The S.F. Zoo and dinner in North Beach with Nicko.

On Joe Urino's advice from yesterday, we had breakfast at nearby Sears Fine Foods.An In spot of breakfast we had to wait on line to get in. We treated ourselves to a shared Eggs Benedict.

To get to the zoo, we discovered another San Francisco transportation system—subways that turn into street cars. Under Powell and Mason, there's a MUNI subway station. The L-line sped us out of downtown. It emerged out of the dark, onto the street, and slowed down. Row houses and a thousand little local stores line the route to the zoo at the west side of the peninsula.

Nicko met up with us. The zoo has many popular African, South American and Australian mammals. Nicholas was quite knowledgable about them, especially the Australian ones. It was easy to cover most of the zoo.

We hadn't been to North Beach yet. Using Yelp, we found Franchino's.. A quick bus ride got us to the intimate restaurant whose colorful owner greeted every customer and wedged us in. The dinner was mouth watering with even the side dish pasta cooked to perfection—smoked salmon salad, two veal dishes and pasta with calamari. Limoncello with sherbet for dessert.

Nicko us showed us around North Beach, but wind and cold had set in so we grabbed a bus back to the hotel.

A great day with Nicko!