What a night! The good and the bad!

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Yesterday I took the day off work for a mother-daughter day. It was a fun day of shopping and then off to lunch at Lauren's favorite restaurant, The Fish Market and then a little more shopping! Then about 4:45 we headed to San Francisco to see Wicked which started at 8:00 pm!
I mentioned yesterday that I really don't like driving in San Francisco and yet again I had another bad experience! First off, I should say that I live in Silicon Valley and I'm used to traffic, crazy drivers, etc. but it's nothing like driving in San Francisco! When you come up to the traffic lights there are lanes just for taxis and buses and another lane for the automobiles, with an island area in between them. Sometimes the taxi/bus lanes are on the right and sometimes they are on the left so you're always having to look at the signs while watching to see if the light is green, yellow or red. At the same time there are masses of people walking and riding bikes so you have to look out for them. These people walking and riding bikes must not see cars because they will step out directly in your path...you must somehow predict that they are about to do this! I need to get better at that! Also, you can't make left turns on most of the streets so if you want to turn left you have to turn right and then left and go around the block and make a big loop. The only problem is a lot of the streets are ONE-WAY streets. So not only are you looking out for people and bikes that suddenly jump out at you, you have to make sure you don't turn down the wrong way on a ONE-WAY street. Ummm...a trip to SF wouldn't be complete without me turning down a ONE-WAY street and seeing cars coming towards me in all the lanes! Luckily I had Lauren screaming at directing me not to turn down that ONE-WAY street!!!

We finally found the Theatre. Yay...but where is the stinkin' parking lot? Now, in Silicon Valley all the theatres have their own parking lots but not in San Francisco! You have to drive around to find a place to park! Again...we go through all the above steps with the taxi/bus lanes, people, bikes, ONE-WAY streets to find parking! Finally about 45 minutes later I found a garage close enough that I would feel somewhat safe (not really though) walking to after the show in the dark of the night. It's about 2 long blocks away. I drive in and park, and then I couldn't find my way to get back on the street so I ask the attendant. He asks me how long I'm going to be parked there which I thought was a really odd question since I'm paying $3 for every 20 minutes...what difference should it make! When I tell him he informs me that his STINKIN' garage closes at 8:00pm! At this point I was ready to just go home. I ask the guy where should I park if I were going to a show at the Orpheum Theatre and he told me there are two places down the street. I find them and they are right across from each other so I choose the one on the left, go to pay and it's only $5...Yay! But they only take cash and the machine doesn't give change and I only have $20 bills on me but luckily the lot across the street takes credit cards so back in the car and across the street we go! Finally we are parked and ready to eat. I figured there would be lots of places to eat around there but there wasn't and we were running out of time so we ended up at a BURGER KING surrounded by homeless people. As we were eating our meal at a bar that looks out onto the sidewalk there were homeless people watching us eat! It was horrible! It's funny how things work out though...we peeled back the little tag that came on our drinks and Lauren won a free milk shake and I won a free Whopper so we went up and got them and gave it to a very scary-looking but very grateful man that was digging through the garbage. That made it all worth it! He said this would be a lot better than garbage food. I walked away with tears in my eyes!

Oh, I almost forgot...Wicked was GREAT!