Impressions of Berkeley

We arrived in Berkeley a few hours before it started getting dark. Chris and Eric got this really cozy little "cottage" in the back of a large Victorian style home. It was really cool, hardwood floors, and a narrow little staircase that winds up the second floor.

I'd heard of Berkeley as being the birthplace of a revolution that never quite made it in this country, something I longed to be a part of. Looking at old news footage, and reading it seemed like the young people then, in the 60's, were more concerned with what was going on, more interested in making a change and difference in the world. Today everyone wants be a business major. I suppose those are the glasses I chose to view Berkeley with, so as I walked around the historic city I looked for remnants of that era, signs that the spirit was still alive and well. In many ways it seemed like things hadn't changed all that much. Then again I wasn't there in the 60's - but some things were at least the way I imagined them to be.

Out on the street the next day, while going for coffee at a local coffee shop on Shattuck street, a woman rode by on an old bicycle. She looked to be about thirty something, long brown hair, and in the basket of her bike were some long stemmed, enormous yellow sunflowers. My friends and I looked at one another. "Totally Berkeley!" That was the phrase for everything we saw up there that met our expectations of the mythical place. Walking down the street you still see bumper stickers - "Visual World Peace" and "Kill your Television."

I came across Telegraph street quite by accident. I was riding my bike around, looking for a grocery store. I stopped a couple of kids, and they pointed me up the hill of Parker street. When I got to Telegraph I knew this was a street worth checking out. I walked my bike down its crowded streets, taking it all in, until I reached the Berkeley campus. The sidewalk was crowded, so I locked the bike up on the campus, and took a walk back down Telegraph to explore. The street was amazing. The variety of people there... Being from pathetically normal and conservative Orange County, the people of Telegraph were out of this world (I should get out more!) It was a little unnerving. I stopped in a Mexican food place and had a great burrito. I was just amazed at the people, and sat there for a long time watching them walk by. Telegraph is lined with restaurants, record stores, book stores, and at least one head shop. On Sunday they closed the street to traffic, and it filled with street vendors. One especially memorable event was when I sat on the sidewalk and watched this street performer. A girl in her early 20's was dressed in a black ballerina style dress, standing on top of an old wooden chest. It must have been incredibly hot. A nearby radio played some beautiful piano music, to which she moved slowly and turned on the box. It was beautiful. People would walk by, many not knowing what to think. I watched as an old woman with a cane stood in front of her and watched for a while, then dropped some coins into the dancer's collection box. In my mind, the young ballerina was doing something the old woman could not. Her youth had passed and she could dance no more.

There were lots of people sitting around on the sidewalks asking for money. It got old very quickly. I did give sometimes, but there are just so many people asking for money. It made me feel kind of guilty to be sitting in a restaurant stuffing my face and having someone who was begging looking at me from outside the window.

There's a lot to do in Berkeley, and one of the best aspects of it for me was the fact that we didn't have to drive. Everything was close enough that you could practically walk anywhere. I hate driving with a passion, having been in couple of accidents and paying sky high insurance. I think there's a plot in Los Angeles to keep us in the cars. It's insane. So I loved that aspect of Berkeley. We were able to ride bikes or walk to the store, dinner, coffee houses, the movies. I was in paradise. You can have my car. Many people don't seem to realize how much influence an automobile can have in their lives - all of the costs - but that's another story... I loved being about to go out and drink, and then walk home - not having to worry whether you've had to much or whether it's unsafe to drive. There were tons of movie theaters, at least 4 within a couple of blocks of each other. There were lots of bookstores and a great variety of restaurants, Thai, Chinese, Mexican. The coffee shops were great and numerous. The Berkeley public library is great.

When you walk around the residential sections of Berkeley you notice a lot of plants growing everywhere, front yards covered with a variety of plants that look like weeds. It's amazing. In Orange County, in cities like Irvine, it's as if man is showing his dominance over the natural world with his carefully planned and landscaped environments. In Berkeley, it's more like "let it be." There were plants everywhere.

On the last couple of days I met a really cool guy named Philip who worked at a coffee shop around the corner from my friends. He was a painter/traveler/artist. The walls of the modern coffee shop were covered with some of his artwork. He lived in an incredible three story house with 9 others, mostly artists, all renting rooms. His room was on the third floor. Man was it hot up there, but he had some really cool skylights so that if you laid on his futon on the floor you could watch the clouds go by. At night a soothing fan, and haunting music. He introduced me to the cool and new to me music of Jethro Tull, Kattell Keineg, Grant Lee Buffalo, and Phish. The music seemed to go with the whole Berkeley experience. Philip was quite an interesting guy - an extensive traveler. He'd taught English for a while in Hungary and spent last summer working at Yellowstone National Park. He said he'd moved to Berkeley from Bakersfield and made it sort of his home base.

We spent one afternoon hiking up in the hills behind Berkeley. It was beautiful, a great eucalyptus forest. I actually saw a deer. We laid on our backs, stared up into the branches and listened to the creaking of the wood.

On the day before I left, Christopher, Philip & I drove into the city and across the Golden Gate Bridge, then hiked down to a beautiful beach where they taught me some elementary yoga. It was a nice ending to a great week. That's the life for me - no car, coffee, books, good friends, good music and some yoga. Berkeley's my kind of place - you can have the rat race.