Oh yes...! It was already dawning, as in these southern lands the sun wakes up so early, and because of that, the ten-lane highway leading towards the city was overloaded. Hardworking Americans, sipping Starbucks coffee, were still shaking off sleep and driving their cars to the high-tech production facilities of Silicon Valley, while we were flying to meet the city of our dreams, as we thought, to meet San Francisco.

Intentionally entering the city from the North, we anticipated approaching the city's main synonym - the Golden Gate Bridge, which seems red, but is actually painted orange. The first turn - too early, the second turn - missed again, and finally, after the third turn, we saw the absolutely huge, yet infinitely graceful pillars of America's most famous bridge. It is truly beautiful, enormous, and suits the whole city perfectly. It feels as if it was by such a bridge that Europeans once founded the city of San Francisco, or San Fran, as the locals call it. In my opinion, the best photos of this bridge for a simple student-tourist can be taken from the side opposite the city. That is where a stunning observation deck is located, offering a killer view not only of the bridge but of the city itself, Alcatraz Island, and the entire bay. The whole secret is that this is the only observation deck located above the level of the bridge. You look at it from above. All others give you a view from below or at eye level, which, you must agree, is not as impressive for such huge structures.

Once more about the bridge. It is worth crossing, but you should also be prepared to part with 6 bucks at the pay-toll. This was the first time we decided to take a toll road; before that, due to our greedy mentality, we had principledly avoided such structures, but this time greed told us that taking a detour would only be more expensive, so we decided to go for it. What was our indescribable happiness when the traffic officer, sitting in the booth and responsible for collecting our fee, recommended not to throw money away in the future, to save the 6 dollars, and spend them on something else. When we logically asked him "Why?", he clearly explained that it was his last day and that he hates his almost-former job. Hooray! We are in San Francisco! And people here clearly think differently.

Having barely parked our 'Tractorenok', by the way, in an unauthorized area, we set off to explore the city. It is truly huge, uneven, and located on quite steep hills. People here learn to walk differently, drive differently, and perhaps that is why they think differently. You can only walk here by climbing up, barely moving your knees, or running down with relief, fearing you might trip and break your nose. Driving is even scarier, because you are always driving uphill blindly and there is a probability of running into one of the three hundred thousand Chinese living in the vicinity, or downhill, and then you need to have good brakes to use them in time - we didn't have them.

At first glance, the city is very peculiar, unlike other American metropolises. It is very white; there are no familiar two-story cottages and green lawns in front of the house. The city seems stuffed with boxes covered in white plaster, which reminded not only me of a garbage dump. But on the whole, all these irregularities look quite cute and somehow airy. To enjoy the panorama, it is not at all necessary to fly up in the elevator of some skyscraper, as is traditionally done in New York, Chicago, or anywhere else. Here, you just need to work your legs a little and end up on the top of one of the hills, preferably on the top of Russian Hill, which is the very heart of the city and offers an excellent view in all four directions.

Right there is also, according to claims, the crookedest street in the world - Lombard Street. Every visiting motorist inevitably strives to drive along it - we were an exception and spared our brakes. By the way, I got the impression that if the relief of Moscow resembled that of San Francisco, all the streets of our capital would have a shape similar to Lombard Street. After all, often for our engineering students, San Fran seems built completely without logic and not according to textbooks. I told you - they are not like us.

Descending from the Russian hills, you go straight to the diaspora of mighty Chinese. By the way, San Francisco has the largest Chinese settlement outside of China itself. This says a lot, and it is felt everywhere. The squinting faces of passersby will remind you of this for a long time. By the way, it was at the Chinatown stage that we got hungry and decided to eat cheaply in some typical national establishment. We went into one and ordered, attention!... RUSSIAN BORSCHT. And oh my god... never repeat our mistakes. Better order some rice dish)

Leaving Downtown, where, actually, Chinatown is located, and taking three dozen photos of the Transamerica Pyramid, that high-rise ugly thing, we went to the embankment. Mmmm... it seemed to me the most interesting part of the program, it even reminded me of the embankment of some Russian resort. Here we finally saw palm trees, automatic toilet cabins that allow exactly 20 minutes for relieving oneself and have a detailed instruction in their arsenal on how to do it most effectively, a multitude of beggars, folk craftsmen, and charlatans. Carefree people swarmed all around, as if creating an atmosphere of a summer vacation.

Somewhere not far from this general gathering of people, I was confidently scammed by a photographer man with three cute but sickly-looking dogs. He was explaining something to me, and then at the end asked, like, well, yes? I answered "yes"! As it turned out later, I agreed to take a photo for 5 bucks with these very dogs - I was insanely angry at my English then. True, the man also left his photo as a souvenir; he, by the way, was also dressed like his four-legged pets in a white-and-brown dog jumpsuit.

The logical finale of the walk along the embankment is the world-famous, but of which I had never heard, Pier 39. The very pier that is in every city standing by the water. There were songs, dances, attractions, heaps of cafes, and even the best candy store in the world - Candy Lord, where candies of all tastes and colors of the rainbow are sold in barrels and are easily stolen. But the main attraction is the sea lions, which swim to Pier 39 every year for reasons unknown to scientists, scream loudly to the joy of undemanding tourists, and exude the smell of rotten sea fish in the port, to the joy of some.

We wandered around the surroundings, parks, and squares of San Fran for a long time. We examined old Victorian houses that survived the earthquake, then admired the city from Alamo Square. We were not indifferent to the complex of administrative buildings around City Hall and were amazed by the even greater grandeur of the second bridge - the Bay Bridge, which turned out to be almost three times longer. We studied the features of San Francisco, even though we spent only one day. We didn't go into a single museum or gallery, but we caught the spirit of the city. This city truly breathes the aroma of freedom, the aroma of new thoughts. It was the cradle of the Hippies in the 60s. Our company liked it very much; it is very much liked by tourists, by the Americans themselves, by the people who live there. I have not yet met a person who did not like it; many even call it the most beautiful city in America. But apparently, I am a conservative in the third generation, with classical canons in my head and classicism in the embodiment of my ideal, but I do not like this city at all. I am not held by all this lightness, I am not attracted by this aroma of empty freedom. I am disgusted by these products of Western civilization that started from the famous Twin Peaks. Everything is so imaginary and artificial. But I am clearly in the minority.