I'm about to admit something that's been a long time coming. I love San Francisco.

North Beach at night with a view of the Transamerica Pyramid.

I'm a Bay Area native and have been living in the city for the past three years. As a kid growing up in the suburbs forty minutes outside of San Francisco, I always looked forward to spending a day in the city. My favorite school trips were the ones that involved watching a Broadway show at the Orpheum Theatre, visiting the emperor monkeys at the San Francisco Zoo, or eating Boudin's clam chowder bread bowls at Pier 39. I loved being part of the Christmas shopping crowds in Union Square, browsing through the legendary City Lights Bookstore, and watching the Pacific fog envelope the towers of Golden Gate Bridge. For a small town girl like me, there was always something special and exciting about the city-- something new to see and try.

The city was a huge deciding factor when I chose to go to school here. I felt that living in the city would provide just the right amount of excitement a newly independent college student needs. I was right. I got everything I could hope for: an exciting night life, world-class cuisine, talented performers from every imaginable field and genre-- and all of this in a compact area of seven miles by seven miles.

I had to leave San Francisco last year to study in Oxford. As much as I love Oxford-- the history, the architecture, the academics, the libraries, and the people... I still felt a twinge of loneliness when I thought about my city by the bay.

Yesterday, I moved back to San Francisco. I'm now sitting at my old desk, in my old room, on the same floor I've been living on since freshman year. A lot of people told me that coming back to California after spending a year in Europe would make me bored and that I would miss traveling too much. While I do miss Oxford and all the good friends I made there, I feel anything but boredom now that I am back. Sure, everything is familiar. But it is also different. After venturing out of my little comfort zone and seeing a bit more of the world beyond, I'm beginning to see my corner of the world with a fresh perspective.

I love the seductive charms of Monte Carlo, the hot excitement of Barcelona, and the dreamy romance of Paris, but I have to say (with only a tiny hint of bias) that San Francisco combines all of these elements into one stylish and unique package. It's the city in which to make friends in Golden Gate Park or enjoy anonymity for day, to marvel at the cement skyline or take a boat onto the bay to watch the sunset melt on the horizon over the Pacific Ocean. It's the city in which to snap your fingers to easy jazz in the Fillmore or enjoy a quiet moment on top of Twin Peaks. I think the one thing you'll never be in San Francisco is bored.