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a few unsolicited recommendations for your trip to the Bay Area :)

1. Walk San Francisco - pick a spot and then walk for hours; it's fun to go from one good coffee shop / lunch spot to another and maybe stop at a bookstore here and there. A good trajectory is from the Mission (around say 23rd and Valencia) all the way up to the Marina. SF isn't that big -- you'll pass some sketchy parts but for the most part will go through nice places. Doing multiple walks like this can give you a great feeling for the city

2. try to go to Marin if you can (north of SF) - it's touristy but either doing a bike trip there, going for a hike in Marin or going on a boat to Sausalito from the Ferry Building are all really enjoyable

3. I recommend also visiting Stanford Campus and Palo Alto if you can - it'll give you a very different view of the Bay

4. The East Bay is a completely different vibe and feeling - if you can visit it can also give you a different feeling for the Bay's complexity

If you just see SF you might have a narrower view for "The Bay Area". Happy travels!

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Thanks! So far I've just seen downtown Oakland, I definitely need to go for a long walk in SF as soon as I can :)

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I lived in the Bay Area for eight years, but I spent last week in San Francisco and now I just want to move there. It was just the best week, and I felt like I met “my people” there. Have a wonderful time!

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Like this a lot. Very much feel your vibe/thoughts coming through.

And funnily enough I just wrote about a related thing this morning, actually. The hypothesis that the unspoken secret to “get in” on the “Global Idea Sharing” space is to visit or live in the US.

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Or maybe Amsterdam and a bicycle trip along the route where slaves lived in the private houses of the Amsterdam people? :)

https://mappingslavery.nl/maps/netherlands-by-city/nlamsterdam/?lang=en

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The randomness of reading this on my return trip home - to France - from SFO today is amusing. But I share these feelings anytime I get to go to the Bay Area: it's uplifting as well as disappointing. It's just a place, and yet has a subtle but unique vibe. It's hard to put it in words, but it usually gives me a sense of increasing all my ambitions. Even that is a double-edged feeling though: I leave wanting to do more, but also feeling more inadequate.

Also, Silicon Valley is disappointing to me now, because no one goes there anymore, everyone works remotely, and it felt a bit ghost-towny. I don't think this is true of SF or the East Bay though.

Hope you find what you're looking for!

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