San Francisco A2K Gathering - April 9-12, 2004

And still no pictures, but this is a short plus for Green's and also for that place in Tiburon... (which we could go to after crossing GG bridge as CI was planning, to the viewpoint.)

I think I'll look up the St. Francis and Sir Francis Drake and Mark Hopkins and the whatchacallit, Fairmount (Fairmont)?, Ritz Carlton, and various others, as possible meeting places, along with the Hyatt, and see if I can get pictures.

Course, then there is the Adagio lounge, and balcony, which do attract me. Back soon.

This is, I think, the St. Francis lobby, on the older side facing the square. Not as intimidating as it looks in this picture. Lemme tell you, great bathrooms. I stayed there once, in a tiny room next to the elevator (clank!!) .. and another time when I was nineteen with a couple of girlfriends. We were all rather innocent of experience and wore our most sophisticated clothes, including high heels. This might have been the single few days that killed my feet for heels eternally. I bought a raincoat on that trip and my mother made me ship it back. (rumbling even now....).

I lost the link when I edited clank. Back in a minute.
http://www.1st-sanfranciscohotels.com/images/hotels/fran2.jpg
Not the same link, even more over-the-top. But, you get the idea.

Back around 2000, I had a car breakdown on the way to LA and had to stay the weekend in SF. I picked a hotel a friend had mentioned (he had then an elevator company, and the hotel was a few years earlier one of those renovated flophouses turned boutique (or something like that). That was the Galleria Plaza Hotel. So I took a taxi there (it was night and I am night blind), and had a fine enforced vacation for the next two days. The next morning I wandered about and found my old friend the St. Francis, and that is when I had the strange breakfast in the coffee shop with me and the waiter talking, plus I had the Sunday papers....

There is a whole huge wing of more modern content. I insist, my breakfast was under $10.00.

Not to push the St. Francis, back with more possibilites.

Looks like a "somewhere in time" magic kind of place. Just don't find that penny in your pocket

The Sir Frances Drake - I haven't been in the door in decades. It is sort of in the a2k neighborhood. There's a room at the top...
http://www.holidaycityusa.com/sir-francis-sanfrancisco/
I know, this link is not enticing, but maybe the hotel is worth a tuck in upon walking by. I know I liked it when I was nineteen, and I had a lucky (or not) childhood having seen a few really nice hotels, in a certain truncated set of years.

I'll look for more links that might show more.

repeat, sorry.

a repeat, sorry x 2 or more.

Wow, $139/nite is a bargain for this house.

Sir Francis Drake

I tried to link the fourth picture and loused up.

I think this is where my friend Bob likes... he is an older marine guy, a neighbor of mine and my ex in Venice, CA.

Worth a walk in the door if you like this sort of thing. I do. (I like contemporary too, but find this old stuff cushiony.) Levels of crafts happening. Levels, arguably, of rich lording it about.) However, craft happened.

So, I just looked at all the pics and thought, nah... Still the place is historic SF.

another double post, snarl..

osso, You'll really love the Stanley Hotel in Nairobi, Kenya. They just completed a complete renovation just before our arrival in 2001. The hotel was orignally built in 1902, and was frequented by such notories as Ernest Hemingway, Karen Blixen, and Ava Gardener. The ceiling on the second floor bar/lounge has mechanical fans. I love old hotels too! I can remember most of the oldies I've stayed in, but have forgotten most of the modern ones. I must say, though, that the (new) Taj Palace in Delhi will never be forgotten by me. That's a first rate hotel.

CI. a hotel thread might be a winner. I have stayed in $2. ones and once in a while a place like the St. Francis. I love most of them. Have childhood memories of my first "motel", the TourInn in Fort Wayne, Indiana.

Seems I am in the wrong business..

I read Blixen in my twenties...
well, I love travel writing and collect it.
Another thread topic..

Bringing up that I don't with my contemporary sensibilities always agree with writers afore now, but it is a little bit like movies, I suspend disagreement for the tale.

I'll be quiet for a while. Will look up other places tomorrow.

I don't mean to hog this looking. BBB, what do you like in the City?

Looks like it's the Nob Hill then, huh?

I see I have taken up near a dozen posts. Someone else's turn...

Really glad you're giving so much good data, osso.

Still catching up in the restaurants, and am going to have lots of flexibility about everything, since we'll have time in the week after the Gathering to explore on our own. I have already decided I want to go see the Giants at Pac Bell during that time. Any baseball fans in the group?

I like our location in Union Square except for that we'll be some distance from the Nob Hillians. It is always advantageous for someone local to do moderate coordination for the group -- as has been done with the lobby meeting locations -- with the proviso that it falls more under "suggestion" than agenda. (osso, c.i.: don't take this on unless you have a high frustration tolerance. We're like herding cats at times. :wink: )

Yeh, PD, and I am no good at herding and Pacco won't be along on this trip. I'm just going to collect some lobby photos this weekend.. and get out my map..
I might even go look at our travel book store for a better map or guide book. Hmm, I wonder if there is a San Francisco Access book.

One place on that restaurant place that looked nifty was the
Armani cafe...

Well, you better bring pictures of the little guy.

On your suggestions we could move our offline caucus from one place to the next, just for entertainment purposes.

And also so we don't get thrown out of someplace when our discussions digress into inevitable chaos :wink: