Girl's Day in the Cit-ay

Not in the middle of the street, mommy!!

Peek-a-boo!

Fragola Gelato with Monsieur Bear

Brain Freeze

Cafe Muse

Zoe gazes at the Oakland harbor

Today Zoe and I took a trip "into town" to check out Union Square in it's xmas glory.
Just the two of us, we bought our BART tickets and hopped on the train. On the ride, Zoe loved looking out the window and watching the cranes in the harbor- being way up high.
We arrived downtown and our first stop was the Sanrio store (Hello Kitty) at the mall. Zoe pulled me in and had fun wandering around looking at all the pink cuteness.
Then we went to the top at Nordstrom (for the nicest restrooms downtown) and peered over the railing in the center to see the lights and spangles dangling down 5 stories below. After freshening up, we hit up the fleece sale at the Gap in front of the cable car turn around at Powell. Zoe could not hold on anymore. She was insistent on going for a ride. But mommy, being the local in the know, walked us past the long line at the turn around to the corner 3 blocks up- the car's first stop on it's way up Nob Hill. Locals know to skip the line and wait here instead. Zoe could hardly wait for her ride, but scooted up the hill like a trooper.
We found room on the outside rail, but Zoe needed a seat, so a nice man made room between himself and his older daughter. Turns out they were NJ Greeks and we had a lovely chat. His other daughter is also a Greek Zoe. "Ding a ding ding"! Zoe loved the ringing of the bell and got really excited waiting for the gripman to ring it. The other passengers giggled and said, "how cute!"
We jumped ship at the top of Union St., and walked down into North Beach. Zoe wanted to see mommy's old apartment. At the top of a steep hill, we stopped to take a picture of Zoe with the bay behind her, but she was a little upset that I asked her to stand in the middle of the street.
Next, we stopped at Washington square where Zoe played peek-a-boo behind the trees before heading for the playground. There we met another daddy who steered us to pizza slices at Golden Boy on Grant/Green. It had been a while since I'd spent a lunch hour at the counter there, and Zoe couldn't reach it from the stool, so we sat out on someone's stoop, in the afternoon sun, sharing our cheese slice.
Then we walked down Columbus to Steps of Rome to taste spoonfuls of whipped cream generously doled out by cute Italian boys singing Italian Rock at the top of their lungs, but they weren't spooning or singing today, and didn't have our favorite gelato, so we moved down the street, peering into windows at pastries and colorful ceramics, watching curbside dinners twirl spaghetti, and listening to live music drift through the alleys across from City Lights. Specs, Tosca, so many great places where I'd wasted entire afternoons in my youth, now streaking by as if a faint memory from another life, as I hold my daughter's hand. Finally we found a place that had Zoe's favorite- fragola, and we stopped for a scoop.
From there, we decided to go ahead and walk down through the Jackson street antiques district, where we looked at the old and the modern furniture designs, into the Embarcadero, where we took a seat at the side of the ice rink and watched skaters slip and slide in circles around the ice. Finally, we made our way to BART, and over the bay once again.
Now that Zoe is a little older, and we don't need a stroller or diaper bag, we don't have screaming tantrums at the drop of a hat, days like this can happen more often. On the ride home, we couldn't stop talking about how much fun we had, together.