Hello world. I put this together to share my year in the Golden State and all the things I learned and experienced with the people I met during my time here. I’ll try to tell you as much as I can about this one of a kind year, but first let me introduce myself.

I grew up in a suburb of France in a modest family. My parents moved to France about 40 years ago to escape the war and the bad situation in Vietnam.

They moved for a better life and mainly to give their children a real chance to succeed in life. They didn’t make a lot of money and didn’t have the most prestigious jobs in the world, but everything they did was for my siblings and me.

We are really thankful about this, and the least we can do is to help them back by working hard and try to be nice in life.

In 2016 I launched a portfolio which opened the doors for me to a bunch of internship opportunities all around the world. I didn’t know which one I had to choose. Something in New York? Amsterdam? London? I always wanted to live in California, so after few weeks of reflection I decided to join Ueno in San Francisc for six months.

During my internship I fell in love with the team. The company was pretty small at that time, and felt like a family. The experience was amazing, and I had so much fun and good memories. My goal after that was to graduate and come back to San Francisco, which had become my favorite place in the world.

Time flies and here we are. I graduated and was invited to come back and work at at Ueno. However, a lot of the friends I met at work and outside work were gone, and I had to start over to create a new life in San Francisco.

Something you need to know about San Francisco, people come and leave pretty often, so when you meet someone you know it won’t last forever.

Finding a little gem in the city

This part was thankfully pretty easy for me. Olivia, a friend I met during my internship, happened to be looking for a place, and she asked me if I wanted to be her roommate. At first, I hesitated because she has a cat, Luna (I had always hated pets), but she did a lot of work to find a place we would both love. She finally found a beautiful apartment in Nopa, and I instantly said yes to moving in with her and her cat (which I learned how to love). We had so many good times in this little gem.

I’ll never forget our cozy and simple roommate dinners, gatherings with friends, and hosting friends from all other the world who visited and stayed in our little paradise.

Trying new things outside of work

I always dreamed of learning how to dance but I never dared to take class in France.

The fear of being mocked by other people.

I’ve always been attracted to latin vibes, but never knew how to enter this world. Andrea was the answer — she’s a really close friend and colleague I met at Ueno in San Francisco. We decided to try something new and jump in together into the salsa world.

It was super awkward at first (the first 10 minutes of each class was super embarrassing), but we learned how to embrace it and we fell in love with salsa. Salsa became our thing. We went a lot to salsa events together to practice and met so many new friends.

I met so many friends thanks to those dancing classes, and I‘m pretty sure that inside, everyone loves to dance. So don’t be scared or shy — just do it.

Making new friends

It’s never easy to meet new people when you move somewhere, especially if you don’t speak the local language. You’re a way too scared to talk a lot and you don’t want to reach out to people to hang out. So what’s the easiest solution? Hang out with people from your community (French in my case).

This is something I completely understand, but I encourage everyone to not do this — why would you move to an other country to surround yourself with the things you already know? I’m not saying it’s bad, but Don’t forget that you came to a new place to discover a new culture and do things outside of your comfort zone.

This year in San Francisco, I met so many nice and kind people from all over the world, but there is a group of people who really stands out to me.

Those people (who became my closest friends in the city and probably in my life) are all super positive, nice, super friendly, but overall they are AMAZING.

It was at first weird to me because in Paris, everyone is grumpier, not really friendly, and really critical. We grew up learning how to see the negative side of everything.

With this group of people, I learned how to be more positive and enjoy every single moment I had in San Francisco. It honestly took a lot of energy and effort, but I’m so thankful for all the times we shared.

I’ll never forget that night around a fire place on the beach for Zoe’s birthday. Aimless hikes in the Presidio and Land’s End with Laura, Olivia and Luke. Secret concerts by So Far Sounds. My first time carving pumpkins at Megan’s house. Thanksgiving, the Super Bowl, the Blue Grass festival in Golden Gate Park. Early mornings walking across the Golden Gate bridge to see the sunrise with Mike. And of course, all those weekends we spent at our favorite bars and walking around San Francisco with Jude.

I don’t know if I will see all these faces again, so this is my way of showing them how much I love them and remember this amazing year in San Francisco with them.

Opening a new chapter

It’s time to close this San Francisco chapter for a year to explore and discover a new place in the world. I’m heading now to an other amazing place — the country of ice and fire, Iceland.

Honestly, I’m super scared and nervous. I don’t know what to expect at all, but I’m looking forward to it, can’t wait to start this new adventure and I hope you guys will visit soon .

Dac Davy Nguyen was born in Paris surprisingly few years ago. He says he doesn’t like Paris very much, which funnily enough proves he’s a real Parisian. Dac has been designing at Ueno since 2016, first in San Francisco, as you probably know if you’re reading this, and now in Iceland. Dac makes pictures for you on Instagram and designs for you on Dribbble. He also made a mixtape for you on Ueno’s Spotify.

Want to work with Dac? Because Ueno is hiring.

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