The Country Cousin's Guide to a Holiday Weekend in San Francisco
By Maria Gaura
SAN FRANCISCO (Dec. 2008) - We just returned from our annual holiday weekend in San Francisco. We saw “A Christmas Carol” at ACT, ate at Kuleto’s, ogled the kittens in Macy’s windows, and had our Christmas card photo taken in front of the holiday tree in Union Square.
Jeez, what a bunch of rubes! We should have felt abashed to be so obviously suburban, but we were having too much fun to care. Too bad we never got around to that cable car ride.
My husband and I lived in San Francisco when we were in our twenties, and I used to view Union Square tourists as hopeless lemmings who were failing to experience the “real” San Francisco. Well, if I could have a frank chat today with my scruffy, skeptical, 25-year-old self, I would tell her to chill out.
Lemmings are social, friendly creatures. And once or twice a year, we enjoy a nice, undemanding weekend on the town.
Kittens in Macy's window
We have stayed at numerous San Francisco hotels over the years, but the Jukebox Marriott on Fourth Street is, overall, our favorite. You can ditch the car and walk practically everywhere, and kids love the big indoor pool and hot tub. The fitness center is clean, and offers free apples, oranges and bananas. The bell desk provides an array of free newspapers in the morning, including the Chronicle, New York Times, Wall Street Journal and Financial Times.
The formerly cold and echoing lobby was remodeled in 2008, and now offers a cozy bar, groupings of sofas, and a Starbucks, alas, instead of a vendor with decent coffee. But nothing is perfect, not even the Marriott’s attentive service.
We had reserved a room with a king bed and rollaways for our daughter and her friend. But the room we entered was MUCH nicer than we expected. It was vast, with a king bed in one room and two rollaways in the other. “It’s a suite!” the girls shrieked, running around in circles. “There are TWO flatscreen TVs! The bathroom is huge! And they’ve left us sodas and fruit!”
Sodas? Fruit? “They” had also left a friendly note that read, “I went out to get something to eat, back soon, Tito.”
Tito? Yikes. We noticed Tito’s luggage, and realized we hadn’t gotten a fabulous upgrade after all. As nice as our room ended up being, we thought wistfully of room 2748 several times during our stay, and wondered how Tito was doing.
Being the hayseeds we are, we made the girls put on clean jeans and t-shirts before we left for the theater. That was as fancy as it was going to get, since neither one owns anything as girly as a dress. The ACT’s Christmas Carol was wonderful, beautiful, fully engaging. The girls were completely swept up in the story, and even though the plot and the dialogue are well-worn and familiar, I have to admit to tearing up a bit, once or twice, during the performance.
I never liked Dickens much, in high school and college. I thought his characters were cartoonish and his stories preachy. My 25-year-old self would have been horrified to see her middle-aged future self puddling up at a performance of A Christmas Carol. If I could talk to her now, I think I would tell that girl to keep an open mind about Dickens. And quit being such a nag, already.
Kuleto’s on Powell St. is a short stroll from ACT on Geary. We had a reservation, which was handy, since the wait would have been two hours without one. Yes, there are scores of newer, trendier restaurants we could have tried. But I’ve never had a bad meal at Kuleto’s and, unlike many upscale restaurants in San Francisco, they don’t view children with grim suspicion.
And thank heavens for that, because we met a grad-student friend for dinner who spent her time whipping the girls into a frenzy of laughter, and then ordered them huge desserts. We may have been a bit noisy, but heck, we country folk like to have a good time, and our scientist friend is a bad, bad influence.
Back at the Marriott, the beds were comfy and the room quiet. Check out time is noon, an hour later than most hotels, allowing time for breakfast, cartoons and a lengthy swim before packing our bags and leaving them at the bell desk.
I got to visit H&M, and the girls got to ransack the teen section at Macy’s. We bought hot dogs from the cart in front of the department store and ate them in Union Square. And then we walked back to the hotel, collected our bags and car, and drove home.
Our king-bed room at the Marriott cost $129, and valet parking was another $55.86, (including the city's parking tax). (You can save $25.86 by parking across the street at the Fifth and Mission garage, which charges $30 for 24 hours. But that savings pales in significance when you arrive in the middle of a dumping rainstorm.)
Add on $18.31 in room tax and fees, and the total for the night was $203,with no extra charge for the rollaway beds, bag storage or for leaving your car slightly more than 24 hours in valet parking. That sounds reasonable to these country cousins. I think we'll be back next year.
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