San Francisco: A quick layover story

I’m currently sitting in the SFO airport as I wait for our second flight (out of four flights to Colombia). It seems like an appropriate time to get some blogging done.

When family heard that Bryce and I planned to go into the city during our eight-hour layover in San Francisco, we received a lot of  questions like, “Are you going to have enough time?” and “Doesn’t the BART take forever?”

And now since our layover would be a little shorter due to a cancelled flight, we were even more determined to make it happen, and make the most out of our time in San Francisco. Besides, who wants to wait in a crowded, chaotic airport for six or eight hours when you could … just not?

As we exited the San Francisco airport, I noticed a really long security line of departing passengers. Even the TSA Pre-check line was pretty long.

“This makes me nervous,” I said to Bryce as I pointed to the crowds. “We’re going to have to wait in that when we come back to the airport.”

“It’s OK. We have plenty of time. And, we’ll be at a different terminal,” he replied.

We took the BART into the city and got off in The Mission where my one mission was to get bubble tea from Boba Guys. (Look them up if you have not heard of them! And, visit one of the many SF locations next time you’re here!)

It was sunny and cool, maybe in the mid 50s — perfect weather for walking around. We first walked to Dolores Mission Park because Boba Guys wasn’t opened yet. Spent some time there and then headed for Boba Guys. I love matcha and decided to switch up my order and tried their strawberry matcha milk tea with boba. (Also, I say this as if I am a frequent customer but I have only been twice … twice in the same weekend trip!) I wish we had better bubble tea options in Seattle — where the tea is made from real tea and not the powder! — but those thoughts are for another time!

After feeling content and happy with my boba drink, we ate lunch at a chic-hipster-like restaurant where Bryce had a Cuban and I had a veggie rice bowl. (They had bananas as wallpaper in their cute bathroom so I’m pretty sure that’s considered a hipster establishment, right?) It was around the corner from Boba Guys so we went for convenience’s sake, but the food was good!

We didn’t want to risk being late for our second flight so we headed back to SFO via the BART after lunch. There was a Latin band playing “Oye Como Va” as a crowd gathered and watched across the street from a farmer’s market by the BART station. It was so lively, I wished we had more time but then reminded myself that this is just a layover.

As we rode the BART back to the airport, I told Bryce I was going to “give a little prayer to Buddha” so that we’d have a non-stressful experience through the security screening at the airport. I really did not want to spend an hour waiting in line.

It was the total opposite.

From the first checkpoint where the agent checks your ticket to make sure you have TSA Pre-check (which we do,) to going through the X-ray machine and getting our carry-on bags back, it was a total of two minutes — or even less! t was such a pleasant surprise. Maybe two other passengers were around.

My prayer to Buddha worked! Or, it may just be that no one flies Southwest because this terminal we are at is only for Southwest flights.

Either way, I’d say this was a very successful San Francisco layover!