…back to where I started!
I left Minneapolis, MN, last Sunday for California. Joel (another SPASH and Madison graduate) picked me up from the airport very late on Sunday night and brought me back to the apartment that he shares with Tami in Berkeley, only 3 blocks from the campus. On Monday I wandered around the campus, basking in the sun and admiring all of the different kinds of trees, while Joel was at work. By the time I had walked from one corner of campus to the Law School in the other corner, I was convinced that this was where I wanted to go to law school. The building isn’t nearly as new and exciting as the UW-Madison law school, but what it lacks indoors, it makes up for outdoors. Considering that I hope to pursue Environmental Law, it’s the outdoors that seems to matter the most anyway, and the Berkeley campus promises to provide plenty of support and inspiration for environmental pursuits.
I met Chloe in Berkeley later that day and we continued to explore the area and then took the BART (Bay Area’s subway) to Oakland to meet Tyler. They live in Oakland, which is in the Top 10 most dangerous cities in the United States, but during the day you’d never know it- we walked the 25 minutes from the BART station to their apartment in the beautiful sun, winding around a very clear lake full of a huge variety of birds, past a grocery store and a tennis court that was teeming with people, and finally to their neighborhood that had cute, quaint houses lining the streets that were straight out of a movie set in Northern California. Again, different varieties of trees and flowers everywhere you looked and not a cloud in the sky.
After seeing Into the Wild at a local speakeasy movie theater (where they serve alcohol and food on love seats rather than chairs), we returned to Tyler and Chloe’s apartment to make a delicious Thanksgiving dinner, only a few days too late, and sample a variety of California red wines that Chloe wanted to try. Based on the wine book that Chloe brought from work, common words to describe wine can be “urine” and “beer towel” and the word for the amount that the wine sticks to your mouth after you swallow is described as “tannin”.
On Tuesday we went to Golden Gate Park which, we soon learned, does not meet up with the Golden Gate Bridge anywhere. Nevertheless, the day was beautiful (as always) and so we had a picnic in the park and wandered around a giant (55 acres) botanical garden. Chloe had to get to work so we headed back to Oakland fairly early (because it takes at least an hour to get anywhere, realistically) and then Tyler and I met Joel in Berkeley for dinner. We ate at a Brazilian restaurant, after passing up plenty of other ethnic restaurants that looked awesome, and had wonderful dinner, then went to a local brewery to watch the (disappointing) Wisconsin basketball game. With the huge variety of restaurants that are just as expensive (or inexpensive) as Madison, wine that is cheaper than I’ve ever seen (and still delicious), and constant sunshine, it really is a very enjoyable place.
After returning to Oakland, however, I found out that my grandfather had kind of unexpectedly passed away earlier that day and the funeral was on Saturday in Stevens Point. After quite a bit of thought, I decided to make a detour back to Wisconsin for the funeral so I could slow down for a moment and be with my family for a little while, rather than rushing off to the rest of my trip and probably feeling a little weighed down by everything.
On Thursday night Tami found a townie bar (by San Francisco standards) that was showing the Packer game so we went there for her birthday. It was quite the sight, really, because people were not dressed as “hip” Californians and there were quite a few dogs in the bar, also. I was finally able to try a number of California beers and was consoled by the fact that, for the most part, it looks like they aren’t lacking delicious beer, something I wasn’t sure I would find out of Wisconsin. It was weird seeing Miller Lite on tap, though…
Joel and I returned to the airport early Friday morning (4:30am!) so I could catch my flight back to Stevens Point. After a full day of traveling, I finally arrived in the little Central Wisconsin airport (one gate and one gift shop- quite the difference from San Francisco or Minneapolis). The funeral was today and, as soon as it finished, the blizzard began. At 11am this morning, 9 hours before my flight from Chicago to San Francisco was even scheduled to leave, my flight from Central Wisconsin to Chicago, and then Chicago to San Francisco, were both cancelled. Definitely not in California anymore…
Hopefully things will clear up by tomorrow, as I have to get back to San Francisco and collect my bags before my flight leaves for Tokyo on Tuesday!
-Luthien
Posted by luthienlee 
