The Bay Area is probably my favourite place in the world. The smell of the ocean and the pine trees subtly pervades, even in the heart of downtown San Francisco, brought in by fresh breezes that give an edge to the warm, early autumn sun. The sky is an almost wintry, cobalt blue, and the ocean an indigo that blurs into the browner shades of the bay. The quality of the light elucidates every colour of the immaculately painted wooden Victorian houses of the city, and every shade of green in the parks and surrounding hills. A hundred Mexican kitchens in the Mission add their alluring scents to the city's heady mix of aromas, whilst the gasoline streaming from the traffic reminds you that the city is a real, throbbing, imperfect place, where urban sprawl, in its beauty and ugliness has covered the spectacular setting that nature gifted to this slice of California. I couldn't be more in love.
