess!"

Anyway, he asked us for some money to buy a beer so I gave him 25 cents because that's how much his entertainment was worth! I don't know if everyone experiences these characters but it sure makes San Francisco memorable!


Mission Delores: 3321 Sixteenth Street, San Francisco, CA 94114
Bi-Rite Ice Cream: 3692 18th Street @ Dolores, San Francisco, CA 94110
Bi-Rite Grocery Store: 3639 18th Street @ Dolores, San Francisco, CA 94110
Pizzeria Delfina: 3611 18th Street (at Guerrero) San Francisco, CA 94110