I'm really liking San Francisco [en]

[fr] J'aime bien San Francisco 🙂

The streets of San Francisco have this weird feeling of infinite possibility floating around them. The weather is sunny, spring-like for me. I spent two days walking up and down town, and it’s just teeming with life. There are stores, there are parks, there is really nice food — and not just the Asian variety. The skyscrapers, which I thought nothing but ugly when I was first here eight years ago, are beautiful when they glitter in the morning sun and when they light up from the inside as night falls.

San Francisco is locked up in a space of 49 square miles, a roughly square-like surface with sea on all sides but one. And I think that may very well be what helps me like it: it’s rather small, compact, walkable. A little world of its own, in which websites I use daily become offices and nicknames in IRC chatrooms become people to hang out with.

Two days ago as I was walking along the bay, I found myself thinking that I wouldn’t mind packing up Bagha and coming to spend a few months here (well, maybe he would mind — doesn’t seem to be too much of a life for an outdoor cat around here). After my year in India, it took me several years to really settle down again. I had a pretty hard time coming back, actually. And this is the first time I find myself somewhere thinking “hmmm, I wouldn’t mind moving here for a few months”…

11 thoughts on “I'm really liking San Francisco [en]

  1. Tes photos me donnent envie de visiter cette ville, ça a l’air vraiment joli 🙂
    J’espère que tu te réjouis quand même de rentrer 😉

  2. I’m really not surprised you like San Francisco ! It’s probably the nicest town in USA, I have very good memories of the last (and first) time I’ve been there, about 20 years ago…

  3. San Francisco, one of my favorite cities in the US… nice blog you have. Ill keep readeing. Greetings from Mexico, by the way (another nice place to live in;)).

  4. A nice poem for the days to come:

    One Art

    The art of losing isn’t hard to master;
    so many things seem filled with the intent
    to be lost that their loss is no disaster.

    Lose something every day. Accept the fluster
    of lost door keys, the hour badly spent.
    The art of losing isn’t hard to master.

    Then practice losing farther, losing faster:
    places, and names, and where it was you meant
    to travel. None of these will bring disaster.

    I lost my mother’s watch. And look! my last, or
    next-to-last, of three loved houses went.
    The art of losing isn’t hard to master.

    I lost two cities, lovely ones. And, vaster,
    some realms I owned, two rivers, a continent.
    I miss them, but it wasn’t a disaster.

    —Even losing you (the joking voice, a gesture
    I love) I shan’t have lied. It’s evident
    the art of losing’s not too hard to master
    though it may look like (Write it!) like disaster.

    -- Elizabeth Bishop
    

    Have a nice stay in the USA 🙂

  5. i miss san francisco. i lived there 8 years, and for various reasons i returned to canada. like you said, it’s a little world of its own, and within that each neighbourhood is like its own little pocket world.

  6. Interview “LeWeb3″ en ligne…

    Pour mes lecteurs francophones qui s’inquiéteraient (comme Isa) de la récente anglicisation dramatique de mon blog, je tiens à vous rassurer: je change de langue comme de chaussette, et des fois je porte la même paire pendant un peu trop long…

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *