San Francisco...Getting Started

We've been back for two weeks now from one of the best trips ever. We left early, early from Charlotte so that we could arrive at our hotel in San Francisco by lunchtime. We checked in, sat on our fancy bed in our fancy room for a few minutes, and headed out to get some lunch. We were famished, so we tried to find something quick to eat in Union Square near our hotel. We were so desperate for food that we actually had our first San Francisco lunch at Burger King! There seems to be a theme here: that was also the first place that we ate at in Hawaii. If you know me at all, you can probably not imagine me eating at Burger King, but that's how hungry I was!
After a delicious meal of chicken fries, we headed for the cable car turnaround so that Wes could have his first cable car experience. Of course we had to take our first ride standing up. I thought this was a great idea until an armored truck appeared in our way on the side of the road. Since I was on the front of the car, I was most in danger of being decapitated first. I was really scared when the brakeman asked me, "Do you think we can make it past that truck?" Are you kidding me? How the heck do I know? I can barely park my SUV.
We actually did make it safely down to Fisherman's Wharf. We walked around a bit, looking at the touristy shops. Good thing we were in the tacky shop area, because I left Wes's sunglasses at the Charlotte airport and he was able to buy a pair here. They are really cool - Choppers glasses. Sounds just like Wes, doesn't it?
We walked around Pier 39, the really big tourist trap made to look like an old boardwalk. We treated ourselves to a cookie and watched the sea lions who hang out there.After watching the sea lions bicker over dock space for awhile, we headed on down to the Alcatraz ferry. We rode out to Alcatraz and had a nice, pretty fogless view of the Golden Gate Bridge. Once on Alcatraz we took the audio tour, which I had never done before. It's really good! Wes and I were being our nerdy selves by constantly timing our starts and stops on the tour so that we could talk to each other. We really enjoyed going through the old prison, and I found out much more information than I had known before (I used to be obsessed with Alcatraz).By the time we got back on land from Alcatraz, we were beat. It was now 9:00 EST, and we had been up since 2:00 in the morning. We hadn't had a decent meal, either. All I could think of was the Cheesecake Factory. Conveniently, there is one at the Macy's right next to our hotel. We rode the cable car back to Union Square and headed straight for the food. This Cheesecake Factory is awesome: it is on the eighth floor of Macy's, and we got to sit outside on the terrace. This is the same Macy's where David Beckham made an appearance two days after we left the city.
We ate it up at Cheesecake Factory. I always get an appetizer there, but I definitely put away a meal of Chicken Littles and mashed potatoes. After we filled our bellies, we trudged up to bed for the night since we had to get up at 6:30 the next morning.