California
At ten years, I cried when I heard the song California Girls by the Beach Boys. After five years, my family was moving and I thought just the thought that I wouldn't be a California girl anymore, was devastating to me. I spent all my time playing outside in the warm sunshine. I had spend Sundays driving with my family to Sonoma county and toured vineyards in the wine country. I had driven south to Monterey and fallen in love with the Sea Otters. I had crossed shakey bridges at Point Reyes National Seashore and I had learned to play soccer on countless of my town's playing fields. Basically I had grown up seeing the golden hills of California in my backyard. Just last summer I was able to drive to California and it felt like going home. It was amazing to me, that some people live all their lives without seeing the golden hills of Marin. I can't imagine my life without them.
Trips down highway 101 were also a common occurance while I was there. For an eight year old girl, the rainbow tunnel is definately a good thing.
My poor friends always have to hear me gush about how wonderful California is, especially the Golden Gate Bride
Take this virtual bridge
walk from the Marin side of the bridge across to San
Francisco. You can even check out the view from the top of
the south tower!
As beautiful as the Golden Gate Bridge is, this summer I discovered the other San Francisco bridge~ the Bay Bridge. I had heard of it and even driven across it countless times on trips south of the city, but it didn't have much of an impact on me. Actually that's how the entire East Bay, including Oakland was to me. It just wasn't part of my life. So when I heard about the earthquake that stuck Oakland and saw the repeated film of a car driving off a severed Bay Bridge, I don't think it was as real to me as if it had happened north of the San Francisco. This summer, I lived in Berkeley, and could see the Bay Bridge from my work in Emeryville. I took the BART to a job in Oakland and basically feel in love with that area too. The Bay Bridge may not have the same aesthetic value as the Golden Gate, but it has it's own distinct look.
One of my roommates is a Civil Engineering major and she can appreciate the bridge from a structure perspective. With my love of California and her love of Engineering, you can imagine the how happy we were just watching a special on the building of the Bay Bridge. Currently they are working on designs to make it more seismically sound. When you live in California, earthquakes are just a fact of life.
But personally, I'm willing to chance an earthquake, and enjoy living in California. There is so much variety in the state. My summer in Berkeley was filled with work, relaxing, reading, walking, and exploration. I loved every second of it. One of my favorite places to go was the lawn outside Doe library on the UC Berkeley campus. Charles C. Benton, Professor of Architecture @ University of California at Berkeley has taken some amazing photographs. This one is of Doe library and the lawn that I spent hours reading and sleeping in the sun.
Some of my roommates this summer, took classes at UCal. We were from all over the place, which made for some interesting experiences, but it was fun.
A picture of some of us a few days before moving out
Although there have been a lot of great things coming out of California, one of greatest has got to be the San Francisco 49ers. They Rock!!
Even in the movie, "Something About Mary," Mary was a forty-niners fan. And although I would pick Joe Montana over Steve Young, he's a pretty good second choice.
Ted: "What about Brett Fav... ruh?"
I can't believe that people actually live in Ventura. After seeing this, now I understand how Case, one of roommates, could have been disappointed with Berkeley's weather. As for me, coming from Massachusettes, just escaping the humidity was a thrill. This is what he now gets to surf in every day.
