Victoria

On Glover Street
Russian Hill
Monday morning

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In the foggy summers of the 1960′s I started coming to San Francisco. Not as a young adult experiencing the love fests of Haight Ashbury, but as a child and an observer. My dad, the traveler in the family, and a fastidious one at that, would wake us at the crack of dawn on an early September morning, just weeks before we were due back at school and load us into his VW bug. Bleary eyed and wondering where we were headed, my brother and I would fight for the cubbyhole. That’s what we called that space tucked at the back of our little love bug. Sometimes, we’d both squeeze back in there and wrestle for position.

We should have known where we were headed, but we were young enough to forget that every summer my dad would drive us up the winding 101 to San Francisco. It’s funny when I think of it now, knowing my dad like I do, that this was his destination of choice every summer. He’s understated, he’s quiet, and he’s one of those guys that always put his head to the grindstone and worked hard. He’s conservative, so liberal San Francisco seems an odd choice now. But he loved it here, and he instilled in me a deep love for this city, even at a very young age. Those trips made a deep impression on me and I fell in love with San Francisco on my first visit here. Riding cable cars, eating amazing Chinese food is the most unexpected places, and witnessing those love-ins made me feel at home in a way I’d never known growing up in the suburbs of Los Angeles.

And so, at a time when I felt a little lost and alone in Los Angeles, I made the decision to move north, to San Francisco, where talk about alone, I knew no one. I take that back. I knew one person, a friend of a friend, and she lived in Burlingame, just south of the City, and she and I corresponded via AOL (the only email there was back then). We decided I would come north and we’d be roommates in an old Victorian in the city. I was excited, and flew up and moved into her Burlingame apartment until we could find our ideal dream apartment. And a day later – I kid you not – her boyfriend got a job offer in Chicago, proposed to her and within two weeks she would leave me here on my own. Okay, now, I really didn’t know a soul.

The moving van came and took every bit of her furniture and belongings, and there I was with a fork, one plate and a room full of beautiful hardwood floors. I went out to the hardware store and bought two rafts – the blow-up kind you buy for the pool, and a roll of duct-tape. I then went out and bought some flannel cowboy sheets I found on sale and headed back to the empty apartment. I duct-taped the two rafts together to make a mattress, tucked the flannel sheets in around them, and made my temporary home. It may sound sad, or depressing, but I can assure you, I was convinced and content knowing I could do anything, and I could do it here in San Francisco. I wasn’t afraid, I wasn’t lonely and I ate a lot of pizza and food that didn’t require a knife or cooking for the next two weeks until the lease ran out.

That was fifteen years ago, and I now have a happy group of creative and inspiring people around me I am honored to call friends. I write a daily blog about my life in San Francisco and about design. I never would have imagined that I’d be lucky enough to lead this life as I lay on my makeshift raft-bed. But San Francisco is the kind of place where these kinds of things can happen. I don’t know if life would have worked out for me like this in any other city, but somehow I doubt it. It just always felt like home here in San Francisco, a place where people welcome you, no matter what your background, or your quirks or eccentricities. San Francisco is definitely my home, I love living here and I can’t imagine my life anywhere else.

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You can see a slideshow of Victoria’s photo shoot here.

Victoria’s blog is sfgirlbybay.com

Amy

On Green Street at Polk
Russian Hill
Thursday morning

***

I’ve always loved San Francisco. I grew up in the suburbs and the City seemed like another world. My parents tell a story about how when I was very little we went to visit a friend who lived in a penthouse along the Embarcadero. Coming down the elevator I asked, “Why do we have to live in a house, why can’t we live in a nice apartment?” San Francisco is where we went to eat sushi, Mexican and Chinese food, so it’s no wonder I wanted to be here. I guess you could say by living and working in San Francisco I’m living out my childhood dream.

I’ve changed careers several times and love the way that as I grow and change I find new groups of friends and colleagues and discover different sides of the City. When I first moved to San Francisco I lived on Telegraph Hill. The view from the roof was spectacular. When I worked downtown in the Financial District I felt like I was playing the part of a professional working person. I’d come home, strip out of my suit and feel like me again. Mostly I’ve lived and worked on Russian Hill. It’s funny because I married someone with the last name “Sherman” and just blocks from my apartment is the Sherman school, Sherman market and even the Sherman house. We’re not related to that famous Sherman, but it still makes me feel like I really belong here.

My City is vibrant and diverse. I love the ability to get lost in foreign languages all over town. The other day I was walking down the street and a couple in front of me were speaking French and behind me were two men, in no way connected to the couple, also speaking French. There’s a market on Geary where everyone speaks Russian. I really feel like I’m a foreigner there as I shop for Russian cheese, sour cream, smoked fish and frozen dumplings. In parts of the Mission everyone speaks Spanish and it also feels like I’m in another country, but a familiar and very delicious one. If you go to a pizza place in North Beach, you will likely hear Portuguese with a Brazilian accent. And of course in Chinatown or in parts of the Richmond District you will hear Cantonese and often menus are in Chinese. As a food writer and recipe developer, I am inspired by the deliciousness of San Francisco, from its languages to its art museums, from the ballet to the views of the Bay, San Francisco tastes good to me.

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You can see a slideshow of Amy’s photo shoot here.

Amy’s food blog is: http://cookingwithamy.blogspot.com/
Follow her culinary travels: http://www.frommers.com/community/blogs/between-bites.cfm
Amy’s website: http://www.amybsherman.com/

Jennifer

On Broadway above the tunnel
Russian Hill
Friday noon

Ney

I am a native New Yorker, I was born in the South Bronx, attended high school on the Upper East side of Manhattan, and lived in an apartment in the East Village. My San Francisco experience happened by chance. I have a younger sister who relocated to San Francisco a couple of years ago and I would make a point to visit her if I was teaching tango workshops on the West Coast.

About 2 years ago, I was getting tired of the NYC grind and my visits to my sister became more frequent. On one of those visits I went apartment hunting for fun and I actually found a decent apartment in Nob Hill! So I decided to test SF out for a couple of months. A couple of months after that, one block away from my SF apartment, I found the space that was to become the TangoVida studio. Once again, I decided to “test it out.”

In a short amount of time, the studio amassed a large following and I have become more comfortable with the idea of living in SF. The most difficult adjustment I had to make was to let go of the idea of “the struggle.” Whether they realize it or not, many New Yorkers are hooked on NYC because they have become conditioned to think that simple things should be a struggle (getting an apartment, getting a job, getting a cab, etc.) but that is not the mentality here in SF.

SF is a much healthier and stress-free town than NYC. The people here are into being healthy and eating well. That is such an easy thing to do since the restaurant scene here is fantastic and it is very easy and inexpensive to drink good wine!