My brother, not unusually, gave me a lot to ponder answering a seemingly simple question. I asked him a couple of years ago his favourite city in the world and he refused to answer it. He said it was a stupid question. Now i am understanding more and more what he meant. It is naive to put one city above the rest. How can you line up Sydney Harbour with the Pyramids? Or the Eiffel Tower with Amazon? Some man-made, some native, some old, some young.
If you think there is one city better than all the rest you probably should travel more. Maybe you got sick in one city and refuse to acknowledge how great it is. Maybe you did not get perfect weather or maybe you thought the queue was too long (my most hated excuse for not liking a city or site!). Due to the above i refuse to call anything my very favourite city in the world. However San Francisco continues to come to the front of mind when i think of the next place i would like to visit.
There is a certain vibe to that city which i have found numerous times in my travels and immediately fallen in love with it. Florence, when i thought it was the history. Madrid, when i thought it was the art. Melbourne, when i thought it was the culture. Lucerne, when i thought it was the cleanliness. Amsterdam, when i thought it was the...well, yeah.
It is more than any of these things though. It has to do with the people, surely. Each person who lives in these cities seems to leave a mark of friendliness, happiness and acceptance on everything they touch. This good vibe resonates in the buildings and explodes with an aura of positivity and fun throughout the city.
I fell in love with San Francisco the first time i drove in. The big, wide streets seemed to speak to me and the cool breeze seemed to blow sweet kisses towards me from the Golden Gate Bridge. Being able to spend more time there was a magical experience. The crowds at the baseball games were good natured and friendly, the vendors in stores were outgoing and proud of their home. People were in parks eating pastries (or drinking rum from coconuts!), doing free outdoor yoga lessons, eating brunch on a patio and wandering their streets. Making the most of their surrounding and not losing sight of the fact that they are lucky to live in such a place! I find myself liking the city more as i am apart from it (everything seems nice when you remember it) and the story to come out of last week only reiterates my thoughts about the people who inhabit it.
Last week, a young boy with cancer had his wish come true thanks to the Make a Wish Foundation in the Bay Area. The cute kid loved Batman and wanted to be a superhero. 12,000 people volunteered to turn his dream into a reality and he did things like rescue a damsel in distress from the tram lines, apprehend the Riddler and put a stop to the Penguin's evil plans. I mean seriously? Where in the world could this happen? I can not imagine Sydney coming together for this... Los Angeles? Forget about it! 12,000 people (who perhaps should have been at work) all worked together to make one small, special, brave stranger-boy be given a memory he will never forget. This is the kind of things the vibe i speak of can conjure up. The positivity and the happiness which runs through these people is embodied in the city itself.
San Francisco's stock rises again. If anyone out there is not touched by this i am prepared to say you are not made of stone. It is something harder than that - there is no hope for you.
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