Report Card for Berkeley, Part One

I took a picture today! I'll upload it here in a second and put it on this post if it came out even halfway decent. :)

So something I've been thinking of doing for a while is telling you some of the things I really like about Berkeley. There are things I don't like, of course, as well. EDIT: I had originally planned to make this post a list of things I like, but then I remembered this hilarious website I used to read called the Brunching Shuttlecocks, and they had this feature called "The Ratings" where they would pick a random topic and rate aspects of it. So that is what I have decided to do for Berkeley.

1) Commuting by bike. A great way to see the town, get some exercise, save gas, avoid traffic and parking problems... the list goes on and on. Berkeley is so bike friendly. I love it. There are bike lanes and bike boulevards everywhere, and so many people commute by bike, which is really cool to see. There's actual bike traffic on the roads; I counted over two dozen cyclists on my way to class this morning before I got to campus and had to start paying more attention to my surroundings instead of counting fellow bikers. But it's a great way to get around. The only thing making me mad about it so far is that motorists are waaay too "helpful", meaning they wave you on when it's their turn to go at four-way stops, which totally throws off your timing and is really annoying. But overall... A

2) The DMV/traffic regulatory practices. I've already made two appointments at the DMV, neither of which exactly worked out. Cool idea to schedule appointments online to reduce wait times, but other than that, the California DMV website is pretty awful. I showed up for my first appointment and it turned out I needed a whole slew of documents I didn't have with me, none of which were mentioned online. Made a second appointment and was ready to go get my California driver's license, then talked to a classmate and found out they charge you $28 to take a written test whether you pass it or not. She didn't pass because the questions were things like "At what age can you leave your child unattended in the car?" (Apparently 12 is the magic number.) Again, NONE of this was on the website, so I hadn't studied for the test and wasn't prepared to pay $28 to have them tell me to come back another day. So I cancelled that appointment and am now studying for the written exam.

Ok, also, motorists here make me angry. As mentioned above, they wave you on allll the time, and you'd think that would be nice, but really it's just irritating. It's like, I'm a pedestrian, you are in a large heavy vehicle. I will time my crossing of the street to create the least possible disruption to traffic patterns, since this makes the most sense for all parties involved. Instead, any time you come anywhere close to the street on foot, there's suddenly a long line of cars extended in either direction, waiting for you to cross the street whether you intended to or not. Traffic regulatory practices: D+

3) But back to the positives: the weather. A no-brainer, I know, but it really is pretty fantastic. Gets nice and toasty but not too hot during the day, then cools down into the upper 50's at night. Perfect for sitting on the back porch with a hot cup of coffee in the morning, and I can't think of many better ways to start the day. I am a little sad we won't be having any thunderstorms or tornadoes or snow or... anything remotely interesting, really. But for now it's still idyllic and peaceful, so I'll give it an A-.

4) The food. This is a corollary to #3, and I addressed it in my last post, so I won't say anything more about it here except to reiterate that fresh produce rocks. A

5) The dairy products. Ok, this should probably be subsumed by #4, but the dairy products really deserve their own grade, and it will be an outstanding one. You know those commercials where they say "Good milk comes from happy cows. Happy cows come from California." or whatever the line is? Well I kind of doubt that the cows here are any happier since they still live on dairy farms and all, but the dairy products here are fantastic. I feel like I've died and gone to France (which is dairy product heaven). I don't know if they raise a different species of cattle here or what, but all of the dairy has a significantly higher percentage of milk fat, and it just melts in your mouth. 2% milk in Illinois has 120 calories per cup, but the 2% milk here has 140, and those are 20 calories' worth of deliciousness. I bought some whole milk yogurt the other day and it's like eating custard. Expensive, hormone-free, locally produced custard. A+

6) The cost of living. There is a grocery story down the street from us that has boxes of granola for sale for $10.99. We live in a smallish two bedroom house with a smallish backyard, and our rent here is $500 more than our rent was in Urbana for a three story house with a huge basement and 4-5 bedrooms. I won't tell you how much we're paying because I don't want to be like "oh woe is me"; I love our little house and we got a great deal on it. You just can't compare prices with Illinois. My classmate has a cute little studio apartment for $900/month. It costs $1.75 every time you take the bus. Gas is firmly fixed above $4/gallon. I'm not making this up. You can't make this stuff up. It's all about supply and demand, I guess, but still... C

7) Air pollution. I know, I was surprised too, but check this out: the five day air quality forecast for the Bay Area. Doesn't that just suck? I thought, oh, Northern California, they're all green-organic-fair trade-vegetable oil powered VW van-driving hippies, right? The air must be fantastic, right? Wrong. Turns out I can't wear my contacts a lot of the time because the grime makes my eyes itchy. Might as well put on my glasses and enjoy those gorgeous sunsets over the Bay. They're breathtaking for a reason: the 2.5 micrometer chunks of particulate matter that fill the air. D+

8) Let's end on a happy note. How about... harmless bums. You know, I've only been to San Francisco a few times, but the bums there seem scary. They scream obscenities and have crazy eyes. But the bums here are of the "smile at you benignly with no teeth" variety. They might ask you for some spare change if you make eye contact with them, but they're totally cool with it if you turn 'em down. I especially liked the harmless bum who was sleeping under a tree by the dog park the other day, and so did Huck. Rather than playing with the other dogs, he decided to just chill by the fence and wag his tail and smile at the crazy old dude, and the crazy old dude just smiled back. B+

Well, I have some other aspects of Berkeley I'd like to relate to you all, but this is longer than I intended and it's getting time for me to head to bed. Yes, it's only 9:45, and yes, that is super lame, but like I said, I get tired really early from all the thinking. (Heh, we'll blame it on that...) I leave you with just a few pictures from the past few weeks.

This first one is me and the dogs chilling in our hotel room in Elko, Nevada.



These are the 8+ UHaul trucks that were parked on the street where we went to go pick up our
bed in Emeryville, a small area just south of here.










This is my cute hubby with our cute puppy.








And this is the view up the bike boulevard that I take to school. See, it doesn't look particularly uphill, but campus is probably about halfway up those hills in the distance, so it's a good little workout.



The End