The Chapter In My Life Entitled San Francisco

This Sunday was a beautifully sunny and warm day. I'm still not used to such nice weather in the dead of winter. I'd originally thought that San Francisco's lack of seasons and overall constant temperatures would grow tiring; but right now its hard to imagine how I've put up with Midwestern winters for 20-odd years before now.

I took the weather as an opportunity to walk around the city and take pictures. Something I've been meaning to do for a while now. I'd taken a few pictures here and there during the semester, but nothing too substantial.

So here's a small tour of the city in pictures.

The UCSF MUNI Stop.

AT&T Park.

Happy Donuts! I have always been amused by the name of this shop.

Boats at the dock off of The Embarcadero.

The Bay Bridge and Treasure Island/The East Bay.

A perched seagull.

A street performer outside of the ferry terminal.

A street car. The Illinois Terminal, I might add.

Street signs in the Financial District. I like the black and white and red-ness of this picture--It came out much better than I expected.

A view of the city from the UCSF Parnassus library. That's right. I look out at this as I study.

The aptly-named Hillway Street in the Sunset. I've mentioned this hill before.

The Castro District.

Monk's Kettle, a beer bar/restaurant in The Mission.

More pictures at my Flickr account.

Note: For some reason, the pictures in the post look a bit pixelated, and I can't figure out why. Click on the images for larger and better quality versions, or just go to my Flickr album.

My headphones. They saved my life.

I've riden public transportation quite a bit since coming to the Bay Area. Commuting back and forth between San Francisco and Berkeley at least 3 times a week, I've spent my fair share of time on the BART, MUNI, and various buses. These many hours sitting on trains has given me an appreciation for people who commute to work everyday. It's also assured that in the future, I will do everything in my power to live close to where I work.

I started to wonder what public transportation was like before iPods and all of today's portible electronics. Riding buses is an experience in of itself. You're smooshed into a small space with people you don't know, and would probably never spend time with outside of the bus-situation. It's awkward, amusing, interesting, and sometimes disconcerting--all at the same time.

But with half the bus listening to their iPods, you avoid a lot of these interactions. Wearing headphones is a generally well understood "Leave me be" signal. Most people won't try to spark up a long conversation with someone listening to their iPod. For example, I'm deaf in one ear. I don't actually need both earphones when listening to music. But if I'm feeling particularly anti-social on an airplane or bus, I have to put both in--just to fully register the "don't talk to me" message. It's quite effective. (It also avoids confusion when people expect me to hear them if I'm wearing just one earphone.)

Before iPods, and their ability to isolate you from your fellow passengers, did people talk to eachother more on buses? Am I missing out on potentially interesting conversations?

Perhaps. But I'm probably avoiding a lot of uncomfortable situations, too. Coming home from Berkeley on Halloween night, I saw a lot of unique characters on the BART. One of which was a girl, probably about 14 years old, "rapping" about very lewd, sexual things. I heard her through my music and, naturally, looked up to see what was going on. She noticed, asked me if I liked her song, and started singing louder. It was awkward.

But I just turned my iPod volume up and continued my reading. I suppose its nice to have the option of blocking out the rest of world. Particularly on public transportation.

...And You in Your Autumn Sweater

I've been watching the local news each morning. Mostly as background noise while I'm eating breakfast and getting ready.

Local news shows are generally about the same everywhere. But, the weather reporting here is rather amusing. I can't imagine it's too exciting to report weather in a place like San Francisco, where the average temperature ranges about 20 degrees for the entire year. As someone who's used to seasons, I'm very amused by the weathermen's attempts to spice up the relatively unchanging forcasts.

This week, the temperature dropped by about 5 degrees for a few days. It also sprinkled a little bit today. For the past week, I ate my breakfast to great discussion about how "fall-like" the weather was becoming.

What? Fall? But, all the trees are green. There's no distinct Fall smell. It just got a little less warm and rained. I didn't know these things signified an entire "season change". This season-less climate's weathermen claim to have seasons just to give themselves something to talk about? Silly.

Fall, Schmall.

Just Like California

I've been in California for about a month now. This marks the longest period of time I've spent west of the Mississippi river. Having lived most of my life in the midwest, with short experiences in the south and east coast, California is a whole new affair.

I've been slowly collecting observations about the differences in culture and universities.

UC Berkeley, a large public school, is obviously very different from Case, a small private university. I'm still not used to the "small fish in a big pond" aspect just yet. But beyond the obvious, Berkeley has an entirely different feel. Students here (mostly the undergrads) are remarkably. . . hip. I'm not accustomed to half the people around me looking as if they belong in an American Apparel ad, or should be at an indie concert. There's nothing wrong with that style, of course. I'm just not used to it at such high concentrations. I kind of miss the general awkwardness of kids at Case.

More tangibly, I'm still adjusting to the hills here. I clearly took the flatness of Case's campus (and the Midwest in general) for granted. I'm starting to think that people's more leisurely walking pace is less related to the laid-back west coast attitude, and more a result of the "if I walk quickly up this hill, I will be sweaty when I get to my destination" issue.

I walked up a one block long hill at the UC San Francisco campus before I was told there was an elevator in one of the buildings that would take you up. Going up that one block of the hill: 8 floors in the elevator. How do people do this on a regular basis?