The California Dream

Growing up as a child, I had 3 planned destinations that I wanted to experience living in. Dubai was off of the list back in 2022 when I went there. I felt its too materialistic and the city lacks substance and just wasn’t the crowd I wanted to surround myself with. Bali, because I have always been attracted by the nomadic culture and how tropical the city feels to just live in. Bali is still one of my fav travel destinations and I’d anyday take a flight back there when its a time to reconnect with myself. Third and what this letter is going to be about - San Francisco 🌉. The Seed of thought to live in SF planted through binge watching the famous TV show ‘Silicon Valley’, countless times.

I grew apart from the culture of the city I was born into (a tier-II in India). I didn’t feel like I fully belonged and felt a deep urge to step into the next phase of my life. Internet helped broaden my horizon and think beyond the people and experiences I was surrounded with. i loved racing fpv drones during my high school days and that gave me a reason to travel across india and participate in different college level tech competitions. i was roaming around to find my place somewhere. i had moved two major cities after high school and slowly became habitual of facing cultural shocks and adapting to it.

After spending a couple years in Bangalore, I was just waiting for the right time to go experience the valley myself and that came in with the acceptance into the Silicon Valley Fellowship.

Being in SF and surrounded by some of the best has proved to be a major mental shift and this is a love letter back to the city.

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I was living in the heart of the Cole Valley, right beside the golden gate park and would wake up every morning to my daily dose of caffeine, sun (tbh not everyday, SF is foggy) and chilly winds. Getting straight to my laptop became a ritual.

i would walk by the steep roads, taking pictures of every turn and getting honked by a few waymos. Breathing in fresh air, with a pinch of sun over the face, walking 2-min up to a cable car and heading to 44 montgomery to work from the beautiful wework kind of became a daily habit.

Some evenings, I’d go for a run across the lake in the golden gate park and around the beautiful streets of Cole Valley.

• plot the themes