October 30, 2009

Marin County, California

sunset at bolinas beach

If you cross the Golden Gate Bridge, just north of San Francisco you will find Marin County, a beautiful, sparcely populated oasis of redwoods, beach and countryside. I roadtripped with a friend north up the 101, and then went west towards Muir Beach, until finally driving along the coast up to Stinson Beach. The drive over the hills was a little trecherous, speckled with road-side grazing deer, but the small, single lane highway made it seem like we were miles and miles away from the city when we were really only about a 30 min drive away.

Once we arrived at Stinson, we tipped our hats to the (amazingly) good weather by heading straight to the beach, where kids were still swimming and surfers still catching waves, despite it being late October. There was barely a breeze, and luckily enough no fog either. We ate lunch at a locally run, organic, open-air cafe before heading out for some surf. We drove around Bolinas Lagoon to the north side of Bolinas Bay where the town, Bolinas is actually situated. We rented boards and wetsuits and spent the next 3 hours riding waves without ever feeling cold.

We welcomed the evening by settling on the beach ontop a sleeping bag we took from the Bolinas “free box,” a place where you leave or take what you dont need or have. We stayed there throughout one of the most beautiful sunsets I’ve ever seen, and on through to the darkest point of night where the only light you could see was the distant city glow of San Francisco, still within eyesight but definitely out of mind.

The following day we drove through Samuel P. Taylor Park, home to some enormous redwoods, and all the way to Pt. Reyes Lighthouse which sits at the end of Drakes Bay in Pt. Reyes National Seashore Park. Enroute we stopped in some tiny, historic towns like Pt. Reyes Station, Inverness and Olema, and dipped our toes in the sandy beaches of Drakes Beach and North Beach.

It was the perfect getaway out of the city, only a short drive away, with enough natural beauty, solitude and quietude to make us totally forget about the stresses awaiting our return home to the huslte and bustle of the bay.

October 21, 2009

Autumn in Berkeley

Today is the first day of rain I’ve seen since moving to California in August. And boy is it raining; 4 inches in just one day, with lots of wind and grey clouds to complete the miserable day. The leaves are starting to turn auburn, the days are getting slightly shorter, and the air is begining to cool, but I still have nothing to complain about since the coolest day here is still substantially warmer than the hottest day in Reykjvaik. I just find my wardrobe unprepared for the cool, since I ignorantly expected sunny California weather until December, and walking around in my flip flops and tank tops hasn’t proven viable for the last couple weeks.

The houses here seem to expect the same thing, since lack of insulation and the delayed arrival of fall means that overnight, my room gets so cold and getting out of bed in the morning is one of the most difficult things I have to do. Once I get out of bed, there really isnt any relief til noon or so, since it takes the whole morning for the house and outside to warm up. Then it will get deceivingly warm for a few hours and sunbathing on the lawn would be totally acceptable, until the sun starts to set and dusk brings a cool front over you again.

It is beautiful to see the greenery on campus right now. There are mixed forests sporadically dispersed between school buildings, palm trees, evergreens and deciduous trees happily coexisting. The melange almost stays as green as it always is, except for the oaks and maples slowly turning into hughs of gold and copper. No leaves have actually started falling, but soon the ground will be speckled in orange, red and yellow, and seeing the bare trees among the palms and evergreens will also be a sight, especially if the sun keeps coming out.

With fall comes more pressure in school, so students are too busy and too stressed to really enjoy their days or nights. For some reason I find myself doing just the opposite – wasting my time trying to maximize playtime in the shortening days outside and avoiding staying at home in the evening in fear of being too cold. However, there is actually lots to be done, so hopefully the blissful, romantic days of fall can pass, not to be forgotten, but just to stop tempting me with their distracting appeal.

October 19, 2009

American Rural Life

Village Nursery

As part of the international student body here at Berkeley, I decided to sign up for a day trip offered by the International House (in collaboration with the Rotary Club) that was intended to take exchange students on visits to a handful of different farms and homes of traditional American, rural family life.

We started by going to Village Nursery, a plant farm that sold beautiful flowers and trees, and also seeds and gardening supplies. It was about an hour drive east from San Fransisco, over in the dry, hilly area called Contra Costa county, but they somehow managed to sprinkle enough water to keep acres upon acres of green houses as humid as a rainforest, with uncountable sprinklers keeping the vegetation alive.

Our next stop was at Smith Family Farm, where we stayed for one hour wondering what to do after walking through a corn maze that had only one path out and poking our heads into a recreated Indigenous Indian village comprised of one straw & mud teepee-like hut.

Then was Roddy Ranch, a working cattle farm where Jack Roddy, a retired rodeo champion, rode around in wranglers, a plaid shirt, cowboy boots and a cowboy hat on his stocky quarter horse saddled up in western, all the while chewing tobacco and spitting between sentences.

Then we visited a family run winery, with bottles of wine priced so cheap I had to wonder if they weren’t secretly franchised by Walmart. I bought a bottle of port for $7 and didn’t ask any questions.

Finally we went to an old-time family ranch that had been bought by the city and turned into a public park, preserving all the turn-of-the-century buildings on the lot and making them into a museum-like exhibit. A man dressed in ranger uniform (star badge and all) called Ranger Joe showed us around, with hints of a southern drawl in his stereotypical American accent, and we ended the day with a delicious BBQ dinner hosted by members of the Walnut Creek Rotary Club.

All in all it was a wonderful day tour, getting an intimate view on rural life in California, but still getting the satisfaction and curiosity of wondering “is this really how some families live, fulfilling these little quirky stereotypes you thought you only saw in movies? they must have known we were coming and staged this…”

October 5, 2009

Sonoma & Napa Valley Wine Tasting

the oldest wooden structure situated at Green Strings farm, with a healthy field of grape vines growing behind

Many know the Northern California region is quite famous for its wineries, so going wine tasting in the Sonoma and Napa Valley regions seemed like a necessary trip to take while living in California. It’s only about an hour’s drive north from San Fransisco, and I’ve been told there are about 400 wineries in the entire region, ranging from small, 10 acre family run farms, to hundred-acre, major distributing wineries like Sebastiani.

A friend visiting from out of town and myself spent a couple days in the area, starting at Green Strings Farm, an all-organic, sustainable, grape and produce growing farm near Petaluma. It was the most beautiful, idyllic, relaxing country landscape, nestled near the Sonoma hills, with some of the best tasting food I have had in a long time.

The following day we weaved our way through a few Sonoma Valley vineyards, visiting some of the oldest wineries in the USA including Bartholomew Park Winery, Gundlach Bundschu, and Buena Vista winery. They all cost between $5 – $10 for a tasting flight, specializing mostly in red wines except for a few chardonnays, gewurztraminers and white rosés.

We carried over to the Napa Valley, driving north along the Silverado trail, famous for its back to back wineries. We visited some modest wineries, like Judd’s Hill that specilizes in private sales, and built up to the more extravegant, $15 – $25 per tasting flight wineries like Darioush, Black Stallion and Signorello.

In addition to the amazing wines, wonderful weather, and scenic roadtrip, wine tasting Sonoma and Napa Valley served as the perfect getaway from the hustle and bustle of the Bay area, so I would suggest to anyone planning a visit to San Fransisco, you should include a little wine tasting time in your itinerary.

September 22, 2009

California Dreaming is California Living

Our first dinner party at Maya's (2nd to left) house

Despite all my ranting about UC Berkeley in my previous blog, I am (otherwise) getting the most welcome arrival otherwise possible. I have a handful of really good friends that I have known for a long time living in the east bay area, and all of them have contributed to taking care of me and helping me out in ways I could never ask for.

After I first got out here with my family, I was very unprepared. I didn’t have housing or transportation lined up (UC students get free bus passes, but not UC exchange students – go figure), but my friend Misha happens to always have 1 to 4 extra cars lying around not being used, so I scored the jackpot with a little 1986 BMW 325. She’s not that pretty, but complete with leather seats, automatic windows and a sunroof, so the fact that she has no second gear isn’t a big deal. Misha also let me stay at his beautiful Danville home, complete with a pool in the backyard, until I found housing closer to Berkeley campus.

My quasi-roommate from first year university, Maya, who lives in a quaint neighbourhood called Montclair in the Oakland Hills, was my second saving grace. Her parents had moved to Tahoe for the season and she welcomed company in her family’s big, empty house that she was now living in alone. So, we are back to being roommates, with a much more upgraded living situation than Totem Park dorm rooms from UBC. We have a beautiful patio, a big, hilly backyard, and of course a hammock to do some productive reading on.

There are countless others who have facilitated my adjustment to a new city and a new campus; also mentionable is Michael, a friend who enjoys pianos almost as much as me, so when i discovered a free piano that I unfortunately found out would never make it up Maya’s 44 stairs, he took it to his house instead and swapped me loaning privileges to his electronic keyboard so I can still play music.

I should also mention my two supervisors at UC Berkeley; one from the tourism department, and the other from the Environmental Policy & Management dept, who are going to pretty much write my thesis for me, with all their knowledge, weekly meetings and directing me through the graduate academia world I feel so hopelessly lost in. Otherwise, I feel I’m finally fitting into place in my new sunny home of California. I’ve had my first few visitors come stay with me, and acted as the ‘local’ tour guide, so hopefully I’ll get to know this place as intimately as others from around here by the time I leave.

September 17, 2009

Fly Fly Away!

How do those thousand ton machines actually float in mid air anyway?

Language is basically a facet of communication, a way to express our thoughts, but it’s often been said that language is a limitation to thought. Language is constantly in flux, with new words being created or borrowed within the thousands of existing languages. Words are often closely related, either because of meaning or etymological history.

Think about the words we use for flying: fly, flights, etc. Its a verb, an adverb or adjective, a noun… but then we have a different name for things that fly, like airplane or helicopter. Similarily, in French, ‘voler’ is to fly, ‘vol’ a flight, (vuelo in spanish) and ‘avion’ an airplane in both French and Spanish. In other languages, flight and planes are much closer related words, where the title of an object that flies is clearly built on the word ‘to fly’. In Icelandic, fljuga is the verb to fly (flug is the noun), and a plane is simply a ‘flugvel’, loosely translated as ‘flight-engine’. In German, an airplane is a ‘flugzeug’, and a flight is ‘flucht’. Further eastern european countries lose the resembling ‘flyvning,’ ‘flygning’ or ‘vlucht’ of Indo-European languages, and in Latvian, airplane is lidmaš?nu, and flight is lidojumu, with Finnish meeting somewhere in the middle between the nordic and slavic languages with airplane said as ‘lentokoneeseen,’ and flight as ‘lennon.’

Etymologically speaking, the word ‘flight’ is said to have originated from low German ‘fleugan’ (circa 1300’s), and was first used to describe skittish horses and then defined as “an instance of flight,” as in ballooning. Before the Wright brothers came around with airplanes, flight really was a supernatural event, which only winged animals and insects could partake, but who could have know that today, millions of people and planes fly in the air every day, defying the laws of gravity and even reaching the frontiers of space!

September 17, 2009

Black Rock City and Burning Man

the Man

Many people have heard of the art festival Burning Man, but those who haven’t gone often have a wrong impression of it. Most people that knew I went asked “isn’t everything free there, like alcohol?” and “aren’t you going to do so many drugs there?!” Others comment on the fairies, hippies, glowing night life and raves that go on, while others try to understand where it is (in the middle of a desert, a former lake bed) and how a temporary city of 60,000 survives there for 8 days. What I went to Burning Man for was first and foremost for the art and artistic expression (it is, after all, an art festival), and also to explore a new environment, both natural and cultural.

The set up of burning man camp is circular: a clock where 12 noon has a temple, the centre of the clock is the Man, 6 o’clock is central camp, and around the circumference from 2 to 10 are camps. The art is all around you; the big circle of the clock has the major, large, installation art works, and camps all around are decorated to a theme. The only automobiles that are allowed to drive around camp are ‘art cars,’ and people themselves are walking art pieces covered in dust, fur, glowy stuff and costume.

The mentality of Black Rock City is unlike any other ‘real’ city in the world; people love, trust, respect and share almost unconditionally (with everyone), with the underlying philosophies of burning man being about self-expression, inclusion, communal effort, civil responsibility, participation, gifting, and leave-no-trace (garbage is affectionately called MOOP, an acronym for matter-out-of-place).

Self reliance and decommodification are other major themes of burning man; you are meant to bring enough food, water, shelter and first aid to survive one week in a harsh desert environment, and the selling of ANYTHING is prohibited (a barter/exchange economy exists through the notion of gifting).

My personal experience of Burning Man was a surreal journey through self exploration, literally and figuratively speaking, where the art, camps and people I met at Burning Man all contributed an invaluable piece to an overall wonderful, unforgettable experience. There is definitely nowhere else on earth you can go and have a similar experience, and explaining it to people is almost a waste of time because its one of those things you cannot truly imagine or have expectations of until you go there and experience it yourself.

Word of advice: Go to Burning Man 2010.

September 8, 2009

3 Ways to Get Lost in a Major City

San Fransisco Trolley with the Bay Bridge in the background

Whenever I visit great cities, like London or New York, it’s overwhelming how much there is to do and see in one place in too little time. Arriving in east bay California means I’m only 20 minutes away from San Fransisco, a fairly small city (in square km’s), but still offering a lot to explore. I’ve come up with a few little things I like to do (instead of reading guide books and calendars of events) to fill my time.

First, don’t carry any sort of map. Just use your well-travelled self to have a good enough sense of direction to find your way back to where you started. Just make sure you never look too lost, to avoid every nice person coming up to you and asking “are you lost? Can I help you find something?” since, you should have no idea what you’re looking for.

Then, walk in the direction that your senses pull you, and when you get to an intersection, turn in the direction you feel like. Whatever looks prettier, smells yummier, or sounds more interesting, go there. Get off the shopping streets and walk through some neighbourhoods, wander through an industrial area, or even end up in a poorer section of town to see the not-so-touristy picture perfect images of a city.

Finally, try and take a random bus/metro/trolley a few stops in an unkown direction, without asking any questions…try to blend in and act like a local, and get in a little bit of people watching. Just get off when you feel like it, or when most of the other people get off. Just make sure you know how much bus fare is and have exact change, or else everyone will still know you’re that lost tourist 🙂

Basically, try and get totally lost, and along the way, you will discover all sorts of treasures and surprises a lonely planet would have never predicted.

September 4, 2009

UC Berkeley, my disenchanted dream

Me, mom and older sister Kristjana at the UC Berkeley entrance gates

I have always wanted to go to UC Berkeley, and my third time around, I got in. I applied both to an undergrad program, and last year to an LLB program, and finally, as an exchange student from my current master’s program at the University of Iceland. This time, to my relief , I finally got in without having to pay their horrendous tuition since I’m just there on exchange. However, this “free” exchange has cost a lot of time, money and energy.

It began back in April, when I first got my acceptance letter. It was 12 pages long, outlining all the paperwork, procedures and fees I would have to complete before my arrival. First, I needed to get my student visa. The Berkeley office had to prepare some fancy form called DS-2019 for my to even be eligible to apply for the visa, and to get them to process that I first had to prove financial security of $1600/month (since Im forbidden to work under my student visa) for the 5 months I would be in California (what grad student has $8000 in their savings account halfway through a masters program?). Then I needed 2×2 inch passport photos scanned into digital format at an exact resolution; also, reference letters from employers or professors, tax slips, and/or proof of family ties outside of the USA so they believed I wasn’t trying to seek refuge in California. Finally, I needed health care that met the US department of State’s standards (now we all know what an issue health care is in the US) and since my coverage for repatriation of remains is $5000 instead of their minimum $7500 with my health insurance in Canada, I’ll probably need to buy the ridiculously overpriced healthcare the campus offers now that I’ve arrived.

Once I got that special DS-2019, I had to pay a SEVIS (Student and Exchange Visitor Information System) fee for $180 US, then direct deposit $131 US visa fee into a Scotiabank (which, doesnt actually exist outside of North America, a slight problem when you are an International Exhange student), pay $8 cdn to schedule a visa appointment at the embassy to apply for the visa, spend 6 hrs in their dark, silent, surveilled office without any guarantee it would be processed, and then come back 3 days later and wait in an hour line to pick up my passport (at which point I found out I did get the VISA).

Upon my safe arrival to Berkeley, my first orientation consisted of a small welcome, alot of forms (one legal document which waives my rights to any ideas or inventions I may have during this semester to be the full property of UC Berkeley), and $410US (payable in cash only) for that one page, good old DS-2019. I now owe $200 for my “registration fee”, even though they informed us at the orientation meeting that exchange students are NOT registered Cal students, nor do we have any recognised status as UC students for campus benefits like bus passes or gym admission. That also means I cant register for classes online, and will have to run around all week to actual class rooms, begging professors to let me audit their already full classes. I won’t get a transcript at the end of all this either, so let’s hope I actually get credit at all for the work I’ve put into realising my Berkeley dream. Moral of the story: It’s a lot easier to travel to California as a tourist than a student. Try to avoid “researching scholar’ student visas to the US unless you’ve got plenty of time and money to waste!

August 25, 2009

Roadtripping with the Hen House

The San Francisco Golden Gate Bridge peeping out from the fog typical of the bay area

I am moving to the east bay area in California to complete some courses at UC Berkeley, and my family decided to make a family vacation out of it by renting a Chrysler Impala, and shoving me, my 2 sisters, mother and ancient grandmother into it. Of course we came with all our luggage, my life in boxes, a cooler full of home cooked food, a rice cooker, and uncountable bottles of water. Yes, it was a tight fit.

The newest addition to our family is our GPS system, affectionately named Disa, and she told us where to go, how long it would take, and to “Drive Carefully” once in a random while. Sometimes she was wrong, and I’d have to override her instructions, and my mom would get totally distressed trying to figure out what direction she should take. My grandma was a skeptic, because during every long stretch of I-5 highway we drove and Disa had no turns to warn us about, she would ask something to the effect of “why isn’t this thing talking to us? She’s supposed to tell us where to go. Must be no good.” We did do things other than drive, but out of the whole weekend, we were stuffed like sardines in that car for the majority of the time, fighting over butt space in the backseat and reluctantly taking turns to sit in the middle. At one point, my sister spilled half a water bottle AT my face, like, almost bore out an eye socket with the spout of the open bottle, and that created quite an uproar since there was nowhere for me to turn to fix myself, nor for my sister to run.

We made it to California with a stop in some random highway side Motel 8, and stuffed all 5 of us in one room (poor Ruth got the floor), and mom decided to cook corned beef and rice for us at 11 pm with all the windows shut (so we couldnt get in trouble for cooking in the rooms) and thus we all ended up smelling like fried onions by the time we fell asleep. Once we got to the bay, we dropped off my grandma at family friend in Stockton, and took a couple days to explore Cal campus, San Francisco, Santa Cruz and the highway 1 along the west coast of norcal. We survived off the curry and rice from our cooler and In-n-Out burger, and made alot of stops to Target and WalMart to bargain hunt for miscellaneous, unneeded cheap stuff, what we Adals do best together. There was never a silent moment, and all-in-all a wonderful trip, but its nice to finally be settled in one place and able to hear myself think again 🙂

As alway, dohop.com is at your service offering cheap flights to California.