By Wendy Steiner
Alright, you got me. I’m nosey. I like hearing people’s anonymous confessions and stories hence I asked our readers a personal question: Where have you missed San Francisco? The results are as colorful as the city itself. Here are a few of my favorites.
February 2014, I was living in New York for an internship and it was in the middle of a snowstorm. I was on my way back from bars to my dorm room on the Upper East Side, shoving pizza in my mouth and then I slipped in the snow. I started crying thinking about how much I missed San Francisco. Missed it every single day until I moved back.
Living in Kyrgyzstan, a comparatively conservative place, I really yearn for even the tiniest things that only San Francisco can offer. Even if you’re just sittin’ on the dock of the bay, the magic of SF permeates the mind, body, and soul and leaves an imprint that will last forever.
When I moved to Charlotte, NC and all I saw where white people. Moved back 20 months later once I convinced my employer to transfer me.
Moved to Minneapolis for love and work. Still here for those same reasons but hope to return to SF because damn — if a polar vortex isn’t enough, glaring lack of diversity, casseroles, and passive aggression make me miss SF every moment of every day, don’tcha know.
I miss it the second I walk off the plane in Kansas City- where I’m from. The people are much less attractive.
I missed San Francisco when I climbed Pikes Peak, America’s mountain, and realized that I liked the view from the top of 20th and Wisconsin in Potrero Hill better.
My husband and I moved to Shanghai from SF last summer. While we’re having a blast over here, we can’t help but miss so many things about the city: blazed urban hikes, people watching at DP, PHILZ!, the weather, the views, and folks letting their freak flags fly.
Last summer I moved for a job to Taipei City and lived there for the next five months. I’m not American, nor Taiwanese, but before I moved I lived in San Francisco for a while and considered it home. Don’t get me wrong, I think Taiwan is great — awesome food, no lines, cheap rent. But after living in SF for three years, I could not believe one place could use so many plastic bags. Everything in Taiwan comes in a plastic bag. Then in another one, just in case. Coffee, soup, soy sauce, bread, fruits. And no recycling. I was so lost.
I missed San Francisco every single day. Just got back and happily carry my groceries in hands. (Remembering to carry my own bag never was my thing.)
I missed San Francisco when I was in line buying a (regular sized) package of strawberries for $9 at my local grocery story in New York City. They weren’t even organic.
I live in Washington, D.C. for college and I think I always get the worst pangs of San Francisco homesickness when I’m talking to my friends and I use the word “hella” and they make fun of me for it. There’s a lot of words I didn’t realize that people didn’t use on this side of the country. Also these people have never heard of E-40 or lived through the Hyphy Movement, so I’m questioning why I moved out here in the first place.
I picked a school in Portland in part because I thought it would be similar to San Francisco. Truth is, there’s no place like home. I miss the smell of piss on the streets. I miss the reckless Muni drivers and the people who would yell “Step down!” I miss walking three blocks, and having three of them be hills. I miss getting stoked over a miniature parking space. I miss dank burritos and dim sum for less than six bucks. Most of all, I miss the native San Franciscan snobs.
Going back home to New York City, I found myself missing San Francisco’s culture of composting. I distinctly remember wandering around aimlessly with banana peel in hand wondering where to toss it. “In the t-t-t-trash? Say it ain’t so!”
I missed SF when I moved to DC and was joking with a friend how people in San Francisco dress so expressively and colorfully and how people in DC wears khakis and blue collared shirts. She scoffed until I told her to look around and they were everywhere, sitting behind her, across the way in the park, walking by on the sidewalk, in an ad on a bus that drove by — different tones and some stripes but nevertheless tan and light blue. It was like being in the Matrix surrounded by Banana Republic Agent Smiths. I moved back a few months later. I may still be in the Matrix but at least it’s more colorful and expressive.
I’m currently living in Bangkok, Thailand. I never thought I would miss wearing pants, but as the days here keep getting hotter, I have never wanted Karl the Fog’s cool, wet embrace more.
I miss the San Francisco I used to know when I can’t find lunch under $5.
We moved to Sydney last July for my husband’s job. There is a commercial that keeps playing here for Fitbit and it has a man jogging behind a woman and basically trying to catch her attention. At the end, she proves too much for him and she runs up Lyon Street stairs. Oh I love the Lyon Street stairs and the view from the top!
I always complain that Muni is super inefficient and that Bart should run all the way through the city, but visiting LA — where you have to hop onto the freeway every 5 minutes — makes me realize how great it is to live in a city as compact (relatively) as San Francisco, despite our less-than-perfect public transportation system.
I missed SF when I went to a place that didn’t have Uber.
I miss San Francisco with every step I take. I dream about it at night and long for my shitty little Precita Park attic remodel apartment by day.
Living in San Francisco afforded me many experiences. We lived for new restaurant openings. We stood in line at Tartine for croque madames and I remember opening day at Delfina and eventually Pizzeria Delfina. (The space used to be a used furniture store where we purchased a Barney purple dresser for $25 and I rolled it home to San Carlos St on the handtruck the store owner lent me.)
I’m missing the Bay from rainy London. I took a job with a counter-terrorism human rights charity about a year ago, and every photo of friends in Dolores Park makes me want a burrito from El Farolito.
I only spent 3 months in SF last year but I already miss the entrepreneurial and creative spirit. Back here in Germany whenever I express a creative or business idea, all I get is “but”. They have no “but” in SF, only “how” and “when”. I miss that a LOT.
I fell in love with San Francisco during my study abroad year. I miss it ever since I moved back to Germany. Even moving to the vibrant city of Berlin couldn’t help my homesickness for San Francisco.
In 1970, I was flying to Hawaii and then ultimately on to Vietnam. Plane flew out of Alameda, over the Bay Bridge, wheeled over the City, and then out past the Gate.
It was about the saddest and loneliest I have ever felt and I promised that if I made it (and I did) I would never move away.
