Our building was the one on the left. We lived off an alley.

Before we “move on” from San Francisco, we thought we’d share what we liked/disliked about the city and what we learned from the month we were there.

San Fran is an incredible city. There is SO much culture there that we really loved. Each neighborhood truly has it’s own personality that’s evident the moment you step foot there. We’re probably biased because we lived in between both, but Chinatown and the Italian neighborhood were our favorites. You actually felt like you were stepping foot in these countries when you went there!

We also loved how beautiful the city was. When you were walking along the top of a hill, you could look down and usually see the water in the distance. We lived near the Bay Bridge and saw the most incredible views just walking down our street. The city was also really clean and had such pretty flowers and trees everywhere you looked.

There was a vibrancy to the city…you always felt like there was something exciting going on. Usually there was :). We loved that. The entire city really felt like an adventure. Coming from laid back San Diego, this was a pretty big difference from what we had known. I think that only being in San Fran for a month made it a bit overwhelming. We don’t do anything small…it’s pretty much go big or go home. Trying to fit in every experience the city had to offer in a month was a bit exhausting.

We managed to do a good job of getting to do as much as we did. We’re plum worn out from such a busy month! Seattle is going to be a nice change of pace. Someone told us that a month in San Fran would be more than enough, and I think we’d have to agree. It’s an awesome city to visit, but we couldn’t live there.

It got frustrating trying to go anywhere. We could never find parking and when we did, it was about 20 min. away. Getting groceries was a huge hassle and walking everywhere got to be tiring. (We did lose weight without trying though!) Those hills are just as big as they look in pictures and walking up them everyday isn’t on our top 10 list :).

The city was also INCREDIBLY expensive. Food, parking, entertainment…all of it was so much money.  Just to go through one toll would be $6! I think we realized just how “relative” our thinking had become when I saw parking for $20 and said, oh that’s not bad at all. Oh, and it was $20 for a few hours. I can’t believe how much our definition of  “expensive” has changed in such little time.

We are really happy that we got to spend a month in the city, but we’re also glad we were just there for a month. We learned a lot about ourselves and how to make small changes in our lifestyle. We learned to live without a dishwasher (*gasp*), washer/dryer, parking spot, nearby grocery store, TiVo, and a quiet place to live (we lived by a REALLY loud bar). We were pretty spoiled in Atlanta and have realized that our life isn’t determined by what we have. We’ve got each other, our health, and this awesome adventure. We learned that things we thought we had to have (like the things listed above) aren’t really necessary. People survive everyday washing dishes by hand, and dangit, we survived too :).

This whole trip has been a learning process. Every place we visit, we pick up a new idea to implement in our life. When you move to a new place, it’s always a great time to make a change. Justin decided to start eating vegetables and once we stepped foot in San Fran, he made the change. A lot of people who are in the same day-to-day rut want to make changes, but there isn’t anything to really jumpstart it. For us, moving to new places had encouraged us to evaluate our lives and our relationship and strive to make them even better as we move along.

We’re really happy that we did this trip. It’s been life changing, and in many cases life awakening for us. San Francisco taught us a lot and we plan to put it into action in Seattle. “Move” with us and start something new in your life that you’ve always wanted to do! Oh, and thanks for following us along the way. It means so much to hear from you guys!