Bay Area Bonanza

Photos by H. Darr Beiser

Golden Gate Bridge

Our first stop in Berkeley on Saturday was fraternity row, the Sigma Phi house where we picked up our son. He is neither a student at Berkeley nor a member of a fraternity and yet he had rented a room reasonably for the summer there. This is not just any frat house, it is actually the Sigma Phi Society in the historic Thorsen House, a 16-room mansion built in 1909.  Now it seems he will stay on at the invitation of the President, he has been grandfathered or millenialled in, because what fraternity can’t use another amusing boy. He will serve as the resident artist and humorist. 

The Bay Bridge

He marched us across the campus of the University of California Berkeley to the most popular pizza place in Berkeley called The Cheese Board Collective, there was a jazz band and blues singer performing live. Well, of course there was. The pizza has a different vegetarian topping every day of the week  (corn on Saturday). People stand in long lines for it, and there is a delicious “papi chulos salsa” that enhances every bite.

Berkeley Rose Garden

After pizza we went to zen out at Cafenated, a super minimalist café with bright shining coffee accessories and a greenhouse in the patio. Continuing our walking tour of Berkeley we climbed the hill (it is hilly, hilly, hilly) to the Berkeley Rose Garden which is a fragrant city park with tennis courts. That night we ate sushi at Kirala, surviving a one hour wait by constantly checking for a text from the host, and standing outside where the weather is fine, fine fine.

Hotel Shattuck Plaza

We stayed at the Hotel Shattuck Plaza which, despite the peace sign in the lobby, did not offer us peace upon arrival. The "deluxe king room" was very small and  un-deluxe and we asked to be moved. The hotel has a central location near BART and the Berkeley campus, and was nice after the move, but good luck with construction noise and parking.

Mural outside City Lights Bookstore

Sunday--We hit the city pretty hard, took BART to the Embarcadero, straight to the Ferry Building Marketplace where one of Frank’s housemates was working at and sharing Cheesequake, followed by Blue Bottle Coffee. I was bitterly disappointed that the tours of Alcatraz were all booked.  I have a morbid fascination with prisons. We did a mega-walk from there—up steep hills, down steep hills over to North Beach to the oh-so-famous City Lights Bookstore and then to Chinatown for lunch at Brandy Ho's (the apostrophe is a chili pepper). We strolled into a number of fish markets that amazed us with their rawness and realness. Buckets of frogs and turtles, eels on display. After that we were ready for surreality of the Palace of Fine Arts, just as beautiful and peaceful as can be.

Back to Berkeley to take one of Franky’s friends out to dinner at the Taste of the Himalayas. Delicious.  She has an undergraduate degree from Berkeley, is working full time in a lab studying telomeres, plans to get an M.D., Ph.D., and if she hasn’t cured cancer in the next 10 years I will be very surprised.

I did a morning run around campus. It gave me a passionate desire to go to Berkeley. I was thinking I could sit in on a class in the Chemistry Building, and I don’t even like chemistry. I was also hoping to audit a class taught by any of the five Nobel Laureates who teach there and have their own reserved parking spaces. 

Sauaalito

On Monday we drove across the Golden Gate Bridge to Marin, first stop the charming and darling Sausalito where I was allowed some brief shopping, earrings at Something Anything Jewelry Gallery, and Firuze which was selling the shirts that Jane Fonda wore in Jane Fonda in Five Acts. We went to the Marin Headlands for a view but the fog was having none of it that day. We targeted  Muir Woods, which, be forewarned, now requires a reservation for parking and causes great heartache to those who arrive unaware. It is awfully awesome, in the original sense.  We ate dinner at Angeline's Louisiana Kitchen back in Berkeley. 

Muir Woods

Tuesday morning I went to an intensely Berkeley-experience, a Yoga to thePeople class. It is free, or it is $10, or you can give more so that others who can’t afford yoga can take yoga. The instructor exuded peace and had a constant smile on his face.

Fog

That night we had the pleasure of going to Oracle Park, indubitably the most beautiful baseball stadium in the world, right on the bay. Our cousins took the ferry from Alameda which pulls right up to the Marina Gate. The spectacular views of the bay, the stadium size and feel, the sale of Gilroy Garlic Fries, with big hunks of garlic and a mint provided with each serving. On top of it, the Nationals beat the Giants.

On Wednesday Darr and I hit the Berkeley Fire Trails for a four mile walk and then we all went to see Once Upon a Time in Hollywood in a theater with fully reclining seats.

Some of Darr’s friends were having a book signing at Pete’s Tavern. The book Letters to 87, is about Dwight Clark, a famous SF Giant from the Montana era. Darr got to see some old photographer friends who reminisced about the Golden Age of journalism near the Golden Gate.

We ate dinner very fast at Uno Dos Tacos, an insanely popular joint where you must order at a counter and schleppe your own food. Not my fave, but considering the numbers of hungry, thirst, millennials pouring out of work in the Financial district, a necessity.

On Thursday we went back to Marin for coffee with a friend who has a beautiful bay front house in Tiburon. She recommended lunch at the Mountain Home Inn on Mount Tam. We drove over the mountain to see the stunning Stinson Beach and then up to the top to the view of views, today without fog.

In an effort to feed nearly every child who grew up in Bethesda, we took two more of Franky’s friends out to dinner at Shirasoni Japanese Restaurant in Alameda. They wanted a restaurant that resembled Benihana in Bethesda where they used to celebrate birthdays. Onion volcanos, big fires, and utensil flipping were all featured.

Friday we sat outside for a stunning breakfast at Cole Coffee Cafe where I surrendered to the inevitability of avocado toast. We decided that sitting outside and drinking divine coffee reminded us of Europe, as did so much of the area.

Coastal  Trail

We ended our week on with another breathtaking walk on the Coastal Trail from Lands End, Steppy, steep, stony, and sumptuous you can take this trail all the way to the Golden Gate bridge. But we had to brake for well earned French Fries at Bill's Place in Richmond. We followed that with a little rest at La Promenade café, a warm and cozy place with big soft couches and tons of good books. That night we had dinner with old friends at B Star, a Burmese restaurant. I admit to not really knowing where Burma is, much less what Burmese food is. But man was it good, tea leaf salad, firecracker cauliflower, and coconut rice.

Mile Rock Beach

So my week in the Bay Area was a Margo on the Double Go experience.  I clocked 55 miles and climbed 144 flights. We love it there, we always have, we almost moved there in 2000, but it was too expensive. Now it’s too, too, expensive. And yet we have a Beiser in the Bay area, at last. Maybe he will sit in on a lecture by a Nobel Laureate, or learn yoga at the expense of others. Or maybe he will just provide the excuse we’ve always needed to go again and again.

Checking flights for the next visit