Friend: “Oh, you’re from California?! Lucky, at least you got the nice beach and warm sun all year round!”
Me: “UH, NOT EXACTLY…”
The reality is: California is not all sunshine and beaches. These assumptions are most likely based on the postcard style SoCal look (Los Angeles County). Being from the San Francisco Bay Area, I can attest to that fact. They do not call us “Fog City” for nothing.
Upon arriving at St. Olaf College as a first-year student, making friends and introducing myself has always involved a paragraph-long wordy explanation of the misconceptions of where I come from. Everybody I’ve met so far, not from California, who has asked where I am from has reacted with astonishingly jealous and surprised reactions. Hot weather year round and nice beaches are a myth where I am from. If you end up in the Bay Area, you will likely end up disappointed by the overpriced cost of everything and the nearly freezing beaches. Looking at the skies in San Francisco, you’ll be staring at fog most of the time. Sometimes we have our sunny days that never exceed around 70 degrees(80 on rare cases). LA boasts temperatures ranging from 50-100 degrees. The weather is only one aspect, here are a few more things that differ between SF and LA (NorCal vs. SoCal):
Transportation
SF: Your favorite words are either: BART or Muni (SF) and your best friend is your Clipper Card. Bay Area folk are famous for their heavy reliance on public transportation. Driving is nice, but not if you decide to drive through the city. People complain about Los Angeles highways because there is high traffic, but being stuck in city street traffic is worse because you are constantly at risk of some drugged-up person going up to your vehicle and asking for money or starting trouble. Public trans all the way! Plus, it is cleaner for the air!
BART Train (SF)
LA: Man, you’ve got quite the cruise to take across town. Your car is your best friend in this case. Because LA is more than five (or more) times the size of SF, the SoCal culture relies heavily on personal vehicles to get around. Forget about public transportation here. The bright side is there are so many roads, highways and streets to show off your ride!
Los Angeles Highway
Music
LA: You’ve got Kendrick Lamar, Snoop Dogg, Ice Cube, Eazy-E, Dr. Dre, Tyler the Creator, Jhené Aiko, Frank Sinatra, Anna Kendrick, The Doors and many more artists who’ve defined the diverse music culture of SoCal. Mainstream Pop music is literally based on all genres. The city is way too large to fall into one mainstream genre movement.
SF: Home of the Hyphy Movement! Though I am not a fan of the Hyphy Music Scene in the Bay myself, many people of our generation are faithful to Bay Area artists, especially rappers such as E-40, IAMSU, Sage The Gemini, G-Eazy, and let’s not forget Mac Dre. Man, if you turn to any mainstream Pop or Hip-Hop radio station in the Bay, you will more than likely be hearing Rap or R&B nowadays. The music scene has shifted into a Hip-Hop and R&B sound here over the years, slowly shifting away from band music. Rap is basically the new Pop.
Two unique rap cultures.
Slang
SF: We invented the word “hella”, which apparently is now in the universal English dictionary. Don’t “trip” if we Bay Area natives reply with “fasho” as a form of agreement. We just “trynna” jam out to our “slaps”, ya feel me? Generally, being from the Bay Area, you never realize your extensive homemade vocabulary until you leave the area and see the world for what it really is. I personally did not realize that “hella” was a Bay Area term until I was 14, meeting friends from LA in SF for the first time. 
I honestly do...
LA: “Dude, that trick you pulled off was clutch!” “Bro, let’s post up later?” “Tonight about to be lit!” If you’re going to SoCal, never underestimate the PCH (Pacific Coast Highway); traffic is brutal, and SoCal natives know this very well. Highways are a key element of getting around in LA, and their form for naming each highway is The [insert highway], always making sure to add "the" before the name. An example: The 5, The 101, The 10, The 405, The 105. To be honest, most LA natives instinctively despise the use of the word “hella” because it is known that it originates from the Bay.
Simply put, I am from San Francisco, California, but my hometown is not the postcard California people from the outside world think we are. At the end of the day, both sides of California put their differences aside and live in complete harmony. Misconceptions have always lingered, but I just wanted to make clear that California in its entirety is not always sunny year round, and that there are many differences among the culture of the sunnier side of California and the not-so-sunny side of California. That postcard California you are probably dreaming about is probably SoCal (Los Angeles area). Kudos to those who understand the difference!
This postcard is a fair representation of the Golden State!
