07 Apr 4. Home Sweet Home!

Home is where your heart is. Home is where our story begins. There’s no place like home. It takes hands to build a house, but only hearts can build a home. The quotes about our homes are many, some of them cheesier than others, but still they capture: there’s something really important about our homes.

Going away as an exchange student, you might have no clue where you’re going to live, in what kind of neighbourhood, with who you will share your kitchen and toilet, what it is going to be like. For me, I went to San Francisco with no place to live. I spend my first week in SoMa on 6^th Street. For you who haven’t been there, let me share this text:

“Lined with single-room occupancy hotels, liquor stores and donut shops, San Francisco’s 6th Street is a magnet for crack addicts and homeless San Franciscans; it is literally the street where you’ll most like hear, “John, first thing we gotta do is get you some methadone (heroin replacement drug).” But, aside from vagrancy and the occasional waft of urine, local residents enjoy cheap rent and a central San Francisco location.”

Every evening when I went “home” I had to watch my steps carefully and walk with my eyes strictly forward to not meet all these peoples eyes. There were people everywhere. I knew that every pair of eyes I met would result in a conversation I didn’t feel like having. A lot of homeless people on drugs standing, sitting and lying on the sidewalk and there were times when I was afraid. When I got all the way to the house I had to ring the doorbell since I had no key. Usually the inner door was open, so I could see through the red grid door that was holding unwelcome guests out. Through the grids I could see young men sitting in front of their laptops on one of the dark leather sofas, or someone having their dinner at one of the tables. I could even see the big kitchen that was located on the first floor of this community house that almost 60 people shares. But usually, no one would open the door – they heard the doorbell – but since they were not waiting for any visitors, they didn’t get up. The two guys I lived with were maybe out or upstairs in their small room. So quite often I had to ring the doorbell again and finally someone would come open it, probably one of the newer guys living there.

Here’s the house. Parts of 6th street has been painted and the exterior’s been renovated.

This community house started as a house for people in the tech business, many working for startups, who needed somewhere to live close to downtown. Now there were mostly techies living there, but also people from sales and some masters students. Once I got in the house I often sneaked up to the room, since I was exhausted and felt like hiding a little, tired of all new impressions. The room I lived in mostly consisted of a big wooden bunk bed and a shelf. It was a dark, small room that two guys shared. One of them was a friend of an old colleague of mine. I literally slept under the bunk bed, which meant I had to crawl down under the bed to my mattress on the floor. I got new crawling skills so to say! Many mornings I woke up by the smell, sound and dust of construction workers renovating in the corridor just outside the thin door. And they were smoking, not just cigarettes.

Illustration above by Wendy MacNaughtan. I really recommend you to check this out! San Francisco based artist Wendy MacNaughtan explains 6th street in a beautiful, smart, artistic way with her comics and drawings: http://therumpus.net/2011/11/meanwhile-6th-and-mission

So, after one week I moved on. I took my big red suitcase on the Muni down to university to live a while at Park Merced. There I spent 2 weeks in a comfortable blue sofa in a friend’s apartment on the 5th floor. She shared the place with four other girls, which made us six people there for a while. Luckily they had two restrooms. My favorite place was on the roof, where no one ever went. There, you had a magnificent view over the ocean, Lake Merced and always a beautiful sunset.

Finally I found a more permanent place to live. Expensive and beautiful. One of my friends at university had a room coming up where she lived in Mission/Castro. I went to see the room and had an interview with the woman subletting it from the landlord. The room was pretty small in the middle of the house with a window but not really a view. It had a walk–in closet, a beige carpet and a lot of furniture and books. I took it, and it was mine!

So here I am, so happy about my sweet little room and so happy about my home. The first week I bought yellow tulips and an orchid to celebrate and decorate. I’ve put up my personal drawings, photos and posters on the walls. When I moved in I got to chose which color I wanted to have on the curtains and sheets and I said: all white. I even got white towels and a white robe. We call our house Casa Sanchez and we’ve had dinner with all the four Sanchez women. Dancing the Casa Sanchez dance and making the table in the living room with a beautiful view over the city. We’re an eclectic lovely mix from the Netherlands, Sweden, Italy and America.

Photo above from my room in Casa Sanchez.

In the beginning/middle of May I will have to move again, since the room already was promised to someone else. Thinking of it in a positive way, it means I will have the opportunity to get to know yet another place as my home in this city. And I guess, if the place is not too sketchy, not too dirty and if there are some loving, open-minded people around, it will be a good place to spend my last weeks in San Francisco. Wherever it is!