A Lady in London

People always ask me what I miss most about living in San Francisco. My answer is always the same: the food and wine. But what’s a Lady in London to do when she goes home to California to await the birth of her nephew and can’t make any firm foodie plans?

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People always ask me how I cope with jet lag. Somehow they assume that after traveling non-stop for five years, I have developed an immunity to the travel-induced cycle of narcolepsy and insomnia. Truth is, I haven’t. And I use that to my advantage when I watch the sunrise in San Francisco.

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Last weekend I traveled to California. Yes, you read that right. I spent over 17 hours flying 6,000 miles just to spend 1.5 days in my home state.

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One of my favorite things about traveling home to California is the abundance of outdoor activities on offer. From hikes in the Santa Cruz Mountains to walks in Northern California’s coastal regions, from big wave surfing at Mavericks to kite surfing in San Francisco Bay, there is no shortage of things to do.

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The best thing about being from San Francisco is that no matter where I travel, I always have an excuse to return to one of the most beautiful cities in the world.

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What do you get when you mix one part gorgeous weather, one part excellent fresh food, one part world-class wine, and one part home? You get October in San Francisco.

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Every six months or so I find an excuse to travel back to San Francisco. Sometimes the excuse is work, sometimes it’s family or friends, sometimes it’s holidays, and sometimes it’s something that brings together any number of those elements.

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I love ham. When I was a kid, the woman who ran my day care center nicknamed me The Ham Girl. While the other kids were on their best behavior for the prospect of a Sweet Tart or some Pop Rocks, I practiced the art of decorum in hopes of a few slices of Weight Watchers Deli Select.

My mother, who could easily eat her weight in chocolate (and has probably tried), has always been a bit disappointed in my lack of interest in the sugary things in life. However, she is indefatigably supportive of my love of ham. So much so that the other week she threw a big family birthday party for me, complete with a giant honey baked ham.

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It’s been nine months since I was last in San Francisco. That’s the longest I’ve ever been away from the City by the Bay.

While I’ve done my fair share of traveling in the interim, there’s nothing quite like landing at SFO. That’s not least because the runway goes right out into the water and I always feel like the 747 is going to magically grow pontoons and glide right into the bay. But more than that, I love landing at SFO because it’s home. The golden hills in the distance, the beautiful and highly underrated Bay Bridge to the east, and the city skyline all start to pull at my heart, reminding me that all this time I had left it in San Francisco.

As the plane descends, I realize that I even miss the ugly “South San Francisco the Industrial City” sign that’s so big it can be seen from ten thousand feet up. And the B of A building, where I spent two long years chained to a desk on the 44th floor. And the Port of Oakland, that ugly mass of buildings on the other side of the bay that makes driving across the Bay Bridge less inspiring than driving across its International Orange rival to the north. It’s good to be home.

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This week’s adventure took me home to California, and I couldn’t have picked a better time to visit. The weather was hitting record highs in San Francisco just as the London heat wave succumbed to the London rain. As if that weren’t reason enough to be excited, there were two special events in the city over the weekend: Oyster Fest and Bay to Breakers. The latter is my boyfriend’s favorite holiday (“it’s like Christmas and New Year’s combined,” he says), so I knew I was in for a good time.

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One of my favorite things about San Francisco was the Ferry Plaza Farmers’ Market. On sunny Saturday mornings the Ferry Building and its outskirts were packed with stalls selling everything from local artisan cheeses and fresh crusty bread to warm crimson strawberries and brilliant orange tangerines.

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