Virtual Greg

On Saturday I went to Berkeley to see the famous campus and take a look round the East Bay. Berkeley is across the water from San Francisco, which means an extra train trip, so I got up early for the 830am Caltrain from Palo Alto. At SF I biked from 4th st to Embarcadero and got the BART to Berkeley via Oakland. Oakland is a port town, with giant cranes on four legs for getting stuff out of ships. A train passenger was photographing them, claiming they were the inspiration for the giant robots in The Empires Strikes Back. LucasFilm is headquartered in SF: maybe this story is true.

The BART stops in downtown Berkeley, a few blocks from the fabulous UC Berkeley campus. It’s the oldest Cal campus – about the same age as Melbourne Uni. It’s nowhere near as big in area as its giant rival Stanford – perhaps UQ sized. Most of the prominent buildings are old and beautiful. The campus climbs up the side of the mountain range and geographically dominates the surrounding suburbs. There is a “Brunswick st” style cafe strip on Telegraph Avenue, the street that runs up to the main gate. I did all the things you’d expect in this area, bought a “Cal” cap to ward off encroaching sunburn, and had a coffee.

My Lonely Planet suggested that when in Berkeley one should go down to the shore of San Francisco bay, so I biked down a couple km to Cesar Chavez park where there were great views of the bay and SF, and a kite festival, featuring amazing kites, like aliens hovering, impressive even to the non-kite-enthusiasts in the park, such as myself.

Back in SF I technology-touristed down Battery st past Linden Labs headquarters, a classic San Francisco ‘warehouse converted to software company”. It’s near North Beach, where Andrew B had recommended a cafe, so I took a break there. Tested the extra-low gear on my mountain bike by riding back over the Powell st hill. Going downhill again to Market st is so steep that wide buildings have an extra floor at the downhill end. I rode back to the Caltrain and trained back to Palo Alto.

I wasn’t home two minutes when my landlady insisted we all drive out for dinner. One of the other housemates is a young coder working for a local tech firm. The three of us drove to a Chinese restaurant in Cupertino that runs an all-you-can-eat buffet. Cupertino is Apple Computer’s hq and they have a lot of buildings in the main street. Big dinner, back home, slept.