THE GIRLS
Gina (me!) · 24 · dental hygienist, Portland. Will tell you to floss.

Tiff · paralegal, Salem. Has the hair.

Teresa · 3rd grade teacher, Eugene. Has the plan.

Roomies at Oregon State from 1993 until graduation in June 1997, in the apartment with the green shag carpet. Three cities apart now. First trip together since.

THE AWARDS
Best Hair in Wind: Tiff, all weekend, every picture

Most Lost: me. I had the map.

Best Sport: Teresa, who lost the coin toss and slept on the rollaway

Bravest: Tiff, karaoke

Worst Packer: me again. Shorts. "It's California!"

Most Sourdough Eaten: three-way tie

THE DAMAGE
(what I spent)
Plane ticket, fare sale: $118
My third of the hotel, 2 nights: $97
Muni pass: cheap!
Alcatraz: worth it
Sweatshirt I didn't plan on: $15
Chowder, twice: $12
Dim sum, dinner, lunch: about $45
Bike for the day: $25
Karaoke: priceless
Total: about $350

Okay! So we have been talking about this trip since GRADUATION, and this spring Teresa finally said, "Memorial Day. San Francisco. Buy the tickets or I'm going without you." So we did. Two nights, three days, three girls, one hotel room, way too many hills. Here are the pictures, with my comments. Click the little ones for big ones.

SATURDAY
6:40 a.m. flight out of Portland. Tiff drove up from Salem and Teresa from Eugene the night before and we met at the airport with mochas. Our hotel was a little old one near Union Square, two beds and a rollaway, and our room was the size of my car. Who cares! Dropped the bags and went straight for the cable car.

The cable car. It was stopped at the top of the hill and a nice man on the sidewalk offered to take our picture. Tiff yelled JUMP! Only two of us heard her. Teresa is standing there like a normal person and Tiff and I are hanging in midair like idiots. Best picture of the whole trip. Then the car went down that hill and I screamed like I was on a roller coaster, and the guy running the brake laughed at me.

The sea lions at Pier 39. Dozens and dozens of them, piled on these floating docks, burping and barking and shoving each other off into the water. It's like a frat house. You can smell them before you see them. Teresa named the big one on the left Gary. We stood there for forty-five minutes.

It was about 58 degrees and windy on the Wharf, and I was in SHORTS, because California. Teresa had warned me. I didn't listen. So we all bought sweatshirts from a stand and put them on right there.

Clam chowder in bread bowls. They hollow out a round sourdough loaf and fill it with chowder and then you eat the bowl. Genius. Look at us in our new sweatshirts. Teresa has the spoon in her mouth, I'm pretending to shiver (it was only half pretend), and Tiff's hair is doing the thing it did all weekend. That seagull was staring at my bread bowl the entire time.

Dinner in Chinatown, where we walked around for two hours and ate something different on every block. Teresa bought a paper lantern for her classroom. My fortune cookie said I would travel soon. I said, I KNOW.

SUNDAY
Alcatraz! Teresa bought our tickets by phone back in April, because they sell out, and she was right, because the people in line behind us at the ticket window got turned away. Thank you, Teresa. Always listen to Teresa.

The Rock, from the ferry. That's the back of Teresa's head. She was too excited to turn around. You go through the whole cellhouse with headphones on and a tape tells you about it, and you can step into a cell. They're tiny. Like, smaller than our hotel room, which I didn't think was possible. I would not have lasted one night. Creepy and cold and the best thing we did.

Lombard Street. The crooked one! It's one block of brick switchbacks going down a hill so steep they had to zigzag it, and the whole thing is planted with hydrangeas, blue and pink. People drive down it about two miles an hour taking pictures out the window. We walked down the steps on the side. That's Tiff at the top doing her best hill-twirl. She made me take it three times.

Sunday night: karaoke! Tiff got up and sang "I Will Survive," and the whole bar sang along on the last chorus. I did a duet of "You're Still the One" with a very sweet older man from Fresno who knew all the words. Teresa would not sing. Teresa has never sung. Teresa will never sing. We love Teresa anyway.

MONDAY
We rented bikes near the Wharf to ride out to the Golden Gate Bridge. I had the map, and I got us lost finding the bike place, which was four blocks away. (See "Most Lost," at left.) Then we rode along the water to the bridge. The fog was SO thick you couldn't see the tops of the towers from the bridge itself. We rode across anyway, freezing, and climbed up to the lookout on the far end.

The Golden Gate in the fog. And from up there, THIS. The fog was lying across the water like a big white blanket and the towers were sticking up out of it. Everybody at the lookout just stopped talking. That's my handlebar at the bottom. By the time we rode back across, about one o'clock, the fog had burned off and it was sunny and blue and we could see the whole city. Same bridge, totally different day, two hours apart. San Francisco, you are crazy and I love you.

Flew home Monday night with sore legs, sunburned noses (yes, after all that fog), and a loaf of sourdough each in our carry-ons.

SAN FRANCISCO ON A BUDGET
From three girls with entry-level paychecks:

• Share a room. Somebody has to take the rollaway. Flip a coin.
• Get a Muni pass and ride the cable cars and buses all you want. Ride the cable car early in the morning, before the lines get long.
• BRING A SWEATSHIRT. I'm serious. It's cold. In May. In California. Learn from me.
• Book Alcatraz ahead. Weeks ahead.
• Eat in Chinatown. Cheap and so good.
• Walk. Everything is close, it's just all uphill.
• Watch fare sales in the Sunday paper. Portland to San Francisco goes on sale all the time.

Next year: Seattle? Vegas? Teresa is already making a list. Of course she is.