inspired by lau’s manhattan challenge, B and i have decided that we’ll explore our new home by waking across it. one city at a time.

we started with Berkeley. as it turns out, an urban hike in berkeley isn’t really all that urban at all. we fueled the morning with Semifreddi pastries and coffees at the walk-up coffee bar on University. then there was a mile or so of wandering through berkeley neighborhoods, with much stopping to admire pretty gardens and poke at all the flora foreign to me (man, everything grows in this state: tropical flowers and succulents and wild grasses all elbowing one another for room). then another mile of wandering across campus (how long has it been since i’ve been on a college campus? and when did the undergrads get SO YOUNG?). after that we went up up into the hills, following a trail that went directly away from where we had intended to go (straight up to Tilden Park), but ended up following the curved arm of Strawberry Canyon, bordering between the good cities of Berkeley and Okaland. the top of the ridge yielded one of the rare views: four bridges visible from one vantage point: San Mateo, Bay, Golden Gate and Richmond.

then over the ridge into the south end of Tilden Park, through the park, and back down Centennial Road (not recommended for pedestrians, for future reference). on the way back down the hill we stopped off (mostly to pee, but were waylaid by the climbable DNA structure out front) at the Lawrence Hall of Science.

back out of the hills, with a detour to circumnavigate Cal’s (extremely yellow) football stadium. we watched football practice for a while (isn’t it the wrong season?), and ogled the big cranes building god-knows-what out in front of the stadium.* then back across campus and north on Shadduck, arriving at the Cheeseboard just in time to begin queuing for the afternoon’s pizza run. being 8th in line meant that we were able to actually snag a table, so we forewent the tradition of eating in the grassy median strip over an open-air table. tired feet, sunburned necks, jazz trio in the corner, enormous gourmet pizza**, ginger beer, and for that moment, we felt reasonably good about our new life on the west coast.

*it rankles more than a little, knowing that several very fine theatre designers i work with were recently laid off by UC Berkeley’s theatre department due to budget cuts, and yet there’s money to build a new sports complex.

**you know it’s good when they only make one kind of pizza per day (announced in advance on their website) and people will stand 20 minutes in line anytime the place is open. the only decisions required, when you finally reach the counter, are how many whole or half pizzas you want and if you are getting it to go, or to eat “here” (in the grassy median strip of Shadduck Ave.