{"id":20572,"date":"2020-08-03T13:00:08","date_gmt":"2020-08-03T12:00:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.architect-us.com\/blog\/?p=20572"},"modified":"2020-11-09T15:54:57","modified_gmt":"2020-11-09T14:54:57","slug":"internship-in-san-francisco-recap","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.architect-us.com\/blog\/2020\/08\/internship-in-san-francisco-recap\/","title":{"rendered":"Internship in San Francisco: Recap"},"content":{"rendered":"

In 7 days, <\/span>the internship I started in San Francisco<\/span><\/a> is coming to an end. It has been an amazing year, packed with countless experiences, memories and moments that I will always hold dear in my heart. Let’s do a recap of my favorite bits.<\/strong><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

When I first landed in San Francisco, I stayed for 10 days at a hotel while <\/span>I went apartment hunting<\/span><\/a>. While the experience was a bit stressful<\/strong> (as I visited a lot of options within working hours), it was a great first contact of the city: I got to see a lot of different corners.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Once I was settled in a place, I wanted to explore the city in depth. Shortly after I moved in, some friends happened to be in town visiting. They wanted to ride on a hop-on hop-off bus tour, so I decided to accompany them. And I’m glad I did!<\/strong> Not only I got to see a lot more of the city, but I also discovered a lovely little local business: <\/span>the Boudin bakery<\/span><\/a>. This historical place makes delicious sourdough bread (among many other baked goods), one of the foods San Francisco is renown for inventing.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

San Francisco has a lot of to offer, but after a few weeks of exploring it every weekend, I decided to start venturing into its surroundings. The first city I visited was <\/span>Sacramento, the capital of California<\/span><\/a>. Not only it is packed with interesting bits of the state’s history (like the California State Capitol Museum), but it’s also home to a great food scene, including some very interesting imported cuisines<\/strong>.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Sacramento was only a 2-3 hour bus away from San Francisco, so for my next weekend trip I decided to go a bit farther. <\/span>My next destination was Santa Ana<\/span><\/a>, an adorable little city south of California. This tiny city hosts an incredible amount of high-quality restaurants, and it’s just minutes away from the beach, as well as countless touristic attractions. When I visited, a local gastronomic event (Savor Santa Ana) was taking place, so I got to try many small bites from tens of restaurants on the area<\/strong>. It was fantastic!<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Short after my trip to Santa Ana, my supervisor at my host company recommended visiting the Exploratorium of San Francisco<\/strong>, a museum . At that point, my supervisor and I had already built a great relationship, and just like anyone who gets close to me, was fully aware that I’m a bit of a science geek. Following his recommendation, <\/span>I spent half a day at the museum<\/span><\/a>, playing with the hundreds of live science contraptions that I had heard so much about (these are so well built that hundreds of museums around the world host replicas of them).<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

While the Exploratorium was great, the museum that really impressed me was the California Academy of Sciences Museum. <\/span>This museum features a spectacular rainforest<\/span><\/a> that spans multiple floors and features hundreds of species of animals and vegetation with an incredible level of freedom. This is, without a doubt, the best museum I’ve seen in my life<\/strong> (at least in the terraqueous category, but we’ll get to that in a second). I would recommend it to any curious mind out there!<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Around that same time, one of the US’ most important holidays took place: Thanksgiving. <\/span>I was lucky to be invited to some friends’ house<\/span><\/a> to celebrate this classic holiday, and I was absolutely amazed by the variety of foods and delicatessen that are characteristic to this date. Who knew one could cook cranberries in so many dishes and formats!<\/strong><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Shortly after came Christmas and New Year’s. I am particularly fond of the memories I acquired at the later, as I decided to take yet another little trip to a Californian city. This time it was Monterey, a coastal city also located 2 hours away from San Francisco. Monterey itself was packed with amazing touristic points, but its surroundings were also very worth visiting. Because of this, I decided to <\/span>spend a whole 5 days in the area<\/span><\/a>. On one of my first days there, I visited the Monterey Aquarium, <\/span>the best ever aquarium I have set foot in period<\/span><\/em>. While the Cal Academy is my best terraqueous museum to date (despite also featuring a small aquarium), the Monterey Aquarium is without a doubt my favorite aqueous museum. In retrospective, Monterey was the best of all trips I took<\/strong>, so I would definitely recommend prioritizing it if you have a limited timespan!<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Not long after that trip, <\/span>the COVID pandemic started<\/span><\/a>, slowing everything activity around the world – including my ability to continue exploring the US. Right before the shelter-in-place order was imposed in San Francisco, I had just taken a short trip to Big Sur (I came back literally the day before the order took effect). Two weeks before that I had taken a quick trip to Spain to visit my family. I am grateful timing was on my side in both those instances.<\/strong><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Since then, my exploration has halted. These last 3 months I have been focused mostly on getting the most out of the last phase of my internship: while things have shifted drastically, there are still plenty opportunities to learn things from this new set of circumstances. For instance, I have continued my internship remotely (while still in the US), which has introduced an interesting new set of challenges, and I have had time to refocus on achieving a few industry certifications<\/strong>.<\/span><\/p>\n

Overall, this internship has been one of the best experiences of my life: I have met amazing people, I have been exposed to a lot of new cultural facets, I have learned a ton from top people in my field and visited some amazing places. San Francisco has left a mark on me and, after this, I will never be the same \ud83d\ude42<\/span><\/p>\n

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