Liz Smith
Editor-in-Chief
College has me thinking about my hometown and seeing it in a new light. Now that I know I will be spending the next four years in Minnesota, I see the Bay Area like a tourist does.
One of my favorite parts of the day is my commute back to Marin. If I’m fortunate enough to catch an early bus, I often get to interact with tourists, even serving as an unofficial tour guide every so often on my way home.
I will surely miss the diversity of San Francisco, which is sorely lacking in the tiny college town I will soon call home. Just standing on the corner of Fillmore and Lombard streets, I often hear at least two other languages beside English.
On a recent bus ride home, I chatted with a couple from Germany sitting behind me and overheard a group of boys from Denmark a few seats in front of me. They debated the architecture and beauty of San Francisco and Denmark, which got me pondering the place where I’ve grown up.
I’m taking special notice of everything I pass for myself — the steady destruction of the old Doyle Drive throughway, checking the day-by-day updates, the garish lights in the Waldo Tunnel — most of which are turned off — or the muddy houseboat docks in Sausalito.
When I see the local scenery through the lens of someone else — quite literally, as I notice a lot of people taking pictures through the tinted bus windows — it helps me appreciate more where I’m from more.
I never thought much about San Francisco, even California for that matter. I knew it had to at least be a little special. After all, there are at least two major songs about “California girls” — one of which plays on the hits stations, the other an oldie — but nothing opened my eyes to it like traveling to the Midwest did.
My future town in Minnesota is exactly what I wanted it to be, and that’s small and snowy. The difference is quite substantial, however. The city of San Francisco alone has about 812,000 people — substantially more than Northfield’s 20,000 — and averages about 50 degrees in the winter, whereas the Minnesotan snows will have me bundled up in the 10 degree snowstorms.
As terrible as that sounds, I want to have an experience that is more different than what I can get in California in college. The fact that Northfield has only one Indian food restaurant makes me nervous, but I can manage.
When I come home, I will appreciate the Bay Area even more.
And if college is for nothing else, it’s for adventure.
In the words of Mark Twain, “Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things you didn’t do than by the ones you did. So throw off the bowlines, sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.”