Notes on Berkeley
Aug. 10th, 2023 01:04 amSo I was out in Berkeley for a week a bit ago and I've been meaning to write about it here. Well, OK, there's a lot I could say, but there are a few particular things.
I guess really the main thing I wanted to say about Berkeley is, holy crap the grade. Goddamn the grade is a killer. I mean, it's not that steep most places, as long as you don't start really going up into the hills -- well, OK, I guess that's a tautology, but a lot of places are not up in the hills is my point. (I asked Drake, "What do you call those mountains to the east?", and he was like, you mean the Berkeley Hills? :P )
(Much of campus is starting to get up into the hills, but fortunately it's not like I'm studying there!)
The thing is that Berkeley is pretty spread out. It's really quite suburban -- huge amounts of it are just houses, and laid out in a grid, no less, so it's pretty uninteresting to walk around. And this sparsity of destinations means that the grade really adds up. The thing is that it's consistent. Lower Manhattan has plenty of steeper slopes, but they rarely go on for so long. But in Berkeley, if you're travelling north or east, you're travelling up. The thing I eventually realized is that if you're going somewhere, it's actually easier to go somewhere that's up, because that means that on the way back you're going down, and you're more tired on the way back than on the way out. Hoo boy.
I mean, BART exists, but that's really more for far travel, yeah it's a subway, but like, it's sort of a subway and sort of commuter rail, right? The stations out there have parking lots. It's not much use for getting around Berkeley -- OK, I used it for that purpose once when I was really tired and was travelling multiple stops (by which I mean two), but mostly, you're going on foot and you're facing the grade.
So, walking around Berkeley ended up being less interesting than anticipated. I did go out to the water once but it was fairly barren -- and of course, the way back was up.
One thing that's interesting walking around Berkeley -- when I told Drake I'd been wandering around, he asked if I'd seen any of the plaques. Plaques, I asked? Yeah, that someone point down. I was like... you mean like the Toynbee tiles?? He hadn't heard of the Toynbee tiles, actually, so I got to tell him about those.
But no, not like the Toynbee tiles. Someone has been placing these plaques all over Berkeley commemorating made-up minor events (some with dates in the future), and Drake and various others out there have made a sport of hunting for them and cataloguing them. I assume there must be a big group of people who are doing this together and have a central list of ones they've found, but Drake, and Eric who he also mentioned but who I didn't see while out there, and I assume various others, are instead focusing on doing it individually, deliberately avoiding learning too much about ones they haven't seen yet.
I did eventually while exploring come across one tile; I sent Drake a picture of it before it ever occurred to me maybe he would prefer I not do that. Fortunately, Drake was able to look at it just enough to determine it was one he hadn't seen before, without actually reading the bulk of the text, and, importantly, without reading the part that said what street it was on, which would make hunting for it substantially less interesting. (He did ask for a general clue as to what region of Berkeley it was in, so I told him that.) He hasn't mentioned it since, so I assume he still hasn't found it.
Anyway there's more I could say but that's the main thing I wanted to!
(Meanwhile here in New York: 10 books to next shelf clear...)
I guess really the main thing I wanted to say about Berkeley is, holy crap the grade. Goddamn the grade is a killer. I mean, it's not that steep most places, as long as you don't start really going up into the hills -- well, OK, I guess that's a tautology, but a lot of places are not up in the hills is my point. (I asked Drake, "What do you call those mountains to the east?", and he was like, you mean the Berkeley Hills? :P )
(Much of campus is starting to get up into the hills, but fortunately it's not like I'm studying there!)
The thing is that Berkeley is pretty spread out. It's really quite suburban -- huge amounts of it are just houses, and laid out in a grid, no less, so it's pretty uninteresting to walk around. And this sparsity of destinations means that the grade really adds up. The thing is that it's consistent. Lower Manhattan has plenty of steeper slopes, but they rarely go on for so long. But in Berkeley, if you're travelling north or east, you're travelling up. The thing I eventually realized is that if you're going somewhere, it's actually easier to go somewhere that's up, because that means that on the way back you're going down, and you're more tired on the way back than on the way out. Hoo boy.
I mean, BART exists, but that's really more for far travel, yeah it's a subway, but like, it's sort of a subway and sort of commuter rail, right? The stations out there have parking lots. It's not much use for getting around Berkeley -- OK, I used it for that purpose once when I was really tired and was travelling multiple stops (by which I mean two), but mostly, you're going on foot and you're facing the grade.
So, walking around Berkeley ended up being less interesting than anticipated. I did go out to the water once but it was fairly barren -- and of course, the way back was up.
One thing that's interesting walking around Berkeley -- when I told Drake I'd been wandering around, he asked if I'd seen any of the plaques. Plaques, I asked? Yeah, that someone point down. I was like... you mean like the Toynbee tiles?? He hadn't heard of the Toynbee tiles, actually, so I got to tell him about those.
But no, not like the Toynbee tiles. Someone has been placing these plaques all over Berkeley commemorating made-up minor events (some with dates in the future), and Drake and various others out there have made a sport of hunting for them and cataloguing them. I assume there must be a big group of people who are doing this together and have a central list of ones they've found, but Drake, and Eric who he also mentioned but who I didn't see while out there, and I assume various others, are instead focusing on doing it individually, deliberately avoiding learning too much about ones they haven't seen yet.
I did eventually while exploring come across one tile; I sent Drake a picture of it before it ever occurred to me maybe he would prefer I not do that. Fortunately, Drake was able to look at it just enough to determine it was one he hadn't seen before, without actually reading the bulk of the text, and, importantly, without reading the part that said what street it was on, which would make hunting for it substantially less interesting. (He did ask for a general clue as to what region of Berkeley it was in, so I told him that.) He hasn't mentioned it since, so I assume he still hasn't found it.
Anyway there's more I could say but that's the main thing I wanted to!
(Meanwhile here in New York: 10 books to next shelf clear...)
