San Francisco and Treasure Island

After spending most of Tuesday returning the car and preparing for our next journey before spending some time at the beach, we started our day at 4:00 AM on Wednesday.

After a 6-hour flight across 3 more time zones, we landed in San Francisco at around 10:00 AM and looked for breakfast.

We then spent some time orienting ourselves in the city and figuring out at least one bus route that would take us to our accommodation on Treasure Island. Since we arrived too early for check-in, we enjoyed some time by the shore, soaking up the sun.

The temperature here was quite a shock for us. Coming from Miami where we were used to sweating whenever we stepped outside, day or night, it was surprisingly cold here despite the sunny weather.

Understandably, we were the only ones walking around in t-shirts and shorts.

But that wasn't the only thing that shocked us. As we walked through the city, we noticed that many people here have physical disabilities, and it seemed like there was a homeless person on every corner.

We also noticed this on the buses, where about a third of the seats are reserved for disabled and elderly people.

We took one of these buses to Treasure Island, where our host Stefan had prepared a room for us. The island feels very quiet, almost too quiet.

Some parts of the island are closed off due to construction, and other areas have half-decayed houses. The area around Stefan's house is just a residential neighborhood with many similar gray houses with wooden facades. Inside, Stefan's home is very nice and clean.

We haven't had the chance to meet our host yet, but we did meet Julian and his wife Jinju, who are also staying here through Airbnb. Julian is a German who has been living in China for some time and is now spending a few days in San Francisco with his South Korean wife for study and vacation purposes. They are very nice.

After exploring the house a bit, we went back to the city to meet Andy at an Ethiopian restaurant. The restaurant was not easy to find, and the area was even more unsettling than our previous experiences, with even more homeless people. However, the food was excellent! Since it was already dark after dinner, we tried to get out of the neighborhood as quickly as possible, as it was really eerie there. We took the 38 bus towards Frisco Bay, where we were supposed to transfer to the 25 bus, the only bus to Treasure Island. However, this bus was extremely delayed, so we stood freezing at the bus stop until we could finally board a crowded bus to our accommodation.

We were all looking forward to our beds. Especially Andy, who had spent 15 hours on the plane and had to deal with a 9-hour time difference.

In summary, we have a beautiful view of the city and nice roommates in a lovely house. However, we are shocked by the cold weather and especially by the ghetto-like conditions in some parts of the city, where there are a large number of disabled people, homeless people, drug addicts, or a combination of all three. However, we assume that we were just in the wrong neighborhoods, and it will be friendlier in the areas around the sights.

Additional Note:

As we found out the next day, we were really just in the wrong place at the wrong time. Actually, San Francisco is a beautiful city.