Finally, after all these years it was happening. I'd made up my mind to make a new start, got a job with a company that captured by heart. We drove past palm trees and a whole lot of tech utopia-esque billboards -- Smart Toothpaste and Internet-connected Toilets and the like -- and soon the Golden Gate Bridge appeared in the distance. We passed the Bill Graham Civic Auditorium where people were lining up many levels deep to see the Arctic Monkeys. I arrived at my hotel with a cool wind in my hair, and the warm smell of colitas1 rising up through the air. The <REDACTED> hotel welcomed me warmly and I dropped off my bag before heading out to explore the culinary experiences that SF and its reputation promised me.
SF is an amazing city. But in a bad state. The North Shore is beautiful, there are nice parks along the waterfront and great views of the Golden Gate Bridge, Alcatraz, and the bay itself. The houses are probably worth a billion dollars each and there are nicely dressed families walking along the promenade enjoying the sun and the sea air. Closer to the centre of the city, there are many things, but two things most predominantly: (1) garbage; and (2) homeless people with either mental health problems, addiction problems, or both. And there are a whole lot of both (1) and (2). It's a crisis. There is shit on the street (not from little white dogs like in Paris -- human shit) and you feel like you're in a zombie movie. The people seem to walk the way zombies are depicted in The Walking Dead. They have a way of shuffling their feet very slowly with glazed eyes not focusing on anything. It's unfortunately a little bit frightening and it's a disaster not because it makes the city dirty and ugly and kind of scary to walk around in (though those are all true), but these people have no way to get out of this spiral. If you thought living in Munich or Vancouver was expensive, try San Fran. It is the most expensive city in the US (yes, including Manhattan) and the median price for a condo is more than 1.4 million dollars. There's no affordable housing and there seem to be no social programs (or not enough of them) to help these people who need them.
The other weird thing is how it all sits on top of each other. There are places in SF that are completely gentrified (like the amazing Patricia's Green which is -- as said -- amazing and a great example of what a city can look like when you take cars out of it, but gentrified in the worst sense of the word: people who aren't multi-millionaires are no longer permitted, essentially) but in the Tenderloin, for example, it's not like there's a "bad area". Instead, you walk down the street literally taking exaggerated steps to get over people sleeping in the street and then open the door into fashionable bar full of expensively-dressed people enjoying $30 cocktails. It's a two-tier society right here in North America (look at me being shocked about that) and it boggles the mind that this can happen in a place that's so rich. Just another way to survive, I guess.
Going back to the good, now: San Francisco is amazing if you have money (and flowers in your hair) and you love good food, coffee, drinks, etc. You are absolutely spoiled here as the number of options of different cuisines with high quality, the best coffee at seemingly every corner, and craft beer breweries and bars every three storefronts.
In contrast to the colitas that wafted up intermittently throughout San Francisco, Palo Alto seems to have a beautiful permanent smell that makes you feel like you're in a tropical forest (with a few highways thrown in for good measure). Some of the leaves are brown (though not all) and all around you is the smell of flowers, liquorice, pepper, and also some kind of "toasted" smell (that I understand is particular to the autumn). Walking through town feels to me like walking through a really nice botanical garden that someone built a city on top of. Remember Space Quest III: The Pirates of Pestulon? Of course you do. Remember the end of the game when Roger Wilco brings the Two Guys from Andromeda (those folks I dig) to the Sierra Online headquarters?
Well good thing YouTube exists because you can find everything there. And there it is, just above. I hadn't thought about this game in years but somehow walking around here I immediately thought of this scene (and it might even be Washington State -- let's hope not) but it made me think of that. Weird. Here's a couple of real pictures of Palo Alto (though they don't really capture it...):
I can't explain it but I feel that Silicon Valley could really only have happened here. It's not just the weather (though that's part of it -- it never rains in California) but it's something about the geography. It feels like there's infinite possibility here with how comfortable it feels outside, how nice it looks, and the infinity of the nature preserves just South and East of tech's Mecca. Looking out the window from the backseat of a Lyft driver's car, you see foothills and mountains covered in cacti and what look to me, anyways, like "exotic" trees. I'm no botanist (duh), but I would describe these natural areas as deserts that have plants. Ha. I mean, there's a lot of vegetation so it's no desert, but there are large swaths of land with nothing and the plants and trees that you see feel "desert-y", let's say. I dunno.
I dreamed of coming here since I was maybe 14 years old. For a long time I thought it would be a dream to live here and then somehow (haha not so hard if you watch the news) I got completely turned off of the idea of ever wanting to live in the United States. My desire to want to come to California waned over the years and I felt pulled to more exotic, quote-unquote, locations for holiday and for living. Lifestyle -- but in a different sense than I had imagined before -- became more important and the "American way of life" (TM) and car supremacy and other things turned me off of this place.
It's hard to be really surprised by a place and normally people are disappointed or feel let down when they finally visit a place they've dreamed of visiting (cf. Paris Syndrome). Things can never live up to how much they've been pumped up in one's mind. Separate from being surprised or delighted, there's also the ability of a place to change your views on things. I think this can often happen -- most obviously by experiencing a different culture that shows you that what you thought was normal and 'standard' maybe isn't necessarily all that so -- but it normally sinks in over a protracted period of time and it's only when you look back that you realize "that changed me".
Well perhaps it's because I had no expectations but California did something pretty impressive. I'm not disappointed and I'm definitely not surprised. But a big change did happen. I would consider living here. Why not?
1. Literally. The relevant bit courtesy of https://www.straightdope.com/columns/read/1053/in-the-song-hotel-california-what-does-colitas-mean/: [...] in 1976, during the writing of the song Hotel California by Messrs. Henley and Frey, the word "colitas" was translated for them by their Mexican-American road manager as "little buds." ↩
