The next few days I had a moderate amount of unpacking to do, but lacking a laptop (I ordered a custom specification MacBook Air to the Berkeley Apple Store, not wanting to spent top dollar for the most expensive model but wanting something with more memory and a faster processor than the models they stock in store), I had a fair amount of free time.
On Thursday I met up with some of my classmates from India who I had spoken with previously online. We had lunch at Subway - which I suppose I had to experience once, but will try not to visit again (not when there are so many independent awesome little restaurants and cafes around campus). Around campus are basically all of the foods I love to eat back home with my friends - including many Asian (Chinese, Japanese and Vietnamese restaurants), several bubble tea cafes that all serve matcha and a Chinese bakery!
Studying here also seems to be primarily done either on the grass on campus (where I am sitting now) or in coffee shops with a laptop out and headphones in. This is very different to my undergraduate experience at Cambridge - although they had recently opened a coffee shop in college when I left. Perhaps this is due to the lack of electric kettles in most American households, students need to get their caffeine fix externally.
In general, the Berkeley campus, although being a well ranked university, in the top five globally and the best public university in the world, appears to lack much of the pretentiousness that Cambridge has. While I enjoyed dressing up in a suit and acting like high society at Fitz, I do admire the casual but super intelligent attitude that students here have. While buildings here aren't nearly as old as at Cambridge, they are remarkably impressive. The campus isn't huge but is quite dense - with notable buildings around every corner. (Most of these buildings seem to house coffee shops too. There are also two very large libraries that are connected by an underground tunnel. I've not found a reason to use these yet though.)
It's busy at the moment but I'm told it will get considerably busier in a couple of weeks as all the undergraduates return. Supposedly to the point where it becomes impossible to ride your bike through certain parts of campus (and this is a rule enforced by the police).
On Friday I hitched a ride with Ryan into San Francisco via Berkeley Bowl. Berkeley lacks many chain supermarkets like Walmart (although there is one about 30 minutes drive away). They do have this wonderful independent supermarket called Berkeley Bowl - which has two branches here. It's more expensive than most chain supermarkets but they stock an amazing variety of what Americans call 'produce' (what we know as fruit and vegetables). This section literally spans a good third of their floor space and could itself be as large as most 'supermarkets'. What's more amazing is how well stocked this is - with fruit piled up to chest height. Ryan informs me that these stock levels are basically maintained all the time - so it wasn't just a case of arriving after the fruit had been delivered.
Arriving to San Francisco, I hopped into a cafe to take our weekly CPCC call where I had some lovely oolong green tea which almost certainly pushed me into a hyperthyroid state (dangerous!). After this, I visited Mission Bikes - a bike shop I've often admired online. It was considerably smaller than I was expecting, but was full of many cool bicycle accessories which were mostly the result of Kickstarter campaigns (such as a Blink / Steady and RevoLights).
Having made plans to go for lunch with my friend Alex from both HABS and Cambridge at his office, I had some time to kill, so stumbled into another coffee shop with a bizarrely heavyset door. This was my first warning and the sarcastically passive aggressive but amusing signs ('You'll find that it is preferable to take your call outside') were another. I ordered a rooibos tea and a wonderful peanut butter cookie and sat down to read my Kindle in near silence. Like with the coffee shop studying culture on campus, it seems like coffee shops in San Francisco are where developers go to work on their Macs. It felt like most libraries and I was very self conscious as I chewed on my cookie and tried to sip my tea as quietly as possible.
Lunch at Asana, where Alex works, was excellent and I enjoyed meeting his zany but fun tech colleagues. I was a little puzzled by the government sticker on the front door that warned of 'cancer causing chemicals' being present in the building but supposedly this is standard in most buildings in the mission. The top floor where their office is located has fantastic views of the city and on one side, it looks as if the Earth is folding up into the building a la Inception. I later realised this was a hill.
After wandering around Best Buy and trying out some of the Andrew Jones designed Pioneer speakers (which are excellent by the way), I took the BART back to Berkeley and napped a little before heading out to a party hosted by the East Bay Burners that Natalie invited us to.
The East Bay Burners is a group of Burning Man enthusiasts who fundraise, build displays and organise a trip to the hippie festival every year. This was one of their final parties before the actual event in a couple of weeks and we got to hang out in 'NIMBY', a warehouse space where they build the exhibits they take with them. The dress code was 'dress to impress' which I suspected would be the only chance I will get to dress formally in the next few months. Wearing a suede jacket, shirt and tie, I was put to shame by a trio of Natalie's friend's friends who were wearing full formal wear (including a three piece suit) lined with luminescent wire. We met some truly wacky characters there including one guy was wearing a black bin bag and was just completely crazy - words cannot describe him.
On Saturday I met up with TDA Sam, who is finishing off his undergraduate degree at Berkeley ahead of law school, which was great. That afternoon I met up with Alex to ride across the Golden Gate Bridge - which was manageable but hard work on my fixie (the Ti bike is still in pieces). In the evening, I went to meet a subset of my MEng class at a cool pool bar called 'Thalassa' in Downtown Berkeley. It was amusing to see some of the international students struggle with their beer.
I spent Sunday doing some final preparation ahead of the start of MEng bootcamp on Monday and visiting Alex's garden party in San Francisco. It's amusing how easy it is to find developers who work for well known technology companies - I met engineers at Twitter and Facebook there, and nearly everyone else worked in technology. That evening I went out with Ryan and his girlfriend, to a pizza restaurant called Jupiter. I was sceptical, having spent two weeks in Italy so recently but it was tasty, tasty pizza.
With that, my brief period of unemployment came to an end.
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The minivan I'd rented was a fully automatic Dodge Caravan, which, even with all of my 'stuff' in it, still had space for five adults to sit comfortably. It was huge. Equipped with handwritten directions from the Hertz check-in lady, who was either called 'Trainee' or was new to the job, and my phone running OsmAnd+, I rolled out into San Francisco amidst their Tuesday evening rush hour.
This wasn't too bad, thankfully and I crossed Bay Bridge relatively quickly, with only the occasional nervous moment as I used the dominating size of the Dodge to effortlessly change lanes. As I neared Berkeley, I saw IKEA and, with some vague notion of efficiency in my mind, took the ramp off the highway and spent a third of an hour trying to find the entrance. Eventually I made it to the parking lot and was about to go in but realised I should probably check the dimensions of my room before buying furniture. With that in mind, I navigated towards Panoramic Way.
Thankfully it was just a short drive (a drive I'd do several more times) and I quickly found Panoramic Way, my home for the next 10 months. Despite 'walking' down the street using StreetView and reading the surprisingly extensive Wikipedia page about Panoramic Way, I was still shocked by how narrow and windy it was. It was nothing like any other street I've ever driven down in North America. This turned out to be a pain to navigate, particularly with my large minivan. After finding a steep but wide part of the street to turn around in, I eventually located our flat at 7:30pm.
There had been some confusion in the email exchange between Ryan, the current leaseholder and primary 'flatmate', and I. I had thought he was leaving a spare key for me at the flat and he thought I was collecting it from his office in San Francisco. After discovering that the flat was empty, I called him up and, working hard at his new job, he wouldn't be back to Berkeley until past 9pm. I thus decided to go back to IKEA.
This time, after parking, I actually went into the store and proceeded to buy a full-size (or double) bed (having arranged a desk and chair on Craigslist). This was a complete headache, particularly in my tired state of mind, and I eventually settled on a combination that was one above the cheapest but looked relatively easy to assemble and came with a reasonably firm mattress. To my dismay, the bed itself was preassembled and was far too large to fit into even this minivan. Not wanting to trek back through the store, I used the help computers to try and figure out what alternatives I had and eventually settled on a double bed with slats that required more assembly but would fit inside the car. This was a good workout for my lacking upper body - the mattress alone weighed more than 25 kilograms.
On my way back I stopped off at one of the Craiglist vendor's house to pick up an IKEA desk which he was selling for $70. I can't work out if this was a good deal or not since they no longer sell this desk but it seems to do the job, if being a little wobbly (as IKEA desks eventually become). In my sleep deprived state, I managed to park in a red zone, where the curb is painted red and where it is illegal to park. This would probably have been OK if two fire engines hadn't then tried to navigate the corner and I was politely warned by one of them that I was parked in a red zone. I quickly moved the Dodge.
Returning to Panoramic Way at 10pm, Ryan had been held up at work and was still on his way back so I decided to start unloading my car. This was exhausting - particularly because our flat is at the top of an extended flight of stairs. I managed this eventually though and when Ryan arrived a short while later, he helped me take everything into the flat.
I was pleasantly surprised with the size of the flat. Expecting something smaller and more akin to the narrow English flats, it was a small relief to see wider staircases and a corridor wide enough to fit a couch. The kitchen and living room are also more than adequate and my room, although small, has enough space for me, my computer, dhol, clothes and a bike. (And a bed and desk of course.)
The furniture mostly worked out OK - although the bed was about 2 inches too large to slot nicely into the narrower portion of the room, so I had to put it against one of the two longer walls. Building the bed was a pain and I felt guilty at the amount of noise (and subsequent cursing) I produced in the process. I also managed to strip the screwdriver that Ryan had kindly lent me, which made it increasingly tough to screw everything in tightly enough (and I have a nice blister on my palm as a result). Eventually it would go no further and I left a couple of diagonal slats out, put my mattress down and nodded off to sleep after a 27 hour waking day.
Continued.
This wasn't too bad, thankfully and I crossed Bay Bridge relatively quickly, with only the occasional nervous moment as I used the dominating size of the Dodge to effortlessly change lanes. As I neared Berkeley, I saw IKEA and, with some vague notion of efficiency in my mind, took the ramp off the highway and spent a third of an hour trying to find the entrance. Eventually I made it to the parking lot and was about to go in but realised I should probably check the dimensions of my room before buying furniture. With that in mind, I navigated towards Panoramic Way.
Thankfully it was just a short drive (a drive I'd do several more times) and I quickly found Panoramic Way, my home for the next 10 months. Despite 'walking' down the street using StreetView and reading the surprisingly extensive Wikipedia page about Panoramic Way, I was still shocked by how narrow and windy it was. It was nothing like any other street I've ever driven down in North America. This turned out to be a pain to navigate, particularly with my large minivan. After finding a steep but wide part of the street to turn around in, I eventually located our flat at 7:30pm.
There had been some confusion in the email exchange between Ryan, the current leaseholder and primary 'flatmate', and I. I had thought he was leaving a spare key for me at the flat and he thought I was collecting it from his office in San Francisco. After discovering that the flat was empty, I called him up and, working hard at his new job, he wouldn't be back to Berkeley until past 9pm. I thus decided to go back to IKEA.
This time, after parking, I actually went into the store and proceeded to buy a full-size (or double) bed (having arranged a desk and chair on Craigslist). This was a complete headache, particularly in my tired state of mind, and I eventually settled on a combination that was one above the cheapest but looked relatively easy to assemble and came with a reasonably firm mattress. To my dismay, the bed itself was preassembled and was far too large to fit into even this minivan. Not wanting to trek back through the store, I used the help computers to try and figure out what alternatives I had and eventually settled on a double bed with slats that required more assembly but would fit inside the car. This was a good workout for my lacking upper body - the mattress alone weighed more than 25 kilograms.
On my way back I stopped off at one of the Craiglist vendor's house to pick up an IKEA desk which he was selling for $70. I can't work out if this was a good deal or not since they no longer sell this desk but it seems to do the job, if being a little wobbly (as IKEA desks eventually become). In my sleep deprived state, I managed to park in a red zone, where the curb is painted red and where it is illegal to park. This would probably have been OK if two fire engines hadn't then tried to navigate the corner and I was politely warned by one of them that I was parked in a red zone. I quickly moved the Dodge.
Returning to Panoramic Way at 10pm, Ryan had been held up at work and was still on his way back so I decided to start unloading my car. This was exhausting - particularly because our flat is at the top of an extended flight of stairs. I managed this eventually though and when Ryan arrived a short while later, he helped me take everything into the flat.
I was pleasantly surprised with the size of the flat. Expecting something smaller and more akin to the narrow English flats, it was a small relief to see wider staircases and a corridor wide enough to fit a couch. The kitchen and living room are also more than adequate and my room, although small, has enough space for me, my computer, dhol, clothes and a bike. (And a bed and desk of course.)
The furniture mostly worked out OK - although the bed was about 2 inches too large to slot nicely into the narrower portion of the room, so I had to put it against one of the two longer walls. Building the bed was a pain and I felt guilty at the amount of noise (and subsequent cursing) I produced in the process. I also managed to strip the screwdriver that Ryan had kindly lent me, which made it increasingly tough to screw everything in tightly enough (and I have a nice blister on my palm as a result). Eventually it would go no further and I left a couple of diagonal slats out, put my mattress down and nodded off to sleep after a 27 hour waking day.
Continued.
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It's been almost exactly two weeks since I landed at San Francisco International airport and I feel an update is long overdue! The main excuse for not getting this up sooner is that I've only just received my laptop and the thought alone of writing all of this up on my mobile (or mobul/cell) phone was enough to dissuade me from doing so. (Despite ordering the laptop over two weeks ago, it was held up by my credit card getting blocked, but more about that later.)
My departure from London was uneventful, albeit a little hurried - but when is it not? Luckily I'd had several months to prepare for my departure but there were still many things that I struggled or failed to finish in time. As Monday evening drew close, I'd had several days without much sleep (and with plentiful alcohol consumption) so my pace of 'getting things done' was slower than normal. One of the tasks I failed to complete was building the USS Enterprise, possibly one of the most thoughtful gifts I've been given in my life, so I feel especially guilty. That's a goal to complete as soon as I land back in England next year.
Packing all of my possessions down was surprisingly manageable. As I've previously mentioned, the last few months have been an endless process of selling or otherwise disposing of extraneous possessions. Packing was aided by the fact the conniving woman at the music shop in Ilford sold me a dhol case that was clearly too big (despite her assurances to the otherwise). This worked to my advantage - I was able to pack all 27 of my colourful t-shirts and socks around the perimeter of the my dhol and still had space for all my trousers and underwear! There was a small amount of rebalancing required when packing all the textbooks in one bag resulted in it weighing near to 30 kilograms. I took one of these in my hand luggage (which later resulted in a Heathrow security worker exclaiming their surprise at the thickness of the book I was carrying onto the flight) and moved the rest to another bag.
In total I had 5 items of checked luggage, including 2 bicycles (my fixie and the Ti bike), my dhol and two bags which were primarily full of alcohol, food and clothes. These weren't such a problem at Heathrow since I had my dear cousin to help me wheel the trolleys to the checkin desk and the Virgin Atlantic staff were very helpful (even more so when an Indian check-in worker recognised it as a dhol).
The flight itself was uneventful. I had somehow managed to get the last possible seat on the plane - 66G. I don't know how this happened. It seemed like a curse to start with, but wasn't actually so bad since I was sitting near an open space near the rearmost emergency exit which let me get up and stretch frequently without a problem. The only caveat was that it was major waiting area for fellow passengers queueing for the toilets and, when trying to nap, they'd periodically open the blinds to look out and not shut them. Inconsiderate fellow humans.
My neighbour for the flight was a young girl (perhaps around 10 years old) who was travelling with her mother and her younger still sister. She was a relatively pleasant neighbour although, despite her miniature stature, she did have a surprising tendancy to stick her elbows out on the arm rests. Give her short height, this put her elbows at roughly the level of my ribs which tickled initially and then hurt later. Trying to play the mature adult, I didn't let this bother me and this patience paid off when she let me have her uneaten sandwich at tea time (I'm in student-poverty now, so it's acceptable to take food from children).
On the approach into San Francisco I had a lovely conversation with a tall Virgin Atlantic air hostess who was dressed in a rather fetching red suit and strapped into the jump seat filling the space adjacent to the emergency exit. It seems that, like anything, their trips abroad become less exotic the more times they travel, and their primary ambition for their free time in other countries now is to find a cheap wine bar to spend a day in.
The real adventure started when reclaiming all of my luggage. Luckily they have porters at the airport who helped me take my luggage onto the airport 'AirTrain'. (This included a luggage screening where the sceptical customs agent queried the sheer amount of luggage I have. Another customs agent was very excited by the fact I was starting at Cal and another, Indian, agent showed muted respect for the fact I was carrying a dhol.) Sadly, the porter was unable to come further and I had to push my two carts (or trolleys) along in this amusing shuffle. This would have worked a lot better if my fixie, in a soft bike bag, was able to stack nicely, and if my dhol case didn't keep slipping off the same trolley. There was a moment of panic when the fixie fell off as I was getting off the train and I had to block the doors briefly while I tried to move everything off the train. After a brief wait, I had to do the same again when picking up my rental car in parking space 199 in a huge parking garage. A suited American man with a look of mild irritation made the wrong decision and decided to share the lift with me. As I faffed about trying to get my trolleys into a now full lift, he asked me if I could have more 'stuff'. I told him that I didn't, really. Having abandoned a trolley in my attempt to fit in the lift, I then had to shuffle back and forth with one trolley, a bagged bike and the dhol case (which, thankfully, has wheels).
Eventually I made it to the car, feeling extremely exhausted, and promptly devoured some of the strongly smelling Indian flatbread my mother had packed. My eyes were bloodshot and I was really thirsty - but it didn't matter, the hardest part was (hopefully) over. My possessions were in a safe place and I had a nice comfy seat to sit in.
Continued.
My departure from London was uneventful, albeit a little hurried - but when is it not? Luckily I'd had several months to prepare for my departure but there were still many things that I struggled or failed to finish in time. As Monday evening drew close, I'd had several days without much sleep (and with plentiful alcohol consumption) so my pace of 'getting things done' was slower than normal. One of the tasks I failed to complete was building the USS Enterprise, possibly one of the most thoughtful gifts I've been given in my life, so I feel especially guilty. That's a goal to complete as soon as I land back in England next year.
Packing all of my possessions down was surprisingly manageable. As I've previously mentioned, the last few months have been an endless process of selling or otherwise disposing of extraneous possessions. Packing was aided by the fact the conniving woman at the music shop in Ilford sold me a dhol case that was clearly too big (despite her assurances to the otherwise). This worked to my advantage - I was able to pack all 27 of my colourful t-shirts and socks around the perimeter of the my dhol and still had space for all my trousers and underwear! There was a small amount of rebalancing required when packing all the textbooks in one bag resulted in it weighing near to 30 kilograms. I took one of these in my hand luggage (which later resulted in a Heathrow security worker exclaiming their surprise at the thickness of the book I was carrying onto the flight) and moved the rest to another bag.
In total I had 5 items of checked luggage, including 2 bicycles (my fixie and the Ti bike), my dhol and two bags which were primarily full of alcohol, food and clothes. These weren't such a problem at Heathrow since I had my dear cousin to help me wheel the trolleys to the checkin desk and the Virgin Atlantic staff were very helpful (even more so when an Indian check-in worker recognised it as a dhol).
The flight itself was uneventful. I had somehow managed to get the last possible seat on the plane - 66G. I don't know how this happened. It seemed like a curse to start with, but wasn't actually so bad since I was sitting near an open space near the rearmost emergency exit which let me get up and stretch frequently without a problem. The only caveat was that it was major waiting area for fellow passengers queueing for the toilets and, when trying to nap, they'd periodically open the blinds to look out and not shut them. Inconsiderate fellow humans.
My neighbour for the flight was a young girl (perhaps around 10 years old) who was travelling with her mother and her younger still sister. She was a relatively pleasant neighbour although, despite her miniature stature, she did have a surprising tendancy to stick her elbows out on the arm rests. Give her short height, this put her elbows at roughly the level of my ribs which tickled initially and then hurt later. Trying to play the mature adult, I didn't let this bother me and this patience paid off when she let me have her uneaten sandwich at tea time (I'm in student-poverty now, so it's acceptable to take food from children).
On the approach into San Francisco I had a lovely conversation with a tall Virgin Atlantic air hostess who was dressed in a rather fetching red suit and strapped into the jump seat filling the space adjacent to the emergency exit. It seems that, like anything, their trips abroad become less exotic the more times they travel, and their primary ambition for their free time in other countries now is to find a cheap wine bar to spend a day in.
The real adventure started when reclaiming all of my luggage. Luckily they have porters at the airport who helped me take my luggage onto the airport 'AirTrain'. (This included a luggage screening where the sceptical customs agent queried the sheer amount of luggage I have. Another customs agent was very excited by the fact I was starting at Cal and another, Indian, agent showed muted respect for the fact I was carrying a dhol.) Sadly, the porter was unable to come further and I had to push my two carts (or trolleys) along in this amusing shuffle. This would have worked a lot better if my fixie, in a soft bike bag, was able to stack nicely, and if my dhol case didn't keep slipping off the same trolley. There was a moment of panic when the fixie fell off as I was getting off the train and I had to block the doors briefly while I tried to move everything off the train. After a brief wait, I had to do the same again when picking up my rental car in parking space 199 in a huge parking garage. A suited American man with a look of mild irritation made the wrong decision and decided to share the lift with me. As I faffed about trying to get my trolleys into a now full lift, he asked me if I could have more 'stuff'. I told him that I didn't, really. Having abandoned a trolley in my attempt to fit in the lift, I then had to shuffle back and forth with one trolley, a bagged bike and the dhol case (which, thankfully, has wheels).
Eventually I made it to the car, feeling extremely exhausted, and promptly devoured some of the strongly smelling Indian flatbread my mother had packed. My eyes were bloodshot and I was really thirsty - but it didn't matter, the hardest part was (hopefully) over. My possessions were in a safe place and I had a nice comfy seat to sit in.
Continued.
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