4.2 miles to/in Civic Center

In order to get to the Civic Center area from my office, my sister and I had to trek through the Tenderloin which we didn't want to try alone so we brought a coworker body guard along for the walk along Ellis.

The crazy was out in full force in the Loin tonight so the only thing I am going to show you is this fine mural and barbed wire, the nices thing in the neighborhood.  For realz.  If you saw what we saw, you would never want to visit here.

The carrot on the stick on the race through the Loin is the City Hall building.  It's a stunner.

Gough Street has a nice string of restaurants and shops making the walk very pleasant.

Absinthe has a great brunch and is a bit famous due to one of its chefs, Jamie competing on Top Chef last year.  She did really well on the show and was the fourth to last to get cut, btw.

Over the holidays, I decided to give knitting a try and it was AWESOME.  It's a really fun hobby for bad weather days.  Now that I'm in the yarn know, I can appreciate how nifty this shop is.  I want to come back to peruse all the fancy yarns.

I'm still not sure what building this was, I'm thinking some sort of a public assistance building, but never saw a sign.  If anyone knows, let me know.  It was roughly at Gough and Golden Gate Ave.

My new favorite sidewalk stencil.

The most intruiging storefront.  What is going on here?!

At the end of our walk, we decided to check out the main San Francisco library.

It's five floors of awesomeness.

The kid's section is really huge.  As I was scoping it out and reminiscing about all the books I read as a kid, I came across these from Jan Marino. I met her when I was 9 and she autographed my copy of Eighty-Eight Steps to September. I was the coolest 4th grader for like a week.  It is actually a really interesting kid's book.  Pick up a copy some time.