I was very lucky and happy that I could do some research in San Francisco, and arrived on Novemer 13 for a 5 weeks stay. I found a place in a house near Alamo square where three people live, Raven, Amber and Andrew. When I reached the place in the evening after a 13 hours flight (starting at 7 am in Berlin), I was wonderfully welcomed by a bunch of people chatting in the kitchen and preparing about 30 crabs which Andrew had caught in the morning in the sea! It tasted so good accompanied by a good glass of white wine.
The next day, I went to the institute at UCSF (University of California - San Francisco) and found a new, shining building with a great laboratory space organization and (the most important) with a bunch of wonderful people, who should be my colleagues for the next coming weeks. There were some differences to the Indian lab, for example that people had lunch alone or in small groups (no big common canteen), that there were surprise visits by the lab security personnel, and that it was quiet (at least the most of the time). Because I was in San Francisco for work and not only for fun, I have spend the most of the time in the lab, but due to the colleagues, it was a very pleasant and productive period. And we also had some activities outside the la, but this will follow further below.
The city is beautiful with its hilly up an downs, old small houses, buses which run electrically, not too much traffic, nice cafes, parks, high amount of dogs (but no street dogs as in Bangalore). If you climb up one of the small hills in a park, you can get a beautiful view, and fortunately, there were very few foggy days (fog is more common in the summer time due to the temperature difference between see and land). To sum up my impressions, San Francisco and its people had many things in common with Berlin, except the hills, the sea and the friendlier people!
Although I worked during the week days, I tried to explore the city in the evenings and during the weekends. Since pictures can say more than I can write, here the link to some captures taken in San Francisco...
Nevertheless, I will also leave some words about my impressions in the following:
San Francisco has many different parts, which can change their appearance drastically from one street to another. One example is the region around Mission street, which reminds me the Oranienstrasse and Kottbusser Tor in Kreuzberg in Berlin. Here, you will see many homeless and strange people, many small Bars, liquor stores and mini grocery stores. And just one street away is Valencia street which is cleaner, hipper with lots of galleries, unconventional designer shops , fancy cafés and restaurants. But if you leave this street, it suddenly changes to a more quiet place with mainly homes and nothing else.
Another nice street is the Haight street with its many music bars, here was the home of many artists of the 68' movement like Jimi Hendrix and you can still feel the spirit of the Hippies. At the end of Haight, the golden gate park starts, a beautiful big city park with some nice museums (Science museum, De Young museum, Japanese tea garden). A great place to have a relaxing walk. But attention, the golden gate park is NOT next to the golden gate bridge.
On a clear sunday morning I walked from the park to the bridge which is about 3.5 miles (6 km), and it was worth it! around the bridge is a big forest (Presidio of San Francisco) and it has nice paths through the nature, and then you get to the coastline and can see the sea, the bay and the bridge. Magnificent! Walking along the rocky coast, one passes several old bunkers, which were built in the beginning of the 20th century. From the bridge towards the more central parts of the city comes the field of the old airbase (Crissie field), which is now renatured and playground of many dogs and their holders. Further on lays the fort mason, now used as exposition halls.
The area around Castro street is floating in the spirits of the gay community (which compares to the Berlin Motzstrasse and Nollendorfplatz), the streets are decorated with rainbow colored flags, many shops show underwear (especially slips) with nice colors and design in their windows, many are laughing and hanging out in cafes, just a peaceful and nice place (ok, I walked there on a sunny Saturday afternoon)!
If you go from there towards west, you will reach Twin Peaks, two of the highest spots in the city. The effort to get up there is worth it because the view over the city is breathtaking.
The north-eastern part of Market street together with the area around Union square is the main shopping area with many high class warehouses, boutiques like Prada, Saks Fifth Ave, Gucci etc., top art galleries and 4-5 star hotels. There was also the only place where I saw a huge Christmas tree.
North of this area starts the San Francisco China town, which is just fun to walk through. It is the largest outside Asia and the oldest one in north America ( Info). You can find there authentic Chinese food (I recommend the noodles of Chef Jia's), shops with Asian vegetables, and butcheries which differ quite a bit from the american ones.
Another aspect which, I think, Berlin and San Francisco share is there large choice of bars (with German beer) and night life activities. Especially, I appreciated the great performances of unconventional electronic music DJ's, which I could fortunately experience due to the help of two colleagues who shared with me the same music-taste.
To learn more about my trips outside San Francisco, please read the blog entry "trips around SF".
