Save me, San Francisco

OK, so... as previously mentioned, we are supposed to be going to India this week. I say "supposed to be" because a million and a half things have gone wrong leading up to this so until our feet are on the ground in India, I just don't think I'll be a believer.

So, first, we paid to expedite our passports. Those went as planned, and two weeks later, there they were in the mail. Then, we had to overnight our passports to Jon's mom, who was kind enough to go to San Francisco (more on that city later....) to turn in our visas for us. But, UPS lost my passport in the mail. So, that meant  paying an arm and a leg for 24 hour lost passport replacement through Travisa. We filled everything out, and then mailed it off to San Francisco via FedEx next day 8AM guaranteed delivery. Which, by the way, also costs an arm and a leg. So, by this point all I am is a head on a body with no limbs. Very inconvenient. At this point, my passport should have been mailed back to our house on Tuesday.
Except, when we called Monday morning to make sure that it went through OK, they had not gotten it on time. After a mild panic attack, I as assured that it would be done on time. If we just flew to San Francisco a day early, we could pick up my passport at 8:45AM, drop off our visas at 9AM, pick up our visas at 5PM, and fly to India at 9PM. Tight, but managable schedule.
So, we made sure our dog/house sitter could pull an extra day, thank GOODNESS they could, and made arrangements with work, school, airlines, hotel, and off we were 24 hours later. Off to San Francisco.
My mom gave us a ride to the airport.
"You'll love San Fran," she said.
"It's my favorite place in the world!" she said.
"It's such a neat place." She said.
"I'm so jealous you get to go there." She said.

Well. She lied. Yeah, Mom, you... you lied. San Francisco SUCKS. In fact, it is the worst place in the whole world. If the ghetto of the universe has an armpit, it's called SAN FRANCISCO. Not one thing about this city has been appealing. Not. One. Thing. We've seen street fights. We've seen drug deals. We've seen people crapping on the sidewalk. We've seen people shooting up on the street. It smells like smoke, urine, and body odor. It's loud. It's camped. It's scary. It's so so so so so ghetto. Oh man, at leat we're only here for one little night, right?
WRONG.
There was a hold on my visa and we got stuck a whole extra night. 24 MORE hours in the worst city in the universe. So, it's now 4:38PM. We have a car coming in one hour to pick us up, swing by to pick up our supposed-to-be-done Visas, and then off to the airport.
I can't wait to get out of this city. I hate big cities. Hate them. You know, when we went to New York, it was easy to simply appreciate the culture, and enjoy our visit. I genuinely had fun and the big city didn't bother me at all. But, San Francisco is different. It's lame. I hate it. In all fairness, we have not had the opportunity to go see much of the touristy part of the city.   Now, I won't even go into our hotel experiences much, other than Hotel Bijou was the worst hotel experience of my entire life, where I spent the night CRYING over how terrible it was and got NO rest, but the Prescott has been much, MUCH better. And I don't fear being shanked every time we walk down the street. We have had passport and visa meetings at certain time, and with limited funds, we have not been able to go very far from our hotel and NEED to stay within quick walking distance from the Travisa offices. Unfortunately these offices, and therefore our hotel as well, are in the Tenderloin. What the heck is the tenderloin other than a cut of juicy meat? It's a cut of one of the most ghetto, crime and drug ridden places in the entire country.

So, that's that. Here we are. In the tenderloin. Trying not to die.

In 4.5 hours, we will be on a plane to Germany, then to India.



OH, and also, this has nothing to do with anything, but I miss my water softner already. Hard water is so gross, I don't feel clean!

And I miss Annie. A LOT. Painfully so. :-(