Angelika I'm a big fan of our new mayor, Daniel Lurie. As attentive newsletter readers know, he surprisingly won the city election as an underdog in November ( Rundbrief 10/2024 ) and has now been in office for almost a year. Nowadays, people hardly have any expectations of politicians, but I must say, the man is doing a really good job so far. With his calm, thoughtful, and pragmatic manner, he often finds a reasonable middle ground. According to the latest surveys, 71% of citizens agree with me and say they are satisfied with his work. An astonishingly high approval rating in a city where everyone loves to endlessly debate and many are convinced they know everything better.

Michael I can tell that I'm really getting old by the fact that I just can't wrap my head around why someone would order food from a delivery service. For people from the Millennial or Gen-Z generation, it seems completely normal to have lukewarm food delivered to their unventilated rooms at exorbitant prices. A sandwich shop owner once told me that he sometimes sees people sitting in their rooms in houses across the street, ordering a sandwich from him via an app and having it delivered 20 meters across the street for a three-dollar fee.

Angelika Since October 1st, I've sometimes felt like living in a banana republic. The ladies and gentlemen politicians in Washington couldn't agree on a new federal budget in September and therefore went home in a huff, while we citizens were left in the lurch. Without an approved budget, federal spending was frozen, and the US administration was operating on a low flame. Offices and agencies closed or offered only severely limited services.

Michael If there has ever been a comparable hysteria about a new store in San Francisco as there was back in 2000 about the then-new Ikea in nearby Emeryville ( Rundbrief 08/2000 ), then it was the hype around the branch of the Korean food giant "H Mart," which opened its doors in 2024 in the Ingleside neighborhood on Alemany Boulevard.

Michael One of the most exciting details of our nearly 30-year residence in the city of San Francisco is still the fact that I only have to walk or bike half a mile down the hill from our neighborhood, Noe Valley, and I find myself in the "Mission" district, or in other words, the chaos of Mexico City.

Angelika We were quite surprised at how quickly a buyer was finally found for our apartment building ( Rundbrief 08/2025 ). In September, the deal went through, and everything was finalized. However, to this day, we have no idea who the buyer actually is. He has not made a single appearance. No introduction, no information, nothing. Instead, a property management company is now taking care of everything, from collecting rent to repairs and renovations of vacant apartments. It's quite convenient to finally have a reliable point of contact who knows what they're doing and has been handling things fairly promptly so far.

Angelika Anyone who knows me a little better knows that I have always worked with autistic children, both in Germany and in the USA. Right after graduating from high school, I did a year-long internship at the Heilpädagogische Bildungsstätte Altenoythe, where I encountered children with an autism diagnosis for the first time in my life. My later internship at the clinic for autistic children in Bremen (now called the Autism Therapy Center) also had a significant impact on me. At that time, the Bremen center was a leader in diagnosis and early intervention, and there I not only met a large number of children and adolescents with autism but also learned a lot about life in general. I still think about some of the children from back then today.

Michael After I was able to report some time ago about the most expensive toilet in America in our neighborhood Noe Valley ( Rundbrief 10/2024 ), I continue in this issue with the most absurd bike path on planet earth. I need to first explain that "Valencia Street" runs through our neighboring district "Mission." Until a few years ago, it was a four-lane road with bike lanes marked on both sides.