When you are coming from the country, the marine layer smells like rain coming. San Fransico Bay is huge and the little bridge that brings us over is like a funnel of cattle waiting for the slaughter. They sprout out of the funnel like they are in a race. Straight into downtown exit to the beginning smell of busses and urine. Buildings block the light out so that the smells all swirl together and give us the San Fransico smell. Just a hint of burning flesh and coffee comes in if you turn your head a certain way. My allergy to people starts to pop up. Lines are out to the street where people wait with seemingly no angst. They look like they might be excited and little chilly.
So, we pick a line and stand in it hoping we are in the right one. A ride on the bay or a ride on the trolly totally distracts you from the smells. No more are you missing the smell of dirt and oranges or dirt and cow urine depending on what part of the country you are from. I start getting hungry, so seafood is the smell we are searching for. Something we don’t get very fresh in the valley. Down to the wharf we go where it appropriately smells fishy. My new shirt that says ALCATRAZ on the front smells like new from China. We eat at a place that had been there since the 60’s and smelled like it. Coming up for air we decided to check out the enclaves’ that had their own smell. In China Town you get the smells of barbeque and vegetables cooking smells nothing like the civic center where it smells like politics (urine and weed).
Back on the freeway that smells like concrete and the bay that smells like unicorn farts. To get to the train station where it smells like negative ions and diesel. The fake air smells like the inside of a bus, glad to have the air though. Then out of the train into regular air (not a marine layer) in a residential area that smelled like the factory 5 miles away. The factory making widgets had a plastic smell to it.
We were glad to get back to the marine layer and road to the country that smells like Savanah grasses that have their smell enhanced by the sun shining on them. And the occasional dairy farm. Home James.