When my plane touched down at the airport on Sunday afternoon, I expected the weather to be cold and foggy. I was surprised -- yet pleased -- to find that it felt more like summer instead of autumn. Such conditions are ideal for traveling ... but I'd only packed one t-shirt and a denim skirt in my suitcase (everything else was long-sleeve shirts and pants), so I spent the first half of my vacation feeling slightly overdressed.
I hopped on the BART train, arriving at the Civic Center about 45 minutes later. Upon settling in at the hostel in Tenderloin, I had mixed feelings about its location: on the plus side, I wasn't too far from Market Street ... but, on the other hand, the neighborhood was full of undesirable characters. Since I'm a city girl, I didn't feel out of place -- just annoyed that I flew across the country only to be surrounded by the same bad elements that are in New York.
