Friday, November 6, 2009

Finding a Laundry in San Francisco

Tomorrow I'll be flying directly from San Francisco to Auckland New Zealand, landing Sunday morning. Having already been in SF for a week. I thought it would be better to take some time tonight to find a local laundry place and get my clothes ready for next week - easier here than trying to find a place in Auckland on a Sunday.

So I found a place just a couple of blocks away using Google Maps - so I packed up the dirty clothes in my duffle bag and started walking the 5 blocks... but that place was closed - so I fired up the iPhone application iWant and found another only 7 blocks further... and walked some more.


Well - this continued a couple more times... each time finding the laundry was closed, or out of business, and I found myself walking through the Financial District, Chinatown, Italian area, and finally by Union Square.


Then I got smart - and started calling *first* before walking. After trying four unanswered phone calls - I got lucky and found one that was actually open. But it was another 6 blocks away - but all UP HILL.


It had already been an hour of walking from closed laundry to closed laundry - how much worse could it get? I'm not really a 'hiker' and though it was only 1/2 mile or so - it happened to be the highest and steepest hill in San Francisco. (so said the taxi driver on the way home) at the highest part there was a little store called "Top of The Hill" - cute.


But I did eventually find a laundry, get my clothes clean and then take a taxi back to the hotel. Whew! A three hour adventure for one load of laundry!

3 comments:

Karrissa Winward said...

That is funny! Did they not have washing machines and dryers at the hotel?

Richard B said...

A great post Keith. Who would of guessed such a challenge to do laundry.

Gram said...

Wow! that was almost as challenging as the time we tried to do laundry in the Netherlands. I am glad you had good legs and also happy that you were able to take a taxi back.