a visit to UC Berkeley and the city of San Francisco--

Some have mentioned that they have been disappointed that I am not keeping up my weblog; to those of you who are among these people, I apologize. The underlying reason for my negligence is not that I have ceased to ponder the glorious or the difficult things about life--nor is it that I have abandoned adventures or doing fun things with people that I care about. I think it mostly has to do with the fact that I started a weblog to keep my friends and family up-to-date as I was traveling the globe last year, and have struggled to transition to make it a part of my everyday life sans travel--as I do things that everyday people do--in my own country. There's something about international travel that allows you to describe exciting events, situations where you are caught by surprise, and to reflect about feelings in a way that is at once extremely personal...but still far enough removed from "real" life that there is a bit of detachment. The type of reflections I have more often, these days--reflections about going back to school, about Love, about family and sense of place, about balancing the tricky elements of day-to-day life, are not always things I want to share with an audience.

Anyway...here are a few pictures of last weekend's adventures on the west coast! On Wednesday, I left Boston. I arrived very late that evening in San Francisco, CA--and was picked up at the airport by my friends Steve and Kathleen...Steve completed his Masters' degrees at Virginia Tech and we spent a good deal of time together during my first year in Blacksburg. He and Kathleen were engaged during that first semester, and I enjoyed getting to know her during her frequent trips to town. Steve left Virginia Tech to pursue a Ph.D. in the Agricultural and Resource Economics department at UC Berkeley. This was rather convenient for me, as I had decided to apply to the program (which has a pretty decent reputation) and a visit to Berkeley, then, was an opportunity to visit with Steve and Kathleen. It made me EXTREMELY happy to see them.

I spent most of the day on Thursday in the department, meeting with faculty and students (and now, I need to write some thank yous...). Faculty were, in general, engaging, interested in talking with me, and pretty sharp. No surprise. Students seemed to be happy there--surely a good sign.

Brian, Steve, and I--eatin' brazilian food on the sidewalk in Berkeley.

UC Berkeley campus

Giannini Hall, home of the AREC department

Thursday evening, Steve and I and some other students in the department walked to downtown Berkeley for some sushi...and met up with Jer, Justin, and Angela. Justin is a longtime friend of Jer's who lives in Santa Cruz; Angela, a friend of Justin's who lives in SF. And Jer, well, anybody who reads this weblog at all knows I was pretty excited to see him. And tickled to have a little bit o' vacation with him on the west coast.

Friday I had one more meeting...and then we (Steve, Justin, Jer, and I) headed to Muir Woods for a hike. The towering redwoods were incredible...and once we broke step with the very international throngs of tourists, we we free to frolic in the groves, take in the vistas of the shoreline, and ponder the very difficult plight of consumers in America--the many perils of a combination of marketing and vast amounts of available information. Confusion. Guilt. But, you know, I can't think about these things for too long or too hard without getting even more confused than I started out. So, all things in moderation. Even thought and conscientiousness. ;)

Steve and Justin--backed by a sweet vista

It's like one of those glades where if I went there at night I would most certainly convince myself there would be little elves....

Friday eve., Jer and I and Steve and Kathleen consumed a delicious spaghetti squash concoction which we can mostly attribute to Kathleen--and over fine wine and in good company, spent the evening hanging out and playing spades.

Sat., Steve and Kathleen dropped us at Jer's brother Matt and girlfriend Holly's house in the city. We then headed back out to the Muir woods area--where we climbed to some lovely vistas, and returned to sea level to sit on a green lawn at a small inn drinking good beer in February. It was blissful.

The Good brothers.

This adventure was followed with simply scrumptious Peruvian/Latin American food at Destino and a stop at a birthday party of a friend of Matt and Holly's. Sunday we brunched and watched numerous episodes of Family Guy and partook of awesome Indian food--a relaxing end to a vacation that started off at a rather breakneck pace and on too little sleep.

I don't know what else to say, except that I was sad to leave--sad to leave good friends, leave Jer, and leave the warm weather behind. But, while the Cape is not so warm this time of year, it sure is a nice place to live....

(note: both of those group shots are Jer's--thanks, sweetheart)