San Francisco starts with a red bridge. At first, it’s a string of dots getting ready to dive into the water, then slowly the dots get clearer and clearer and start becoming houses, windows, fat trees along the edges of the pavements, tram going up and down a toy track. Somewhere at the back, an American flag is swinging relentlessly from side to side. Finally, the city takes shape and we see it for what it is. The sky is so still and white that it makes you think of snow. The wind is charged with energy. The lack of light makes colours stronger. It feels like something dramatic is about to happen. Instead, this is just one of many Tuesdays, wrapped in a fog that belongs to the city in the same way as the steep roads, the pastel colours and the organic food. We don’t feel like resting, we are impatient. We drive through that zigzag of hedges in flower that is Lombard street, eat giant crabs at Fisherman’s Wharf and get lost in Mission’s flat street. Finally, at sunset, we get to Alamo Square. We look at the Victorian houses, one by one as they were rooms of a museum. Dust pale blue, periwinkle blue, dusty pink, cream, Havana brown and burgundy, green sage and pale yellow. Every combination is a reward for the eyes. We try to choose our favourite, but we feel that every and each of them has in itself a kind of melody, in the crumbs of a day that has not turned into evening yet.