As I mentioned in a post a few weeks ago, early in November I flew to the west coast for the second time in my life. I was excited to head back that way, but I didn’t know what to expect. I’d heard great things about the bay area, and went in with the assumption that it’s my kind of city, just as I went into my Berkeley visit (part of the trip) with the assumption that Berkeley is my kind of school. Liberal, open-minded, close to the water and full of energy; this is what I found from both San Francisco itself and the university. I ended up on this trip through a visit organized by my work, actually — a campus tour with some colleagues, including my roommate, that I extended for a day so I could at least see some of the city itself. On my next trip out west, I hope to explore more of the area surrounding San Francisco, including Oakland and more of the parks, and also fit in a visit to Stanford. For now though, here’s how my quick trip to California went.
So I flew in Thursday night, direct from New York on Delta’s latest approach to coast-to-coast travel, aka using the same planes that are used for international flights. This meant no eligibility for free first class upgrades (if only!), but the flight itself was comfortable enough, and even came with a free meal. I landed late, after about an hour’s delay due to a lack of food and beverage on the plane (no way we were taking off for a 5+ hour flight without any snacks). After finding my roommate at the airport, we took a Lyft into the city to meet up with another Detroit colleague whose client is in San Francisco as well as a former Denison grad who now works for a financial startup in the city. We ate at Belga, a trendy Belgian restaurant in the Marina District. Already delayed from my flight, we didn’t end up eating until 8 or 9 pm, which felt close to midnight with an east coast internal clock, so I wasn’t starving. My roommate and I decided to split fries (with curry ketchup!) as well as two small salads (one kale, one quinoa). The quinoa salad was my favorite of the ‘healthy’ choices, though it’s hard to compare leafy greens with fried potatoes… several others at the table also ordered burgers, which looked pretty good if you’re into that kind of thing, and if I’d been more hungry I would’ve likely gone for the mussels (with frites, of course). The atmosphere was great, and food all around solid, if expensive (whatcha gonna do). It was great to catch up, but by the time we made it to our hotel it was close to actual midnight, and my roommate and I were both more than ready to crawl into our beds.
Friday morning, I was up around 5:45 to make a 6 am client call (9 am New York time), which thankfully didn’t feel so bad since I was still on east coast time internally. After taking the call in the hotel lobby to avoid waking my roommate, I went back to the room to get ready for the day. We packed up and headed out around 8, making the 20 minute ride from our Oakland hotel to Berkeley’s campus in time for breakfast and coffee and the kickoff of our official visit. As my first campus visit in a very long time (the last was probably…. junior year of high school ..? not including when I actually visited Denison after enrolling), it felt weird to walk around campus and talk to admissions folks again. My favorite part was definitely a mock class held by one of the Haas professors. We did a marketing case based on Eileen Fisher, the clothing brand, from which I’m actually drafting another post, and the 45 minutes flew by… essentially confirming the fact that I’m a huge business nerd.
Our visit ended with a happy hour at a nearby bar, with campus reps as well as current students that came from my company. My roommate and I both talked about ducking out an hour in, since we were tired from our late night and full day. However, we ended up staying past the scheduled end and then some because we were having such a good time. We eventually ubered back into the city, and while my roommate went on to meet up with other friends she had planned on visiting, I essentially got into bed with some late night In-n-Out fries and a chocolate milkshake and passed out within 20 minutes.
Saturday, I woke up way before my alarm (my favorite perk of east to west travel, for sure), and after trying and failing to fall back asleep, I eventually got up and made my way to the hotel gym for my “long run” of the week (this was back in my Turkey Trot prep days). After my run, I went out in search of breakfast, although what I really was craving was lunch… unfortunately, Chipotle doesn’t open at 8 am, so eventually I ended up with oatmeal, a banana, and a big ol water bottle from CVS. Had I known better, I would have made the 20ish walk to Caffe Capriccio (instead, I stopped in for a cafe au lait while on my hours-long wander session). The coffee was good, but the menu looked even better, with multiple quiches I was dying to try as well as some yummy-looking breakfast burritos…. ah well. Maybe next time.
Anyway, I hung out at my hotel until noon checkout, researching places to go in the afternoon and generally being lazy, knowing post-checkout I’d be on my own until my 11 pm flight home. I stayed at a Courtyard Marriott near Fisherman’s Wharf, which was convenient enough for my on-foot situation, but I imagine I’ll look for somewhere different the next time I’m in town. Overall it was nice, however, with a bigger than average room (or maybe it was an upgrade..?), friendly staff, but a just okay gym.
After checking out, I made my way south and east, which is when I passed Caffe Capriccio and popped in for my coffee. I continued on my way, loosely headed for Chinatown. Along the way I loved checking out all of the cool houses, and while my legs started to hate the hills, the sun was out and weather beautiful for a long (loooong) walk. I passed an independent bookstore called City Lights and couldn’t help popping in …I tried to keep in mind that I had to carry my bag for the rest of the day, but I did end up buying a couple things, including one christmas present as well as a contemporary book of poems by one of San Francisco’s former poet laureates, Devorah Major. I’ve been really interested recently in location as an influence on writing, so I thought her writing on the city of San Francisco would be an interesting addition to my current stack of books (includes William Carlos Williams’ Paterson and Marge Piercy’s Made in Detroit), plus I wanted it as a contrast to some of the Beat writing that’s also seen as so integral to San Francisco’s cultural history.
Speaking of… while I find myself generally skeptical of the Beatnik writing movement, or at least the degree to which people uphold some of the more wellknown writers, I figured I should educate myself a bit more before totally judging the whole scene. Following City Lights, I headed across the street to the Beat Museum, a funky building with the first floor full of random Beat paraphernalia and bookshelves and the museum itself on the second floor. I didn’t really want to pay the whole $8 to go into the museum, but I did chat with the guy working at the counter. He said he worked there because he’s really inspired by the 60s counter culture movement, and that led him to become interested in the Beat movement as well. I picked up a copy of Kerouac’s On the Road (it seemed like the thing to do) to officially form my opinion on the matter, and then headed out to finally grab lunch.
By this point is was probably 1 or 2 pm, and I knew I was getting close to Chinatown. I’d done a little bit of research trying to pick a restaurant, but overwhelmed by options, I eventually landed at a tiny, cash-only vegetarian restaurant called Lucky Creation. And when I say tiny, this place was literally so small… no more than 7 or 8 tables, and even though I was there a bit after the lunch hour, they had me sit with another single diner so that neither of us would have to wait. The food was pretty good, though I think I ordered wrong more than anything (I had an almond faux-chicken situation and ate an insane amount of it – read: all of it- thanks to my long walk, meager breakfast and morning run). My dining companion left before I did, and didn’t leave a tip…. so I tipped for both of us and headed/rolled out.
From there, I decided to head east to the piers and walk along the water back to the Fisherman’s Wharf area. I could have gone for a cable car or lyft or some such… but I decided to save money and walk instead. What I really wanted was to do a bike rental, since the city had little bike stands every few blocks. However, with my big shoulder back (by this point stuffed with 5 or 6 books…), I knew I wouldn’t be able to both bike and keep my bag. So I walked, heading all the way down and around the water until I eventually made it back Pier 39, where I went to hang out with the sea lions a bit (way more crowded at 3pm in comparison to 8 am!). I decided to pit stop at the Aquarium of the Bay (y’all know how much I love aquariums), which was rather expensive… but then I read that over 80% of their proceeds go to marine research and wildlife preservation, so I figured that explained the $25 ticket, and I don’t feel too bad contributing to the cause. The aquarium itself was small but fun, with the highlight being one of those big walk through tunnels with the tank around and above you– lots of sharks and other fish swimming all around. Pretty cool.
View from the Aquarium entrance; bright sun and big sky
After the aquarium I continued my walk onward, pretty much wandering towards the Golden Gate Bridge, people watching, and generally enjoying the nice weather (even if my feet and shoulder were starting to hurt from the whole afternoon spent out and about). As it started to get dark, I stopped into Starbucks for a tea and seat break, as well as a chance to charge my phone… eventually, I knew I had to make my way back to Fisherman’s Wharf to pick up my suitcase from the hotel luggage storage, so I decided to head to Boudin for clam chowder in a sourdough bread bowl as my final meal (you expect me to walk past a flagship bakery and not go in??). Sourdough bread bowls are a bit of a thing along the bay, evidently, and this was definitely one of the best — the menu looked good beyond clam chowder as well, but as it was starting to cool down, a big bowl of soup sounded perfect to me.
After dinner, I picked up my luggage and grabbed a Lyft to the airport. With a couple more hours to kill, I wandered the airport for a bit and discovered a yoga room (YAY). The only other airport where I’ve seen a yoga room is O’Hare in Chicago, and San Francisco’s was even better because it’s more out of the way so a little quieter. The room itself was a perfect size, plenty of room without being too big, and was well-stocked with mats, mat cleaner, blocks and even straps, although the one weird detail was the lack of light beyond a soft backlight behind the mirrors… it was perfect for stretching out my tired legs, however, so I spent a bit of time there before heading back to my gate. An hour or so later, it was finally time to board. It’s only about 5 hours from San Francisco to Detroit, so not really enough to get any real sleep, but I did the best I could from first class (thank you Delta~) and then, after landing around 6 am and taking the 30 min ride to my house, I headed straight to bed again for a few more hours of shut eye.
Quick (aren’t they all..) but very full, I enjoyed both my campus visit and solo day wandering the city. Next time I’ll hopefully be able to spend a few more days… my best friend and I are talking about doing a west coast road trip, since we’re both considering a few grad school programs out in California and the pacific northwest. So we’ll see! Soon enough I’m sure I’ll be headed back that way.
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