By the time Sybok reached his temporary lodgings which were located in the Concord neighborhood of San Francisco at the edges of Clayton Heights, he was both soaked to the bone and suffering from the beginning stages of hypothermia.
He personally blamed the map. For some strange reason, human maps were rather deceptively scaled to make things appear to be closer than they actually were, and the map he'd picked up at the information kiosk as he'd been arranging for a room had been no exception.
What he'd thought had been a pair of side streets had actually been a pair of what had previously been main roads when the neighborhoods he'd walked through had been cities in their own right, and to make matters worse, the entire hike that had started out as a stroll had been done under what he was convinced was a torrential downpour. Hearing of rain and actually experiencing it were two entirely different things, and that had been why he hadn't recognized what was going on and that it wouldn't actually stop as soon as he got out of the range of whatever human was causing it because no human was causing it.
Fortunately for the sake of what little sanity he'd had left, the rest of his stay on Earth hadn't been quite as unpleasant as his introduction to the planet. Soon after being given the access code to his room, he was introduced to the odd human luxury of a hot bath which - aside from being an exceedingly extravagant waste of water - had not been entirely unpleasant despite the fact that the sensation of being submerged was completely alien to him. Two days later, the administrators at the Starfleet Academy had been all smiles when they had confirmed his admission during the upcoming academic year. After leaving with several informational packets as well as orders to visit a fleet doctor for a full physical, he was left to his own devices for the next few months. That was just as well, because it gave him ample opportunity to study the humans to whom emotions seemed to come easily.
After acquiring temporary employment at a local fusion cuisine restaurant, he checked out of his temporary lodgings and went "halvsies" on an apartment in the Oakland neighborhood with someone who had needed a short-term roommate because their normal roommate had gone off planet for a while.
Time swiftly passed, and all too soon, it was time to start at the Academy, and very soon after that it seemed, his first semester was over...
Sybok kept his smile toned down when he realized that he had been the first to complete the Final for that semester. He had been on Earth for several months about half of which had been spent attending the Starfleet Academy and - with the removal of the last bit of distortion from the recording he was supposed to clean up - he had finished his first semester as a Communications major. His smile at his success would have been wider, but - despite the fact that humans did it all the time - his classmates seemed to find the idea of a smiling Vulcan to be disturbing which meant that he'd had to tone down his emotional displays a bit until they became inured to them.
When he had exited the Communications lab, it was raining as it was wont to do during the autumn and winter months in this region. Rain was one of the things that had taken a while for him to get used to, as well as the cold, the strange looking moon, and the abundant flora and fauna. Speaking of fauna, being woken up by a raccoon raiding the planter box outside his apartment at three in the morning back before he'd started at the Academy had been quite the novel experience. One that likely would not be repeated in the near future since the Academy had long since figured out how to repel raccoons and other such wildlife from its borders.
Over the semester since he'd started attending the Academy, he had gained a number of friends, and learned a great deal about Earth culture through experience. Having been around humans - as in more than one at a time - he could now see why his father had found Amanda so fascinating. His human roommate who had fortunately been raised in a desert environment - therefore finding no problem with the temperature he'd set their quarters to as he himself found San Francisco to be unbearably cold - had a wealth of fascinating anecdotes to share with him, which he often did.
There would be no stories this evening however, as his roommate would be leaving to visit his family over the academic break.
Deciding that indulging in a leisure activity would be appropriate at this point as he had no other studies or responsibilities to tend to, he headed back to his quarters to watch the humorous and somewhat irreverent historical documentary on the capitol city of the United Federation of Planets. As he turned on San Francisco: The City That Ate the Bay Area, he mused that little Spock would have loved this. It was a pity that he'd more than likely never see any of it though, considering the fact that his half-brother was being raised to be the good son, the son he'd failed to be.