Departing Berkeley..
I hate being out of touch with the news, both local and the news back home. I have to get online to find out about the fires in Tahoe (where I have friends living), Chris Benoit killing his family and then himself??
I came upon a horrid accident yesterday; a man got hit by a car on the crosswalk in Berkeley, the car jumped the red light. I can’t find anything about it online, but the victim looked VERY dead. It was a very gruesome sight to witness, one which remained in my head for the rest of the day.
I went out in Haight-Ashbury with Louise and Emir last night. It was their first trip there.
I took Orlaith up to Haight’s crazy clothing stores the other evening. We picked out stupid dresses for each other to try on and took photos of ourselves wearing them.
The gang I’m living with went out in Sunset - Irish area of SF - last night so I missed them along the way. (I didn’t want to go out in the Irish district, too many Irish! Might as well be at home. Berkeley is like being at home sometimes too. As I walked to the internet cafe now, everyone I passed on the sidewalk was Irish.)
It was pretty late when I got back to Berkeley, had to change train at 12th Street Oakland (the joy!) and then had to embark on that 1.7 mile walk through dark back streets alone. I was very happy to see there were quite a few police cars around the place. The other girls have no idea how dodgy these places are for walking around at night. I don’t think you can warn anyone not to go to places like Richmond and West Oakland. I learned how bad they are by going there myself last year. No-one was going to tell me not to go. But at the same time, I consider myself more aware than a lot of people might be.
Two nights ago, Orlaith, Orla and I (yes, there are two of them..) got followed from the bar by two hicks. I had noticed them earlier in the night watching us in the bar and being paranoid, regularly look behind me as I walk.
We stopped to see if they were actually following us, and they stopped too. We walked on, then Orla pretended to use her phone and they caught right up with us, waiting for us a few feet ahead. We doubled back and went around the back of the block and eventually lost them, mainly because they were very drunk/stoned and couldn’t keep up.
I’m moving back to San Francisco this evening. I’ll be living right beside BART which is good. I’m going to spend the next few hours hanging around Berkeley.
I was very anti-Berkeley last year, mainly because of the high factor of Irish-ness. But it’s actually an alright place to live, just a little too spread out for my liking. For whatever reason, BART is a long walk from Telegraph street, where the action is. There’s a good laid back atmosphere and it’s been interesting to attend frat house parties, actually experiencing what it’s like to go to college here. It’s very innocent compared to college life in Ireland!
On Saturday night, we went to a party for a guy who’s joining the navy and a homeless guy managed to sneak in. He looked VERY like Mark Lanegan and had his whiskey in a brown paper bag (while all of the Irish openly slugged out of the bottle..). I think he was probably the only non-Irish person at the outdoor table. He came over to Orlaith and I and introduced himself as Sean O’Reilly. He went to shake Orlaith’s hand, then quickly retracted his hand when he saw hers, not liking what he was seeing I guess.. He eyed her suspiciously for a long time, while Orlaith asked him how he had such an Irish name. He asked her what her name was, then shook her hand, quickly brushing her germs off right afterwards. She told him he looked JUST like Liam Ó Maonlaí and he looked at her like she was completely nuts, rolled his eyes, shivered and quickly walked as far away from her as he could, shaking his head as he went..
He seemed to get on very well with everyone else at the party!
I think a lot/most of the Irish here have difficulties understanding the cultural differences between Ireland and America. It’s really not acceptable here to drink until you’re in a light coma (even the street people don’t do that)! Last year, the only question all of the J1ers wanted answered upon arrival at SFO was where would they buy fake ID…
Haha.. there’s a Hispanic guy at the counter of the Internet cafe where you pay for your internet usage and his bill is much higher than he expected it to be, so he’s trying to pay off his debt with a prescription for some kind of medication..
Everyone keeps asking me about Pride so here are a couple of pics. I can’t post most of them because they’re a tad.. inappropriate.
City Hall
With Pride comes much leather and nudity.
This was my favourite costume by far.
Until it got attacked…
And here’s a photo from the Captain’s seat on the 767-400 we flew to Atlanta on.
I’m going to stop writing now before I need to pay my bill off with some kind of drugs too!
