Visit to the Bay Area

When I set up my six month projects about six months ago, the family category went to visits with each of my children who have moved onto their own adulthoods.  We made it to St. Louis to see my son this summer but delayed visiting my daughter in Oakland until just before year's end.  We made it.  While the purpose was family visit, each geographic subset of America has its own uniqueness.  Rather than immerse ourselves with other tourists as we have done with prior San Francisco journeys, we included ourselves among the people for the most part on this trip.

San Francisco-Oakland-Berkeley while contiguous each have their own character.  There was something a little foreign to us mid-Atlantic types, not a trip to the zoo but more one of exposure to a different country.  I still noted same sex couples engaged in some type of courtship or public affection, though much more mainstream than my first time there forty years back.  LGBT exists at home but in a smaller subset of the public and less visibly apparent.  The people seemed much younger.  When I go to shul at home, I am among the youngest there even though I have a genuine Medicare card.  On the BART train in San Francisco I am typically the oldest.  This may label living in the Bay Area as a young person's sport, and maybe it is.  Those uphill walks took their toll on my legs and my lungs.  People my age may still be around, having graduated from public transit to personal vehicles, despite a gasoline price more than I dollar a gallon above what I pay.  Or, worst case, the absence of my contemporaries on the BART may reflect negatively on local longevity.

I always like visiting Universities.  UCalBerkely has acquired international renown.  Even in winter intercession, there were still people around, perhaps disproportionately Asians who are common at major American colleges but might have been  majority here.  Buildings were large, as would be expected for a campus that may be double or more the size of my own large alma mater, and far more spread out than I am used to.  It may not be possible to schedule a chemistry class in sequence with a political science class if getting from one location to the next is prohibitive.  Or perhaps they have a shuttle system during the school year that enables that.  We toured their Botanical Gardens, properly labelled, most enjoyable even in winter.

A lot of travel to nearby places took place by Lyft which has a pretty efficient system, though the price of short trips adds up.  Some of the most interesting people were the Lyft drivers which included a retired Hawaiian engineer whose daughter is a pediatrician at Stanford and a fellow from East Africa who was an airline pilot there but now in training to be an American pilot.  No better short cruise than the local ferry from Oakland to Embarcadero.  Saw an old friend's pottery exhibit.  Ate vegan at a farmer's market far larger than anything we have at home.  Not a lot of big chain restaurants.  Not a lot of holiday decorations.

We went to shul on Friday night, New Age experience with songs and conga drums focused on creating mood.  My daughter observed that I was the only straight man in attendance.  I prefer to be the one telling jokes.

Now settled back into the familiar.  Food from megamarts.  Car to get me where I want to be when I want to go there.  Keurig maker with ample assorted pods.  And I am again the one who tells the jokes.