Senior Sofia Calderon enjoys visiting San Francisco mainly for the art scene, as museums like the Museum of Modern Art help Calderon better connect with her Mexican culture through the art of famous Mexican painters like Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo.

Similarly, sophomore Carolyne Chiang visits San Francisco to stay connected to her family’s Chinese culture and to explore the many art museums. One of Chiang’s favorite museums is the Legion of Honor art museum, which she visited earlier this year on an art class trip.

“San Francisco has a lot of art museums and I’ve visited a few but I think that one was my favorite because I really liked Botticelli’s art style and I loved the exhibitions in the art museum,” Chiang said. “His sketches, he drew them really well and his paintings were so detailed.”

Although the art scene is what often brings Chiang to the city, she also enjoys going to Chinatown with her family. Chiang’s family visits Chinatown to indulge in traditional Chinese food and surround themselves with familiar sounds.

“In Chinatown I feel really connected to my culture,” Chiang said. “There are people speaking Cantonese or Mandarin everywhere and the colors and the food are just really nice. Sometimes I go with my grandpa and he seems really happy there, like he can actually talk to people, since he can’t really speak English.”

While Calderon and Chiang are drawn to the city for its dynamic art scene, junior Aarna Burji likes to visit San Francisco because of all the memories she has there. She often goes on day trips with her friends and visits places such as Pier 39, Ocean Beach and Ghirardelli Square. For Burji, visiting these places reminds her of visiting with her family as a kid, bundled up in sweaters, eating at the Rainforest Cafe and visiting the wax museum, Madame Tussauds.

“Walking on Pier 39, I feel like not much has changed,” Burji said. “The magic store is still there. The magic shows they do every night are still there. All the little booths you used to see when you were younger are still there, so it’s just a very nostalgic place to go to.”

While the pleasant memories help keep Burji’s view on San Francisco positive, her love for the city also helps her recognize its flaws, especially with the rise in trash and oil pollution on the beaches. According to a study done by the San Francisco Estuary Institute and the Aquatic Science Center, more than 7 trillion pieces of plastic and micro-plastic wash into the San Francisco Bay each year. Reflecting on her trips to Ocean Beach as a kid have opened her eyes to the increase of pollution in the city today.

“Trash pollution is one thing but also, you can see whenever you go into the bay or even when you’re on the beach, the oil and the water on the sand,” Burji said. “You can see the texture of the sand and you can see that there’s like dirt and grease mixed into it. I loved going to Ocean Beach when I was younger and when you went into the water, the sand used to be clean. Now if you go there and you step into it, you can feel and see the black oil on the sand.”

Calderon agrees and acknowledges interacting with strangers raises safety concerns. However both Burji and Calderon say they stay safe when visiting San Francisco by traveling in groups, minimizing contact with people they don’t know, carrying pepper spray and constantly being aware of their surroundings. However even with these precautions, Calderon has still experienced people approaching her and her friends saying things that didn’t make sense.

“We have been approached by people incoherently where they weren’t really talking, but me and my friend were kind of scared at the same time,” Calderon said. “But we were just like, ‘Oh no,’ and we kind of backed away and went the other way and it was fine.”

Despite encounters like this, Chiang, Calderon and Burji say they have deep connections to San Francisco’s rich culture and nostalgia. Calderon believes that it’s the people and culture that create the atmosphere that draws individuals in and is something that cannot be replicated.

“I feel like overall the atmosphere is very alive,” Calderon said. “There’s a lot of music going on sometimes like live music, performances and it’s overall very colorful, especially if you go on sunny days. You see everything and there’s just a lot of people everywhere talking.”