SF defies logic once again.

Strap yourself in…we’re going on a rant.

This morning I had to head into san francisco to submit a visa application. I get up this morning and Sunnyvale is a nice sunny 65 degrees. Ahh…the weather was perfect, I thought as I don my flipflops and tshirt and head out bright and early to SF, giving myself a little bit of a cushion in case there’s traffic. Of course the minute I hit SF city limits the cloud appears out of nowhere and the temperature drops 15 degrees. Didn’t know overcast weather adhered to city borders.

Anyways, the consulate opens at 9am, and I arrived in town at 8:15 (yes…I like to be punctual). Perfect! I’ll just swing by Blue Bottle for a little Kyoto iced coffee to jumpstart my day. I pull into the meager (3 spaces and two are handicap only) parking lot. No open spaces. Ok…I’ll just find street parking. I pull out into the street and there was a row of open spaces…great! I pull into one…yellow (loading only). Ok, I’ll move ahead to another space…white (who knows what that means)...grrr. So I move up a few more spaces to no paint on the sidewalk and a free meter. Awesome! I get out to feed the meter when I see a that the meter had a friendly tip printed on it: Check for restrictions before feeding this meter. Oh that’s nice of them, so I look up:

No Parking from 2am-6am
No Stopping from 2pm-7pm
Passenger Loading only from 7pm-2am
No Parking on Thursdays from 4am-9am for street cleaning

Wow, if this is a space with no paint, I’d hate to see the restrictions on the ones with paint. I needed a calendar, a watch, and a magic 8-ball just to figure out the sliver of time in which I could park there. Oh and did I mention I needed $3.50 in quarters for 1 hour? After searching every crevice of my car for spare change, I was finally ready to get some coffee. I pick up the heavenly coffee in a to-go cup and think to myself…hey this day is turning out to be alright.

Too soon. Wayyy too soon.

I decide to take a brisk walk over to the consulate (it was on Market street a few blocks down). As I pass by a nice looking parking garage, I decide to glance at the rates, hoping it’d make me feel better about saving so much $$ by parking on the street. $2.75/hr. How the heck is garage cheaper than street parking?? *sigh* oh well, just keep walking.

I get to the consulate, which is in a high-rise (kinda weird, but meh…whatever works), and I check in at the ground floor. I take the elevator, which apparently makes you type in the floor you want to go to, and if you mess up, sorry, you’re going to that floor (sucks). Anyways, I get to the front door of the consulate on 24th floor, and the guard makes me sign in again, and does a body search, just in case I’m there to hurt the three admins and security guard. And that’s when they broke the news: the coffee needs to go in the trash.

WHAT???

Yep. I asked if I could just set it aside for later…nope. Can I leave it outside the door? Nope. They watched as I slowly lowered it into the garbage can. After an appropriate time of mourning, rending my garments and donning sackcloth and ashes, I was ready to submit my application. 15 minutes later, it was over. Come back in 5 business days and get your passport, only in the afternoon though.

Great, I get to see what the other end of SF rush-hour looks like. Yippee.