You Can Never Go Home

via maxwell holyoke

I recently bought my ticket to go back to San Francisco for the holidays. It's been a year since I've been and although I miss my friends and family I have to say that I am not that homesick. Dare I say it, am I becoming a New Yorker? I promise I will never be one of those New York people who rattles on about "the energy" or lists off a bunch of stupid advantages (deli's! subways!) that betray the fact that they have obviously never lived anywhere besides their suburban home town and their small liberal arts college.
I think the main thing I don't miss about SF is the weather. The persistent cold. The damp dark cold that chills you to the bone. Cold that cannot be escaped by going indoors, "central heating, are you kidding this is California!"

I hate California its cold and it's damp.

At least I am going in the winter when cold can be expected, it is even sadder when its July and it's just as cold.
Growing up in the unglamorous southern extremes of the city my impression of it was mostly like the photo above. When I last lived in SF in 2006 I lived in a really nice sunny part of the Mission, but my mom and siblings still live in the house I lived in in high school in the not so lovely Excelsior District. Oh the Excelsior, if you don't live there you've probably never been though I can brag that it was the childhood home of Jerry Garcia. District 11 (for those of you who may have recently seen Milk) the District represented by Dan White he of the famous 'twinkie defense'.

I did some flickr searches and I found some great images though none of them really capture how dreary and boring the EX is normally (people usually post pretty photos on the internet).

My cross streets! Russia and Moscow, I KNOW hilarious.

via Octoferret

Yup that's us

via Marcin Wichary

This not my street but that is totally what my house looks like, but not as slanty.

via Dizzy Atomosphere

That's the post office, are we living in the first world or what.

via Gary Soup

I think maybe this was cute in the 50s

via rigamarole

This bus goes right in front of my house, its loud, and it doesn't go anywhere you want to go.

via dannyman

Some times I walk up to that water tower with my brother and sister, it's cute.

via a_sorense

This is what the view looks like from my mother's bedroom. That is Daly City.

via pbo31

Abandoned Pandas are an issue.

via Inarges

I used to want to go to this bar when I was a teen. Some band used a drawing of this sign for an album cover but I don't remember who.

This place is still fully operational.

This is the corner of Mission St. and Russia Ave. There used to be a mural of Che Guevara here by Spy, it wasn't that good though and they built this in front of it.

Does this make me seem bratty? Sorry I love my roots! EX-MOB 4EVA. Really in a lot of ways the Excelsior is a lot like my current neighborhood off the Graham stop in Brooklyn.

Next I will do a post on my true childhood home, the Dimond District of Oakland. Get Ready!