Murals and more...

It was starting to get a little chilly. Thane assured us that the ice cream place was only a short walk away on Harrison Street, which turns out to be a pretty damn long street. I keep forgetting that Thane is used to being a pedestrian and I'm totally a lazy ass suburbanite.
Here's a Guatemalan food cart on a street corner. Wish we could've stayed to eat something but we were on a mission to get more ice cream!

Loved the look of this market!

Graffiti seen on a purple van.

While walking down one of the streets, Bert was pointed out by this overzealous Giants fan on a bike. The guy was screaming, "Yeahhhh, playoffs baby!" and pumping his fist in the air. He happened to turn around and noticed Bert's SD Padres cap and started making kinda rude noises and yelled, "Giants!!! Giants baby!!!". Bert just laughed it off. An older Latino gentleman standing outside of a bar said, "I'm sorry for your loss" to Bert. That was actually kind of funny! The mood was ebullient as we passed the neighborhood bars and stores because the playoffs game just ended and of course, the Padres' dream of going to the World Series came to a sad end (this was Sunday, October 3rd)

There's tons of cool murals all over the Mission District. Here were a few that were a couple of stories high. Other murals were on sides of buildings, on fences in alleyways, and on utility boxes.


I have a thing for the Virgen de Guadalupe- here's her image on the side of a produce market!

This one is called, "El Imigrante":

The left half of the mural:

Artist info:

I liked this flyer's colors and how it was wrinkled and wrapped around this telephone pole.

More street art - this one had "wishes" tied to tree branches:

A few more steps and we were nearly ready to satisfy our sweets cravings once again...

Mission Dolores, Basilica & Cemetery

The Mission Dolores is the oldest surviving building in San Francisco and since 1776, the sixth mission founded in the California Missions chain. It is formally named after Saint Francis de Asisi (founder of the Franciscan order) but is commonly referred to as the Mission Dolores due to the nearby creek, Arroyo de Nuestra Señora de los Dolores.

Here is the original adobe structure...the basilica (not pictured) is off to the right and was completed in 1918.

We took a the tour ($5 per adult and $3 for kids) and the man working there was so very nice and kind, especially to TC. He probably assumed she was a 4th grader doing her missions project. We told him we were traveling from San Diego and he was very happy that we were visiting.

This is the interior of the The Mission chapel, which is one of only two surviving buildings where Father Junipero Serra is known to have officiated. The other chapel is the one at San Juan Capistrano (TC's class visited that mission last spring and took the Amtrak train, fun!).

The church had a big mural ont he right and several art pieces hanging. This is one of them (on the left as you face the altar), St. Joseph's altar:


The altar:

Right next to the old Mission is the newer Basilica. It's quite grandiose in scale and decor, compared to the older church, but not as huge as the Immaculata at the University of San Diego. Still, it's quite huge, but a bit too sombre for my taste.

View of the church from the front (looking towards the back).

There were rows of these brilliant stained glass windows with blood red and orange honeycomb prints. The effect in the dark basilica was quite striking.

After the Basilica, we checked out the Cemtery grounds which contain shrubs, trees, flowers, and plants indigenous to the area as well as to the time period (1791). Here is the prequisite statue of the proselytizing Father Serra. I'm sure the native Indians don't see him in such a kindly light.

Here is another statue of  Serra in the cemetery. I thought it was his grave marker. Later on, we asked the man working at the gift shop and he said that Serra is actually buried on the grounds of the Carmel Mission.

The cemtery garden also contains an Ohlone Indian ethno-botanic garden and a hut of that particular tribe.

Many famous San Franciscans are buried here. I noticed many of the graves also bore Irish surnames.

More graves and headstones...

There's the Ohlone hut...

I liked theiron work surrounding this grave which is the final resting place of Don Luis Antonio Arguello, the first commandant of the Presidio.

One last look at the Basilica's facade, which was inspired by the style of the buildings in San Diego's Balboa Park 1915 Pan American Exposition. Those of us that live in San Diego may recognize this style and see the similarity in such buildings as the Museum of Man, the Museum of Art and the buildings all along the promenade leading to the fountain near the Natural History Museum. This ornate style is known as "churrigueresque", known for its elaborate sculptural elements.

Okay, history lesson over. Let's get some ice cream!

More of the Mission District...

After Bi-Rite we headed over to the Mission Dolores...I forgot what streets we were one because Thane was leading the way (Valencia and Dolores I think). Some streets were pretty "colorful" in terms of sights, sounds, and people.

This was a shop we passed by, Bell Jar (I immediately thought of the Sylvia Plath novel of the same name), but this shop had a lot of expensive frou frou shit in there.

Loved the pattern of the dress on the left, but I would never wear it. I'm not into A-line style. Although it's supercute on the mannequin, I know it won't be the same on me because of my body type. This would make me look short and stumpy. I'm not into the Donna Reed or Mrs. Cleaver 50's housewife dresses. You know, the kind where you need to wear your pearls and high heels while vacuuming or dusting. "Oh honey, I'm hooome!", ha ha. Yeah right. So not me.

Some cool iron scroll work...it was the fence for this house (photo below this one).

Bert looks like he is surveying his domain (above).

After what seemed like hours (but was in reality only minutes) of walking, we were there - at the Mission Dolores, the oldest building in San Francisco. Since TC learned about missions (last year in 4th grade), as well as the subjugation of the Native American Indians by the disease ridden Spaniards, we wanted to check this place out. Plus, part of Hitchcock's "Vertigo" was filmed here! But hey nowww, what's that over there?

It was a Van with crudely painted designs on them. I spied an incomplete American flag, a dog, Bill Clinton, a peace symbol and a tribute to Tupac Shakur! But wait there's more...

Check it out! It's a Jesus fish And the late Eazy-E (formerly of NWA) as well as what seemed like a huge friendly bear! When we walked to the other side of the van, Thane started to chuckle. I asked him what was funny and he said that the bear that I thought was kind of cute, was known as "Pedo-Bear" and that underneath his "cute" exterior lurked a more unsavory and sinister creature with Chester the Molerster like intentions. I had no idea that this image was a popular internet meme. Kinda creepy now.

Up next - the Mission itself.

Bi-Rite Creamery & Bakeshop

We took a Muni bus to get closer to the Mission District. Then, we still had to walk a ways to get to this place, Bi-Rite Creamery on 18th St.

The line was out the door but moved quickly. I wanted to check this place out because of their flavors, plus it was fairly close to the Mission Dolores which was on our list of "must see/must do" that day. We wanted some sweets after the Senor Sisig tacos.

Bi-Rite is known for using natural ingredients, organic, sustainable, vegan/gluten free blah blah, you know all those catchphrases and shit that makes the granola people happy and feel good about the environment. I only cared about how the ice cream would taste! Hand made, small batches and interesting flavors. Check it out below.

Getting closer...

We all got the single size cone...

While these looked good, we just wanted our single cones (that looked liked double). We were still planning to hit up ANOTHER ice cream place later that afternoon.

I knew what I wanted...

Cheers!

Here's Bert's cone - the Coffee Toffee. Man, you can really see his pores there. Hopefully no protruding nose hairs. He's pretty good at grooming the nostrilular area. That's a new word by the way. Nostrilular.

TC got the Summer Melon Sorbet which she liked...she really likes fruity and/or sour flavors.

Good ole Thane got the Mint Chip...

I got the Salted Caramel which was fabulous! Nice and creamy.

A few steps up was the Bi-Rite Creamery Bakeshop...

Lots of goodies in their windows...

There's just a small walk up window. You let them know what you want. They get it for you. Pay for it. Yadda yadda. I liked the drawing of the little smiley ice cream cone.

I ended up getting one these: the PB Honey Cupcake, which we ended up sampling later that night. Fkg A it was so good! This was more for Bert since he's the PB freak.

The other one I bought was the Salted Caramel cupcake since I was on a salted caramel kick. This was super sweet but good! Total sugar coma!

After our little stopover here, we pounded the pavement once again...our next destination was to see the Mission Dolores, made famous in Hitchcock's "Vertigo".

Who else went to Bi-Rite?

Kirbie of Kirbie's Cravings was there last month during the FoodBuzz Festival...and Alice from Alice Q. Foodie (where her husband also had the salted caramel)!

And because I live in a musical time warp, here's the song running through my mind right now, the very awesome Gene Loves Jezebel!

Up next, the Mission!