I also took something like a ream of paper with me because I do not have a smart phone. When asked why I don't have a smart phone, I tell people that it was a choice between that and health insurance for my daughter.
Anyway, I planned my trip down to mapping out where my bus stops would be and printing train schedules, and then I packed and re-packed, said goodbye to husband and child, and boarded a Southwest plane to Oakland International Airport. This is essentially the first thing I saw:
Major highways, lots of cars, city skyline. Sounds like Dallas, but then... oooh... mountains in the background! The picture doesn't do it justice. They were lovely. Also, it was very green. And 60 degrees, in December.
I took the local railway (the BART) to my interview in the morning, because I was accomplishing this trip on a shoe-string budget and that budget meant if public transit was available, I would take it come hell or high water. The train to my interview cost $2.50. A taxi would have been $25, one way.
By the way, I took a picture of the train station, because it was elevated off the ground, providing a cool view. But I also was picturing blundering, drunk Texans trying to make their way home using this system, and I could completely see them falling off the edge of this thing, which is literally an edge and an electrified rail with no safety net beneath it. I understand many people die on these rail things every year.
The shady parts of Oakland, by the way, are as shady as people say. It's the West Bay to the East Bay that is San Francisco, and the economic/racial/social divide is dramatic. Sad, actually. There are, however, some really cool parts to the city, and the downtown areas have been completely re-done and I had a wonderful time interviewing at the bustling, lively program there.
Large chunks of city that look like this:
But, the place I interviewed at looked like this:
And I was very pleased with my day there.
Of course I had to visit San Francisco while I was there, if only for an afternoon. I had a flight out of Oakland the day after my interview, so as soon as my day at the hospital was done, I changed clothes (I squeezed a change of clothing into my interview purse and hid boots under my suit pants, which I wore with my jeans) and hopped on a train to San Francisco!
The train went underground to cross the bay, so my first real glimpse of the city was ascending the staircase. It felt a bit like going up the stairs to heaven or something...
OMG! I literally was gawking at the architecture for awhile. This was the biggest, busiest city that I had seen up until this point.
... then quickly found my way into a $1.50 Asian stuff store...
Hopped on a series of buses to Japantown...
Found Sanrio heaven.
Ate a lot of amazing sushi in Japantown and was exceedingly happy... (this was a revolving sushi boat place)
And then I wandered around downtown to my train station that would take me out of the city and took pictures of everything with christmas lights and lots of tourists.
Very fancy Forever 21. I wanted to go in but I stayed strong.
Finally, I made it to the BART to go home.
And the last thing I did for the day was take a picture of the map that guided me through the streets of San Fran without a smart phone :). The other side is covered in scrawls as well.
I flew out of Oakland the next day, headed for St Louis. Overall impression of the Bay Area?
SO MUCH FUN :). It was multi-cultural, had so much happening at one, a plethora of things to see and do, lots of living options from urban to much less so, beautiful scenery, beaches and mountains and hiking and parks all crammed in together. I can't wait to go back for a longer time, if only to visit!
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