Berkeley and the East Bay

After spending the best part of two days dealing with the collective incompetence of my bank and Mastercard (thanks for sending me a new credit card that doesn't work!!), I was feeling pretty stink about everything. I finally sorted it out though, and today was a great day.

Joe arrived in the city last night, reaching the end of his 45 day train journey around the country. Joe is the guy I met on my very first train ride this trip from Denver to Chicago and who I hung out with in New York, and who since then has been shaddowing a lot of my trip a few days later than me, even seperately meeting some of the same people that I've met along the way! This morning afforded me the opportunity to meet up with him again, to compare notes at the end of our trips. I rode the BART out to Oakland and he picked me up and took me on a tour of UC Berkeley and surrounding area. He went to school here so he was a good guide. Then we drove through the Berkeley Hills where there are some spectacular views and big Redwood forests.

San Francisco is really the city of the elusive photograph. It is so hard to get a good photo of the skylines because of the fog that seems to be constantly present, even on a hot day. Like the above photo - taken from the Berkeley Hills it shows the downtown Oakland skyline in the forground and directly on top of that is the bay, and then beyond that is downtown San Francisco skyline. But you really have to squint to see it in the photograph. It looked better in person.

Just an uplifting bilboard I found amusing.

Me at Sather Gate in Sproul Plaza, on the UC Berkeley campus.

The aforementioned forest atop the Berkeley Hills.

Correct me if I'm wrong but I do believe this is the first time in BeggsBlog history that a public restroom has been featured. But the grafitti was so cool! This is the restroom from People's Park in Berkeley, covered in artwork and grafiti mostly left over from the 'Bloody Thursday' clash of May 1969 when thousands of hippies who had built the park with their own hands (without legal permission on UC property) clashed with hundreds of law enforcement officers, culminating in 128 serious injuries and at least one death and leading to then Governor Ronald Reagan putting some 2700 National Gaurd troops on the streets of Berkeley to quell the uprising. But the park is still there today.

After the grand tour of the East Bay we went out for Mexican food in Oakland, which I liked.

Happy fourth everyone!