02.05.05
Vampire Tour of San Francisco
I was tired from the long week, but Friday I finally got to do something I’ve been wanting to do for a while, The Vampire Tour of San Francisco. I took a nap Friday afternoon, then was joined by my friend Carolyn, my sister Maureen, and her best friend, Deb, who was visiting from Denver. Having guests come from out of town is a great way to do those guilty-pleasure activities suited for tourists. We carpooled up to The City, and ate at The Stinking Rose for dinner. The food was tasty, and we felt well-fortified for the tour.
Keith and George (who declined to come) guessed that it would be a history lesson by a goth chick, and technically that was true, but it was definitely more interesting than that. Winter nights are apparently not very popular, so it was only the four of us. Mina Harker gave us a fun and sometimes funny vamped-up history of San Francisco’s Nob Hill. She included fun facts about Emperor Norton, and the residents of Nob Hill. We even saw those older twin ladies that were Doublemint twins. They waved at Mina because she sees them every week. There are more pictures below. The last stop was 3 steep blocks down for a drink at the Marine’s Memorial Club. So rather than climb back up the hill, we rode the cable car, which was only a block away. Deb was very happy.
BTW parking on Nob Hill is non-existant or pricey! The garage we found charged $3 per 20 minutes or a maximum of $31. Well, you can guess how much we paid by the end of the night…
Deb waits for Mina to mix the tickets for the drawing.
Carolyn is the lucky winner of the drawing. The prize is a couple of coasters from Transylvania! Mina did a tour to Transylvania last summer and will do another one this summer. She had a great time. This year her other tour partner will be Butch Patrick, who played Eddie Munster. That sounds fun, too. Maybe after I graduate and get a job…
Mina talked about the founding of San Francisco and her original banishment to San Francisco by Count Dracula. Apparently in life she was a vegetarian, so the idea of drinking blood was not well received, so Drac got pissed and shipped her overseas. She also talked about Grace Cathedral, which resembles the Notre Dame Cathedral in France.
The fountain in the center of Huntington Park is the center of what used to be the Huntington house on Nob Hill. In a nod to the former layout of the house, the restrooms are where the bathroom used to be, and the playground is where the children’s rooms were. Also, several buildings in the area were built on graveyards that were not completely properly moved. Hmmm, Poltergeist, anyone?
This building is definitely haunted according to the members of the very exclusive Pacific-Union Club, which uses this building as its headquarters. This used to be the house of the Floods, another historical Nob Hill family. Mr. Flood apparently did the vampires a favor, and so they dug him a tunnel to his mistress’ house across the street.