Post & Taylor from my 4th floor window — San Francisco

The Daily Post Weekly Photo Challenge for the week of November 8, 2017.

This week, show us something you appreciate despite — or even because of — its short shelf life.

My temporary home during my brief vacation in San Francisco in August this year was The Dakota. The previous year I stayed in a hotel near Fisherman’s Wharf; it was comfortable and convenient to the popular tourist spots — but staying at a hostel near the theater district was a completely new experience for me. I rode buses rather than calling Uber, I climbed up and down the narrow staircase (the elevator wasn’t working), and I walked a lot (and I do mean A LOT).

The Dakota Hotel’s lobby and library

My room — with free water provided

But probably the best part of the experience was lying in my bed on the fourth floor listening to the sounds of the city late at night. The soft roar of traffic, car horns, the occasional siren, the sounds of people talking and laughing on the sidewalk below, and the thumping of bass when someone in a building across the street cranked up his stereo. All of it was so very different to the night noises of my (mostly) quiet suburban street, and I tried as much as possible to breathe in the urban atmosphere along with the cool evening mist drifting in from the bay. I knew I’d soon be returning to valley heat, the din  of lawn mowers, leaf blowers, and barking neighborhood dogs. And that was okay — that was home, where I belong.