You receive a sheet of paper containing song lyrics: Bitter with the Sweet by Carole King. You notice three highlighted words: "the bitter" and "end," and recognize from the format of the last hunt's clues that this must refer to a location you need to visit. A quick perusal of your favorite map shows a bar in Inner Richmond called The Bitter End. The invite gives further instructions: a date and time, and a request to bring certain items. You got hungry midway through the last hunt; you think to yourself that that probably won't happen this time around.

On the day of the hunt, you receive this text, signed off by a dancing-woman-in-red-dress emoji and a world emoji:

"Some of you have previously tracked me around San Francisco; today you get to follow me around the world. Your invites disclose the start of your journey, and your collective knowledge is your way to the end. Tell the folks you find that you're friends of Carmen."

Once at The Bitter End, you grab a drink. The bartender hands you not only the receipt for your drink, but also a receipt that has a clue instead of any line items. It is in a language none of you recognize (since your only Turkish speaker bailed.) You pull out your phone and trusty old Google Translate tells you the clue says something along the lines of, "Apparently you liked the deliveries from the last scavenger hunt. I hope you like the takeout in this one as well. You will find your first package one minute away. Happy hunting:)" (It sounds better in Turkish.) Your favorite map directs you to Kitchen Istanbul, a one-minute walk away.

At Kitchen Istanbul, you find two things: a bag of food under the name Carmen, and a receipt with something written in Russian on the back. You dig into the food (mediterranean-style branzino with salad and rice) while turning to, once again, Google Translate for help deciphering the clue. It reads something along the lines of, "Seek a glass slipper, find piroshki instead." You rejoice because you love Cinderella Bakery and Cafe, and it's such a short walk away.

Piroshki do indeed await you at Cinderella — one baked mushroom, one fried mushroom, and one baked cabbage. The clue written on this receipt requires no technological help since you have multiple Spanish speakers in your group. It says you have to take the 33 to find 22, and the word Parada is curiously capitalized. You infer that you must go to Parada 22, a Puerto Rican restaurant on the 33 bus route, and you eat the piroshki on your way there.

More friends join you at Parada 22. You all dig into the sampler plate, plato vegetariano, habichuelas blancas, and tostones, and you puzzle over the Arabic clue. Google Translate comes to the rescue with its photo-translation capabilities. Somehow it recognizes the mediocre handwriting on the back of the receipt, and translates it as "Look for Slim. He will feed you." You realize it must have omitted a vowel, as happens sometimes in Arabic, and it probably is trying to send you to Abu Salim, the Palestinian mainstay in Haight-Ashbury.

Your hunch pays off: you find falafel, dolma, beef and lamb shawarma, and a Jerusalem salad waiting for you at Abu Salim. You are getting a bit stuffed but you push on. Google Translate tells you that this clue says, "Fifteen minutes on the seven will bring you to Brazil. You could get pizza anywhere; a more interesting snack awaits you here." You decide to get a little crafty and pretend that you're going to take the Caltrain down to a Brazilian steakhouse in San Jose, just to give me, your gracious host, a heart attack. This little trick incidentally makes me reread the clue and realize I forgot to omit the word "dia" in the clue; oops! But you've already figured out you need to get to Baiano SF, a pizzeria in Hayes Valley easily accessible by the 7 bus down Haight Street.

You mosey over to Baiano while I thank my lucky stars no one in this group actually speaks Portuguese and can tell how bad that translation was (this is one language where I couldn't get a friend to sanity check the translation, and had to rely on Google Translate myself.) Luckily, one of you does speak French, and you figure out that the clue that came along with your Brazilian meat and cheese croquettes is directing you to Chez Maman West, just up the street.

You're really stuffed now, and can barely make a dent in your salade niçoise. While you attempt that, you turn to Google Sensei to make sense of the Japanese characters parading down your receipt, since the one person in the group who speaks Japanese has gone home already. The clue directs you to the restaurant where we spent our friend Shefali's birthday, Noren Izakaya in North Beach. You scoff at having to go all the way to North Beach, but you do it anyway because you love me:))

You find several skewers — shiitake mushrooms, shishito peppers, bacon-wrapped mochi — and edamame waiting for you, along with your final receipt and clue. This one is in two languages. No one speaks Greek, but one of you does speak Italian. While some of you pore over the Greek letters, the one who speaks Italian tries to make sense of the very weirdly phrased sentences. (I unfortunately had to rely on Google Translate for both Italian and Greek here.) After some puzzling, all you really have is "6 dollar orange juice," and it turns out that's all you need: you know I'm hiding out at our fav, Caffè Greco. You fully give up on the skewers and head over to me. (Half the group doesn't realize that the Italian part of the clue says the last one to reach me has to buy me a 6 dollar orange juice, so that half arrives way later than the other.)

You walk into Caffè Greco and see Carmen Sanfrancisco in her classic red jacket. Only, no — it's not Carmen wearing it — it's some random man that I just met who agreed to prank my friends as retribution for the Caltrain debacle earlier! You hand me all the leftovers you've accumulated since Parada 22, and we all disperse fairly swiftly because everyone is entering food comas and needs to go home immediately. (It also turns out Caffè Greco has just run out of fresh oranges, so no one is stuck with buying me an orange juice.)

This has been the only hunt I've run so far where my friends got a reward at each stop, rather than waiting until the end for one big reveal. I really liked incorporating the language-learning kick I've been on lately into one of my hunts, and the Turkish host in me liked getting to feed my friends so many delicious foods. My friends really enjoyed the food and being introduced to local spots they didn't previously know about. They appreciated the walkable portions of the hunt, and the one-shot bus segments, but chose to Uber rather than take 2 buses to get from Hayes Valley to North Beach. They also relied on technology in this hunt way more than I wanted them to (though I can't fault them terribly for it, since I also turned to Google Translate when I couldn't find friends who spoke a language, rather than asking people in the restaurants I would later visit during the hunt itself.)

The next hunt will have to be completely self-contained, not relying on technology or external knowledge (unless I provide my friends with it), and entirely walkable. It will have to start earlier in the day so people aren't wiped by the end. I will have to dial in the details; no shoddy translations or anything like that, for the sake of my own pride in my creations. All in all, though, everyone had fun with this one, so I consider that to be a great success!