SF and Seattle have very similar weather. The winter in SF is a little more mild, but they aren't particularly sunnier on average.

Just sayin'.

Well that's nice and all, but how were their croissants?

You were so very lucky to visit San Francisco during the five days of our summer. If you had come the week before, or now, you would discover that San Francisco may have sunny skies but the temperature is usually low and there is a lot of wind, very uncomfortable for naked people on the street, certainly.

No terrible smells? Surely you were sniffing every corner, every crack, every un-French like bistro. You are French- you can't help but sniff!

I was in SF for Fourth of July Weekend. Standing on a little dock near Pier 39 waiting half an hour for the fireworks, it felt like the temperature dropped below freezing.

Oddly, a few miles south, San Jose and Palo Alto were warm and sunny.

Isn't it building an urb upon sand to ignore sunshine?

@ 6, you understand that San Jose and Palo Alto have a mountain range between the ocean and their location, right?

#7

Yes because I drove that hair raising ride down to Santa Cruz and back again (at night) on the coast road so my son could make a booty call.

Best post anywhere ever. Merci.

San Francisco actually has a large French ex-pat community.

HA HA HA he thinks that sf has better weather. ha ha ha.

I can't stop giggling over the idea of San Francisco being thought of as a sunny place.

Other than that, this is a really entertaining post. Thanks, French intern!

The hand sanitizer at the Puyallup Fair isn't there to protect the people but to protect the animals from carrying disease from one to another.

You win this round, freedom intern

Intern is stupid, non?

he's black. he's french. he must be so awesome. girls swoon. proposals to marry. but then, he writes. column after stupid dumbass fucking platitudinous column. BORING

and Charles de Gaulle had famously wicked turdbreath

Barbary Lane does exist (under its real name), and the actual steps were used in the TV series. And as others have said, last weekend's weather was unusually hot. But then, it is almost always sunny and warm on Folsom Street Fair day -- it's the goddess' way of saying the gay is good and kink is even better.

Since you went there, I'm going there: Lyon is WAAAAAAAY better than Paris when it comes to food, weather, sightseeing, and people.

I'm liking the French Intern better than I did in the beginning when he was bitching about french bread. Good writer (even in his second language) and a thoughtful guy. He's a keeper.

If you're from Sunset, it's never sunny, but the rest of San Francisco is generally pretty nice.... Well, from July to maybe October, anyway. And you ran into luck concerning their beach - it's usually gray as fuck.

Your judgement that SF isn't a place to live is a little juvenile... SF has to be the place that's the most hospitable to live. They really try to help the poor get decent wages, and to mobilize themselves upward. People get naked there because that's just what people do during festivities. :-)

Anyway, Seattle vs SF is a tie in my mind. I love them both.

As a Washington native who lived near San Francisco for the last few years, I'd like to point out that you've keyed into something very important with your last paragraph. The various "freaks" in San Francisco all fit into extremely specific niches and molds. Burners are all about "self expression" yet tend to dress and act in specific ways. The gay community appears to have similar constraints. People all tend to subscribe to the same set of liberal viewpoints without really thinking about them. The more you look, the more weird inconsistencies you find. Appearance and conformity is EXTREMELY important, perhaps even more so than places like Los Angeles.

Seattle is far more diverse, interesting, and relaxing. People there also seem to put a lot more actual thought into the choices that they make.

@7,

San Jose is also much more inland. Inland = blistering hot in the summer.

On Russian Hill, in a small side street off Leavenworth below Green, you'll find Macondray Lane, generally considered to Maupin's inspiration for Barbary Lane. At this point, none of his characters could actually afford to live on that lane, Lois.

Seriously, if the guy is an intern, can you teach him something about interesting newspaper writing?

Aside.
Lines like these continue to make me think that this guy doesn't exist or is an actor in a subtle parody:
"The City by the Bay is sunny. And warm. And this has a huge impact on somebody's mood."

I've got too much to say, so I'll try and keep it short...

During summer, San Francisco is one of, if not the, coldest place in the country. I think Anchorage has a higher August average high. It's 30 degrees warmer inland, of course, and it rarely gets below 50 in the city, so it's hard to complain about the weather here—but live here long enough, you'll find yourself going a little bonkers longing for heat, longing for the Goddamned fucking wind to stop. In some ways, I'd contend there's no where colder than SF, I've never felt a colder wind anywhere—but then, I'm not exactly walking around in my parka. It's been 10 years this month and I love it here, regardless, and wouldn't change it.

@24 - I'm not sure if you're joking about Seattle being more diverse than SF, but I couldn't disagree more about Seattle being more relaxed. I love Seattle, loved growing up there, but it's anything but relaxed. If you're not used to it, the comparative density of a place like this feels more like a grind, and might keep you on your toes a little (although friends from NY are always all "where is everybody?" when visiting), but don't confuse that with judgment or pretense. You really can't do much to gain the ire or a stranger here, San Franciscans usually mind their own business.

Also, @French Intern: it's really not my department, but I can tell you via gay friends: Castro gay isn't everyone, probably not even most. Like anything else, it's just one scene.

And also, thanks, I enjoyed this entry, and also thank you @14.

wait, you woke up in sf and the sky was blue? do you sleep in until mid-afternoon? because that is about when the fog layer starts to dissipate

Intern-- a few people have mentioned, but here it is broken down. The weather in SF depends on the wind. Normally, a strong wind blows from Alaska, down the Pacific, and into SF. On a typical July day, the beach is about 50 degrees Fahrenheit and if you were to strip down, your balls would be permanently sucked into your abdominal cavity. You would need surgery to pry them loose.

In September, for about one week, the winds stop. The city can get hot and sunny. Folsom is held at this time of year because it's a good day to get naked. Then, after a few days, the winter weather pattern asserts itself, and nobody goes back to the beach for a year.

I love the implication that the Stranger sent him to the Folsom Street Fair without telling him what it was.