The next few days I had a moderate amount of unpacking to do, but lacking a laptop (I ordered a custom specification MacBook Air to the Berkeley Apple Store, not wanting to spent top dollar for the most expensive model but wanting something with more memory and a faster processor than the models they stock in store), I had a fair amount of free time.
On Thursday I met up with some of my classmates from India who I had spoken with previously online. We had lunch at Subway - which I suppose I had to experience once, but will try not to visit again (not when there are so many independent awesome little restaurants and cafes around campus). Around campus are basically all of the foods I love to eat back home with my friends - including many Asian (Chinese, Japanese and Vietnamese restaurants), several bubble tea cafes that all serve matcha and a Chinese bakery!
Studying here also seems to be primarily done either on the grass on campus (where I am sitting now) or in coffee shops with a laptop out and headphones in. This is very different to my undergraduate experience at Cambridge - although they had recently opened a coffee shop in college when I left. Perhaps this is due to the lack of electric kettles in most American households, students need to get their caffeine fix externally.
In general, the Berkeley campus, although being a well ranked university, in the top five globally and the best public university in the world, appears to lack much of the pretentiousness that Cambridge has. While I enjoyed dressing up in a suit and acting like high society at Fitz, I do admire the casual but super intelligent attitude that students here have. While buildings here aren't nearly as old as at Cambridge, they are remarkably impressive. The campus isn't huge but is quite dense - with notable buildings around every corner. (Most of these buildings seem to house coffee shops too. There are also two very large libraries that are connected by an underground tunnel. I've not found a reason to use these yet though.)
It's busy at the moment but I'm told it will get considerably busier in a couple of weeks as all the undergraduates return. Supposedly to the point where it becomes impossible to ride your bike through certain parts of campus (and this is a rule enforced by the police).
On Friday I hitched a ride with Ryan into San Francisco via Berkeley Bowl. Berkeley lacks many chain supermarkets like Walmart (although there is one about 30 minutes drive away). They do have this wonderful independent supermarket called Berkeley Bowl - which has two branches here. It's more expensive than most chain supermarkets but they stock an amazing variety of what Americans call 'produce' (what we know as fruit and vegetables). This section literally spans a good third of their floor space and could itself be as large as most 'supermarkets'. What's more amazing is how well stocked this is - with fruit piled up to chest height. Ryan informs me that these stock levels are basically maintained all the time - so it wasn't just a case of arriving after the fruit had been delivered.
Arriving to San Francisco, I hopped into a cafe to take our weekly CPCC call where I had some lovely oolong green tea which almost certainly pushed me into a hyperthyroid state (dangerous!). After this, I visited Mission Bikes - a bike shop I've often admired online. It was considerably smaller than I was expecting, but was full of many cool bicycle accessories which were mostly the result of Kickstarter campaigns (such as a Blink / Steady and RevoLights).
Having made plans to go for lunch with my friend Alex from both HABS and Cambridge at his office, I had some time to kill, so stumbled into another coffee shop with a bizarrely heavyset door. This was my first warning and the sarcastically passive aggressive but amusing signs ('You'll find that it is preferable to take your call outside') were another. I ordered a rooibos tea and a wonderful peanut butter cookie and sat down to read my Kindle in near silence. Like with the coffee shop studying culture on campus, it seems like coffee shops in San Francisco are where developers go to work on their Macs. It felt like most libraries and I was very self conscious as I chewed on my cookie and tried to sip my tea as quietly as possible.
Lunch at Asana, where Alex works, was excellent and I enjoyed meeting his zany but fun tech colleagues. I was a little puzzled by the government sticker on the front door that warned of 'cancer causing chemicals' being present in the building but supposedly this is standard in most buildings in the mission. The top floor where their office is located has fantastic views of the city and on one side, it looks as if the Earth is folding up into the building a la Inception. I later realised this was a hill.
After wandering around Best Buy and trying out some of the Andrew Jones designed Pioneer speakers (which are excellent by the way), I took the BART back to Berkeley and napped a little before heading out to a party hosted by the East Bay Burners that Natalie invited us to.
The East Bay Burners is a group of Burning Man enthusiasts who fundraise, build displays and organise a trip to the hippie festival every year. This was one of their final parties before the actual event in a couple of weeks and we got to hang out in 'NIMBY', a warehouse space where they build the exhibits they take with them. The dress code was 'dress to impress' which I suspected would be the only chance I will get to dress formally in the next few months. Wearing a suede jacket, shirt and tie, I was put to shame by a trio of Natalie's friend's friends who were wearing full formal wear (including a three piece suit) lined with luminescent wire. We met some truly wacky characters there including one guy was wearing a black bin bag and was just completely crazy - words cannot describe him.
On Saturday I met up with TDA Sam, who is finishing off his undergraduate degree at Berkeley ahead of law school, which was great. That afternoon I met up with Alex to ride across the Golden Gate Bridge - which was manageable but hard work on my fixie (the Ti bike is still in pieces). In the evening, I went to meet a subset of my MEng class at a cool pool bar called 'Thalassa' in Downtown Berkeley. It was amusing to see some of the international students struggle with their beer.
I spent Sunday doing some final preparation ahead of the start of MEng bootcamp on Monday and visiting Alex's garden party in San Francisco. It's amusing how easy it is to find developers who work for well known technology companies - I met engineers at Twitter and Facebook there, and nearly everyone else worked in technology. That evening I went out with Ryan and his girlfriend, to a pizza restaurant called Jupiter. I was sceptical, having spent two weeks in Italy so recently but it was tasty, tasty pizza.
With that, my brief period of unemployment came to an end.
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On Wednesday, while I still had the rental car, I tried to knock off as many things on my 'to-do' list as possible. The first task was to pick up a 'Markus' IKEA chair that I bought second hand from Craigslist for half the price it cost new. This is the same chair I have at home, although sadly in black instead of orange. Following this, I went to set up my bank account, pick up a student card and get myself a local sim card.
Setting up the bank account with Citi was, luckily, painless - I've heard stories of my peers being asked to keep a minimum monthly balance of $1,500 in their accounts which is absolutely absurd.
I also found it amazing that there is a whole office on campus whose sole purpose is just to administer student cards, but looking at the statistics on Wikipedia, I see that UC Berkeley has approximately double the number of students that Cambridge had (at 36,000). There are apparently larger universities around, my flatmate Natalie mentioned that the University of Florida has 50,000 odd students. That sort of scale is unbelievable.
Soon after, I had bought a local sim card on a MVNO called Ultra Mobile. This gave me a fantastic feeling of mobility. While OsmAnd+ is fantastic, Google Maps provides a much slicker navigation app and this really helped me out. The network in the Bay Area seems considerably quicker than back home too and pages load faster. (Ultra Mobile uses T-Mobile's network which supposedly has poor coverage in the area. I haven't found it a problem at all yet though.) Ultra Mobile also includes $20 worth of international calling credit each month which has proven very useful - I can call home at just 5c a minute.
Sadly I then had to return to IKEA for a third time to pick up curtains and a curtain rail. I later went back a fourth time to change the curtain rail for thinner rail that actually fit the hooks in my room. I also stopped at Trader Joes to pick up an inital lot of groceries (while I had the car) and Wholefoods to pick up cleaning materials and shampoo.
The groceries are sold in much larger packs here than in Europe. On average, at least at these two shops, they're more costly than at the places we usually shop at back home. You do, however, get larger quantities of everything, so perhaps it's not actually much more expensive. It's also probably not fair to compare these to normal supermarkets but more to, say, M&S and Waitrose. Food also lasts longer in my fridge. It's unclear whether this is because of the sheer size of the fridge or because of all the preservatives used in the food.
In the end, I was able to buy 32 ounces of shampoo for $6 (admittedly the most budget shampoo they sold) - this should be enough to last me until graduation... Another thing I learnt though was that when they sell shampoo as 'odour-free' here, it actually means it smells like cigarette ash when wet (but is hopefully odour-free when dry). I'll see how this affects my romantic prospects!
The groceries on the whole are quite exciting. Generally American supermarkets seem to be quite heavily filled with sweet and sugary food but they do also offer many of the products I love - which are considered niche back home. For instance, a good friend of mine introduced to an Eastern European drink called 'kefir', a fermented yoghurt drink. This is normally only found in Polish shops back home but is available in several supermarkets here. I also drink a considerable amount of almond milk - primarily for the taste. This has only just been introduced back home but is available in multiple brands and flavours here. Finally, the cottage cheese is as good as the cottage cheese you can buy in Switzerland which, up until now, was the best I'd tried. (Oh, there's also SO MUCH tofu available.)
After the fourth trip to IKEA, I returned the car to Hertz, carrying my fixie in the back. I had to fill the car up with fuel (or 'gas') before returning it. This was a hilarious exercise involving two trips to the cashier since, by this point, Halifax had blocked my credit card. Apparently buying furniture in America is considerably more suspicious than buying pizza in Italy, as I had done just a few weeks ago.
It was unclear whether, when asking for $20 of gas, I'd get any money back if the final amount came to less than $20. The cashier was terribly confused too and so I decided to pay for fuel in $10 chunks so as to minimise any potential downside. When, after the first $10, the gas tank still wasn't showing full, I went back again with another $10 and thankfully managed to fill the tank and get a refund for the $1.88 that was unused. Thus continued the slow journey towards naturalisation.
I cycled back to the flat without a problem, struggling up the final hill. The campus is built on a hill and this makes it nearly all downhill in the morning and almost entirely uphill on the return journey. It's particularly hard work on my fixie with an 18 tooth cog which is perfectly suited for flat roads but less so for steep hills! It requires basically spinning at 100% effort just to keep moving else there's a risk of falling off or veering into a parked car (as I've done once already). By the time I reach home my shirt is usually soaked with sweat. I'm hoping this will get easier with time.
I met my second flatmate that evening, Natalie, who recently finished a spell working for the Peace Corps in Panama. I plugged my Cowon into Ryan's set of Logitech speakers and spent the rest of the evening unpacking and using the replacement screwdriver I picked up to finish off the bed.
Continued.
Setting up the bank account with Citi was, luckily, painless - I've heard stories of my peers being asked to keep a minimum monthly balance of $1,500 in their accounts which is absolutely absurd.
I also found it amazing that there is a whole office on campus whose sole purpose is just to administer student cards, but looking at the statistics on Wikipedia, I see that UC Berkeley has approximately double the number of students that Cambridge had (at 36,000). There are apparently larger universities around, my flatmate Natalie mentioned that the University of Florida has 50,000 odd students. That sort of scale is unbelievable.
Soon after, I had bought a local sim card on a MVNO called Ultra Mobile. This gave me a fantastic feeling of mobility. While OsmAnd+ is fantastic, Google Maps provides a much slicker navigation app and this really helped me out. The network in the Bay Area seems considerably quicker than back home too and pages load faster. (Ultra Mobile uses T-Mobile's network which supposedly has poor coverage in the area. I haven't found it a problem at all yet though.) Ultra Mobile also includes $20 worth of international calling credit each month which has proven very useful - I can call home at just 5c a minute.
Sadly I then had to return to IKEA for a third time to pick up curtains and a curtain rail. I later went back a fourth time to change the curtain rail for thinner rail that actually fit the hooks in my room. I also stopped at Trader Joes to pick up an inital lot of groceries (while I had the car) and Wholefoods to pick up cleaning materials and shampoo.
The groceries are sold in much larger packs here than in Europe. On average, at least at these two shops, they're more costly than at the places we usually shop at back home. You do, however, get larger quantities of everything, so perhaps it's not actually much more expensive. It's also probably not fair to compare these to normal supermarkets but more to, say, M&S and Waitrose. Food also lasts longer in my fridge. It's unclear whether this is because of the sheer size of the fridge or because of all the preservatives used in the food.
In the end, I was able to buy 32 ounces of shampoo for $6 (admittedly the most budget shampoo they sold) - this should be enough to last me until graduation... Another thing I learnt though was that when they sell shampoo as 'odour-free' here, it actually means it smells like cigarette ash when wet (but is hopefully odour-free when dry). I'll see how this affects my romantic prospects!
The groceries on the whole are quite exciting. Generally American supermarkets seem to be quite heavily filled with sweet and sugary food but they do also offer many of the products I love - which are considered niche back home. For instance, a good friend of mine introduced to an Eastern European drink called 'kefir', a fermented yoghurt drink. This is normally only found in Polish shops back home but is available in several supermarkets here. I also drink a considerable amount of almond milk - primarily for the taste. This has only just been introduced back home but is available in multiple brands and flavours here. Finally, the cottage cheese is as good as the cottage cheese you can buy in Switzerland which, up until now, was the best I'd tried. (Oh, there's also SO MUCH tofu available.)
After the fourth trip to IKEA, I returned the car to Hertz, carrying my fixie in the back. I had to fill the car up with fuel (or 'gas') before returning it. This was a hilarious exercise involving two trips to the cashier since, by this point, Halifax had blocked my credit card. Apparently buying furniture in America is considerably more suspicious than buying pizza in Italy, as I had done just a few weeks ago.
It was unclear whether, when asking for $20 of gas, I'd get any money back if the final amount came to less than $20. The cashier was terribly confused too and so I decided to pay for fuel in $10 chunks so as to minimise any potential downside. When, after the first $10, the gas tank still wasn't showing full, I went back again with another $10 and thankfully managed to fill the tank and get a refund for the $1.88 that was unused. Thus continued the slow journey towards naturalisation.
I cycled back to the flat without a problem, struggling up the final hill. The campus is built on a hill and this makes it nearly all downhill in the morning and almost entirely uphill on the return journey. It's particularly hard work on my fixie with an 18 tooth cog which is perfectly suited for flat roads but less so for steep hills! It requires basically spinning at 100% effort just to keep moving else there's a risk of falling off or veering into a parked car (as I've done once already). By the time I reach home my shirt is usually soaked with sweat. I'm hoping this will get easier with time.
I met my second flatmate that evening, Natalie, who recently finished a spell working for the Peace Corps in Panama. I plugged my Cowon into Ryan's set of Logitech speakers and spent the rest of the evening unpacking and using the replacement screwdriver I picked up to finish off the bed.
Continued.
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The minivan I'd rented was a fully automatic Dodge Caravan, which, even with all of my 'stuff' in it, still had space for five adults to sit comfortably. It was huge. Equipped with handwritten directions from the Hertz check-in lady, who was either called 'Trainee' or was new to the job, and my phone running OsmAnd+, I rolled out into San Francisco amidst their Tuesday evening rush hour.
This wasn't too bad, thankfully and I crossed Bay Bridge relatively quickly, with only the occasional nervous moment as I used the dominating size of the Dodge to effortlessly change lanes. As I neared Berkeley, I saw IKEA and, with some vague notion of efficiency in my mind, took the ramp off the highway and spent a third of an hour trying to find the entrance. Eventually I made it to the parking lot and was about to go in but realised I should probably check the dimensions of my room before buying furniture. With that in mind, I navigated towards Panoramic Way.
Thankfully it was just a short drive (a drive I'd do several more times) and I quickly found Panoramic Way, my home for the next 10 months. Despite 'walking' down the street using StreetView and reading the surprisingly extensive Wikipedia page about Panoramic Way, I was still shocked by how narrow and windy it was. It was nothing like any other street I've ever driven down in North America. This turned out to be a pain to navigate, particularly with my large minivan. After finding a steep but wide part of the street to turn around in, I eventually located our flat at 7:30pm.
There had been some confusion in the email exchange between Ryan, the current leaseholder and primary 'flatmate', and I. I had thought he was leaving a spare key for me at the flat and he thought I was collecting it from his office in San Francisco. After discovering that the flat was empty, I called him up and, working hard at his new job, he wouldn't be back to Berkeley until past 9pm. I thus decided to go back to IKEA.
This time, after parking, I actually went into the store and proceeded to buy a full-size (or double) bed (having arranged a desk and chair on Craigslist). This was a complete headache, particularly in my tired state of mind, and I eventually settled on a combination that was one above the cheapest but looked relatively easy to assemble and came with a reasonably firm mattress. To my dismay, the bed itself was preassembled and was far too large to fit into even this minivan. Not wanting to trek back through the store, I used the help computers to try and figure out what alternatives I had and eventually settled on a double bed with slats that required more assembly but would fit inside the car. This was a good workout for my lacking upper body - the mattress alone weighed more than 25 kilograms.
On my way back I stopped off at one of the Craiglist vendor's house to pick up an IKEA desk which he was selling for $70. I can't work out if this was a good deal or not since they no longer sell this desk but it seems to do the job, if being a little wobbly (as IKEA desks eventually become). In my sleep deprived state, I managed to park in a red zone, where the curb is painted red and where it is illegal to park. This would probably have been OK if two fire engines hadn't then tried to navigate the corner and I was politely warned by one of them that I was parked in a red zone. I quickly moved the Dodge.
Returning to Panoramic Way at 10pm, Ryan had been held up at work and was still on his way back so I decided to start unloading my car. This was exhausting - particularly because our flat is at the top of an extended flight of stairs. I managed this eventually though and when Ryan arrived a short while later, he helped me take everything into the flat.
I was pleasantly surprised with the size of the flat. Expecting something smaller and more akin to the narrow English flats, it was a small relief to see wider staircases and a corridor wide enough to fit a couch. The kitchen and living room are also more than adequate and my room, although small, has enough space for me, my computer, dhol, clothes and a bike. (And a bed and desk of course.)
The furniture mostly worked out OK - although the bed was about 2 inches too large to slot nicely into the narrower portion of the room, so I had to put it against one of the two longer walls. Building the bed was a pain and I felt guilty at the amount of noise (and subsequent cursing) I produced in the process. I also managed to strip the screwdriver that Ryan had kindly lent me, which made it increasingly tough to screw everything in tightly enough (and I have a nice blister on my palm as a result). Eventually it would go no further and I left a couple of diagonal slats out, put my mattress down and nodded off to sleep after a 27 hour waking day.
Continued.
This wasn't too bad, thankfully and I crossed Bay Bridge relatively quickly, with only the occasional nervous moment as I used the dominating size of the Dodge to effortlessly change lanes. As I neared Berkeley, I saw IKEA and, with some vague notion of efficiency in my mind, took the ramp off the highway and spent a third of an hour trying to find the entrance. Eventually I made it to the parking lot and was about to go in but realised I should probably check the dimensions of my room before buying furniture. With that in mind, I navigated towards Panoramic Way.
Thankfully it was just a short drive (a drive I'd do several more times) and I quickly found Panoramic Way, my home for the next 10 months. Despite 'walking' down the street using StreetView and reading the surprisingly extensive Wikipedia page about Panoramic Way, I was still shocked by how narrow and windy it was. It was nothing like any other street I've ever driven down in North America. This turned out to be a pain to navigate, particularly with my large minivan. After finding a steep but wide part of the street to turn around in, I eventually located our flat at 7:30pm.
There had been some confusion in the email exchange between Ryan, the current leaseholder and primary 'flatmate', and I. I had thought he was leaving a spare key for me at the flat and he thought I was collecting it from his office in San Francisco. After discovering that the flat was empty, I called him up and, working hard at his new job, he wouldn't be back to Berkeley until past 9pm. I thus decided to go back to IKEA.
This time, after parking, I actually went into the store and proceeded to buy a full-size (or double) bed (having arranged a desk and chair on Craigslist). This was a complete headache, particularly in my tired state of mind, and I eventually settled on a combination that was one above the cheapest but looked relatively easy to assemble and came with a reasonably firm mattress. To my dismay, the bed itself was preassembled and was far too large to fit into even this minivan. Not wanting to trek back through the store, I used the help computers to try and figure out what alternatives I had and eventually settled on a double bed with slats that required more assembly but would fit inside the car. This was a good workout for my lacking upper body - the mattress alone weighed more than 25 kilograms.
On my way back I stopped off at one of the Craiglist vendor's house to pick up an IKEA desk which he was selling for $70. I can't work out if this was a good deal or not since they no longer sell this desk but it seems to do the job, if being a little wobbly (as IKEA desks eventually become). In my sleep deprived state, I managed to park in a red zone, where the curb is painted red and where it is illegal to park. This would probably have been OK if two fire engines hadn't then tried to navigate the corner and I was politely warned by one of them that I was parked in a red zone. I quickly moved the Dodge.
Returning to Panoramic Way at 10pm, Ryan had been held up at work and was still on his way back so I decided to start unloading my car. This was exhausting - particularly because our flat is at the top of an extended flight of stairs. I managed this eventually though and when Ryan arrived a short while later, he helped me take everything into the flat.
I was pleasantly surprised with the size of the flat. Expecting something smaller and more akin to the narrow English flats, it was a small relief to see wider staircases and a corridor wide enough to fit a couch. The kitchen and living room are also more than adequate and my room, although small, has enough space for me, my computer, dhol, clothes and a bike. (And a bed and desk of course.)
The furniture mostly worked out OK - although the bed was about 2 inches too large to slot nicely into the narrower portion of the room, so I had to put it against one of the two longer walls. Building the bed was a pain and I felt guilty at the amount of noise (and subsequent cursing) I produced in the process. I also managed to strip the screwdriver that Ryan had kindly lent me, which made it increasingly tough to screw everything in tightly enough (and I have a nice blister on my palm as a result). Eventually it would go no further and I left a couple of diagonal slats out, put my mattress down and nodded off to sleep after a 27 hour waking day.
Continued.
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It's been almost exactly two weeks since I landed at San Francisco International airport and I feel an update is long overdue! The main excuse for not getting this up sooner is that I've only just received my laptop and the thought alone of writing all of this up on my mobile (or mobul/cell) phone was enough to dissuade me from doing so. (Despite ordering the laptop over two weeks ago, it was held up by my credit card getting blocked, but more about that later.)
My departure from London was uneventful, albeit a little hurried - but when is it not? Luckily I'd had several months to prepare for my departure but there were still many things that I struggled or failed to finish in time. As Monday evening drew close, I'd had several days without much sleep (and with plentiful alcohol consumption) so my pace of 'getting things done' was slower than normal. One of the tasks I failed to complete was building the USS Enterprise, possibly one of the most thoughtful gifts I've been given in my life, so I feel especially guilty. That's a goal to complete as soon as I land back in England next year.
Packing all of my possessions down was surprisingly manageable. As I've previously mentioned, the last few months have been an endless process of selling or otherwise disposing of extraneous possessions. Packing was aided by the fact the conniving woman at the music shop in Ilford sold me a dhol case that was clearly too big (despite her assurances to the otherwise). This worked to my advantage - I was able to pack all 27 of my colourful t-shirts and socks around the perimeter of the my dhol and still had space for all my trousers and underwear! There was a small amount of rebalancing required when packing all the textbooks in one bag resulted in it weighing near to 30 kilograms. I took one of these in my hand luggage (which later resulted in a Heathrow security worker exclaiming their surprise at the thickness of the book I was carrying onto the flight) and moved the rest to another bag.
In total I had 5 items of checked luggage, including 2 bicycles (my fixie and the Ti bike), my dhol and two bags which were primarily full of alcohol, food and clothes. These weren't such a problem at Heathrow since I had my dear cousin to help me wheel the trolleys to the checkin desk and the Virgin Atlantic staff were very helpful (even more so when an Indian check-in worker recognised it as a dhol).
The flight itself was uneventful. I had somehow managed to get the last possible seat on the plane - 66G. I don't know how this happened. It seemed like a curse to start with, but wasn't actually so bad since I was sitting near an open space near the rearmost emergency exit which let me get up and stretch frequently without a problem. The only caveat was that it was major waiting area for fellow passengers queueing for the toilets and, when trying to nap, they'd periodically open the blinds to look out and not shut them. Inconsiderate fellow humans.
My neighbour for the flight was a young girl (perhaps around 10 years old) who was travelling with her mother and her younger still sister. She was a relatively pleasant neighbour although, despite her miniature stature, she did have a surprising tendancy to stick her elbows out on the arm rests. Give her short height, this put her elbows at roughly the level of my ribs which tickled initially and then hurt later. Trying to play the mature adult, I didn't let this bother me and this patience paid off when she let me have her uneaten sandwich at tea time (I'm in student-poverty now, so it's acceptable to take food from children).
On the approach into San Francisco I had a lovely conversation with a tall Virgin Atlantic air hostess who was dressed in a rather fetching red suit and strapped into the jump seat filling the space adjacent to the emergency exit. It seems that, like anything, their trips abroad become less exotic the more times they travel, and their primary ambition for their free time in other countries now is to find a cheap wine bar to spend a day in.
The real adventure started when reclaiming all of my luggage. Luckily they have porters at the airport who helped me take my luggage onto the airport 'AirTrain'. (This included a luggage screening where the sceptical customs agent queried the sheer amount of luggage I have. Another customs agent was very excited by the fact I was starting at Cal and another, Indian, agent showed muted respect for the fact I was carrying a dhol.) Sadly, the porter was unable to come further and I had to push my two carts (or trolleys) along in this amusing shuffle. This would have worked a lot better if my fixie, in a soft bike bag, was able to stack nicely, and if my dhol case didn't keep slipping off the same trolley. There was a moment of panic when the fixie fell off as I was getting off the train and I had to block the doors briefly while I tried to move everything off the train. After a brief wait, I had to do the same again when picking up my rental car in parking space 199 in a huge parking garage. A suited American man with a look of mild irritation made the wrong decision and decided to share the lift with me. As I faffed about trying to get my trolleys into a now full lift, he asked me if I could have more 'stuff'. I told him that I didn't, really. Having abandoned a trolley in my attempt to fit in the lift, I then had to shuffle back and forth with one trolley, a bagged bike and the dhol case (which, thankfully, has wheels).
Eventually I made it to the car, feeling extremely exhausted, and promptly devoured some of the strongly smelling Indian flatbread my mother had packed. My eyes were bloodshot and I was really thirsty - but it didn't matter, the hardest part was (hopefully) over. My possessions were in a safe place and I had a nice comfy seat to sit in.
Continued.
My departure from London was uneventful, albeit a little hurried - but when is it not? Luckily I'd had several months to prepare for my departure but there were still many things that I struggled or failed to finish in time. As Monday evening drew close, I'd had several days without much sleep (and with plentiful alcohol consumption) so my pace of 'getting things done' was slower than normal. One of the tasks I failed to complete was building the USS Enterprise, possibly one of the most thoughtful gifts I've been given in my life, so I feel especially guilty. That's a goal to complete as soon as I land back in England next year.
Packing all of my possessions down was surprisingly manageable. As I've previously mentioned, the last few months have been an endless process of selling or otherwise disposing of extraneous possessions. Packing was aided by the fact the conniving woman at the music shop in Ilford sold me a dhol case that was clearly too big (despite her assurances to the otherwise). This worked to my advantage - I was able to pack all 27 of my colourful t-shirts and socks around the perimeter of the my dhol and still had space for all my trousers and underwear! There was a small amount of rebalancing required when packing all the textbooks in one bag resulted in it weighing near to 30 kilograms. I took one of these in my hand luggage (which later resulted in a Heathrow security worker exclaiming their surprise at the thickness of the book I was carrying onto the flight) and moved the rest to another bag.
In total I had 5 items of checked luggage, including 2 bicycles (my fixie and the Ti bike), my dhol and two bags which were primarily full of alcohol, food and clothes. These weren't such a problem at Heathrow since I had my dear cousin to help me wheel the trolleys to the checkin desk and the Virgin Atlantic staff were very helpful (even more so when an Indian check-in worker recognised it as a dhol).
The flight itself was uneventful. I had somehow managed to get the last possible seat on the plane - 66G. I don't know how this happened. It seemed like a curse to start with, but wasn't actually so bad since I was sitting near an open space near the rearmost emergency exit which let me get up and stretch frequently without a problem. The only caveat was that it was major waiting area for fellow passengers queueing for the toilets and, when trying to nap, they'd periodically open the blinds to look out and not shut them. Inconsiderate fellow humans.
My neighbour for the flight was a young girl (perhaps around 10 years old) who was travelling with her mother and her younger still sister. She was a relatively pleasant neighbour although, despite her miniature stature, she did have a surprising tendancy to stick her elbows out on the arm rests. Give her short height, this put her elbows at roughly the level of my ribs which tickled initially and then hurt later. Trying to play the mature adult, I didn't let this bother me and this patience paid off when she let me have her uneaten sandwich at tea time (I'm in student-poverty now, so it's acceptable to take food from children).
On the approach into San Francisco I had a lovely conversation with a tall Virgin Atlantic air hostess who was dressed in a rather fetching red suit and strapped into the jump seat filling the space adjacent to the emergency exit. It seems that, like anything, their trips abroad become less exotic the more times they travel, and their primary ambition for their free time in other countries now is to find a cheap wine bar to spend a day in.
The real adventure started when reclaiming all of my luggage. Luckily they have porters at the airport who helped me take my luggage onto the airport 'AirTrain'. (This included a luggage screening where the sceptical customs agent queried the sheer amount of luggage I have. Another customs agent was very excited by the fact I was starting at Cal and another, Indian, agent showed muted respect for the fact I was carrying a dhol.) Sadly, the porter was unable to come further and I had to push my two carts (or trolleys) along in this amusing shuffle. This would have worked a lot better if my fixie, in a soft bike bag, was able to stack nicely, and if my dhol case didn't keep slipping off the same trolley. There was a moment of panic when the fixie fell off as I was getting off the train and I had to block the doors briefly while I tried to move everything off the train. After a brief wait, I had to do the same again when picking up my rental car in parking space 199 in a huge parking garage. A suited American man with a look of mild irritation made the wrong decision and decided to share the lift with me. As I faffed about trying to get my trolleys into a now full lift, he asked me if I could have more 'stuff'. I told him that I didn't, really. Having abandoned a trolley in my attempt to fit in the lift, I then had to shuffle back and forth with one trolley, a bagged bike and the dhol case (which, thankfully, has wheels).
Eventually I made it to the car, feeling extremely exhausted, and promptly devoured some of the strongly smelling Indian flatbread my mother had packed. My eyes were bloodshot and I was really thirsty - but it didn't matter, the hardest part was (hopefully) over. My possessions were in a safe place and I had a nice comfy seat to sit in.
Continued.
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This is going to be a quick final post for the Paris to Brindisi ride. We're now coming to the end of our short stay in Brindisi, a pleasant and moderately prosperous coastal town. We're staying in a very esoteric bed and breakfast where we have a oddly shaped ground floor apartment to ourselves where the shower is by one of the doors onto the street (separate to the rest of the bathroom). The street itself is a typical small Italian street where an elderly woman has been shouting at (presumably in some sort of conversation) passer-bys constantly from her balcony. There's a bakery at one end of the street which fills the narrow passage with the smell of warm bread and yeast for most of the morning. At the other end is a shop selling just fruit and vegetables and next to it, a supermarket.
For our first dinner we made full use of our apartment to cook pasta with white sauce and to indulge my watermelon lust. We bought a local pasta that was very dense (almost tasting undercooked) and caused me a moderate amount of stomach pain the next day!
Since Bologna, we've been seeing small Piaggio trucks parked on intersections with piles of watermelons being sold. Lacking culinary facilities and a way to store and carry an entire watermelon, we abstained. Here, however, it becomes much more feasible - and for a whole €1.60, we bought 5 kilograms worth of delicious watermelon. There was no knife in our apartment though, so we had to butcher the watermelon with a spatula. This worked surprisingly well, no doubt due to the sheet metal like thickness (or lack of) of the spatula.
The ride into Bari from Pescara was surprisingly quick thanks to a wondrous tailwind which pushed our average speed up to 17.7 mph, over 5.52.12 hours and 96.01 miles. We made fantastic time into Foggia which allowed us time to stop at a gelateria /caffe for an espresso (Phil) and hot chocolate (me). It was a bit of a gruelling ride after that and our accommodation in Bari (at the B&B La Finestra Sul Centro) was depressingly unlike the advertised room. The en-suite was actually just guaranteed sole use of a bathroom and many of the promised furnishings were not present. Still, they had air conditioning and wifi so things were ok! They also didn't take payment by card as they had advertised...
In Bari itself we spent some time looking for a barber to get rid of my wonderful beard (and to see if people still thought I was Greek after that, they were amusingly confused by my ethnicity - having been asked three times that day). After some fun we found a place that said they did it but operated a bizarre queueing system where, despite waiting for longer, I was served after 2 other customers. Still, eventually I was served and although there was a moment of concern as the barber apparently tried to stop my face from bleeding, it was a smooth shave and I came out €5 poorer and looking ten years younger. In this time Phil managed to get his hair cut at one of the hair dressers (but not a barber) that we had come across in our search for a barber.
After this, we wandered into the Bari old town which was a delightful assortment of tiny streets, ancient buildings interspersed with many bars and restaurants. Motorcycles and scooters rocketed up the narrow streets with such speed that I can only imagine the honed reflexes their riders must have. We stopped at a bar in one of the streets that also happened to be a lottery outlet, selling a wide variety of scratchcards. It was doing good business. After this we went to the sea front and saw locals (although probably just tourists like us) patronising a stall selling what appeared to be fried cheese. Curious, Phil and I bought a bag for 2 Euros. The rectangular slabs were doused in salt and were initially palatable but we quickly felt ill after a handful. We threw half of the bag away in the end and marvelled at how this was even an economically feasible business.
Feeling quite hungry, we managed to get swept into a pizzeria with terrible service that lined one of the tiny side streets. Several times our waiter was almost bowled over by a buzzing scooter coming down the street at pace. Spotting several groups of teenagers walking towards the sea with gelato, our after dinner mission was made clear. The piazza they were coming from was absolutely humming with activity making a pleasant contrast to the apparently deserted town we had ridden into.
The final ride into Brindisi was equally rapid and we managed the 73.41 miles in 4.24.21 hours, an average of 16.6 mph. There was some confusion finding our route out of Bari at first and we accidentally rode illegally down a highway for a couple of miles. We soon realised that actually it was taking us down a parallel single lane road that was much less trafficked and where bicycles were legally permitted!
This single lane road became parts of the old Roman Road after a while, which was beautiful and somewhat technically challenging to cycling down. Most of it has been re paved but as is typical of Italian roads, it was heavily potholed. The road took us amongst some pleasant lime groves and then further amongst some other (unknown) fruit farms. Occasionally our route took us along the coast and I found a wondrously stark piece of rocky beach which was devoid of sunbathing Italians.
We soon arrived to Brindisi, alarmed a little at the sheer number of used pregnancy tests that lined the base of the Brindisi town sign. We've been taking it pretty easy here, it's a small enough town centre to walk around in a day. We spent most of half a day looking for packing materials (eventually settling on bits of cardboard), cleaning and then packing our bikes. Our B&B owner was a little concerned at the size of the bikes when packaged, since he was providing us with transport to the airport. I half suspected he would turn up in a Fiat Panda or a similar tiny hatchback. Thankfully he had some sort of MPV which fit our bikes horizontally.
For our last meal in Brindisi, we visited a busy restaurant on the waterfront where I had my LAST Italian pizza which, thankfully, was as excellent as always. (I'm not looking forward to the relatively doughy American pizzas.) After dinner, I tried grappa, a brandy like spirit which is served in all the restaurants here. Phil had warned me that it was foul stuff but I didn't think it could be that bad. It was as terrible as he had suggested and I could not finish it. Lesson learned.
This morning we had an uneventful check in at the Brindisi airport although they did come find us twice after we had passed security - once to rescan our pannier bags which we were carrying onto the plan and again to ask us to deflate our tyres. Extensive online discussion suggests that this isn't strictly necessary but most airport staff wrongly seem to think it has to be done.
On the Ryanair flight back to London, that truly concludes this tour. I'll post one further writeup of the tools we used to plan the trip since this took some trial and error. It's been great fun and passing through fairly small places, we were able to truly experience both Italy and France - and not just the most heavily trafficked tourist cities. France was somewhat awkward (albeit with excellent pastries) and Italy has been superb. I think it is now my all-round favourite country in Europe.
I'm also relieved that my bike and body were able to cope, three years and three surgeries on from the Tour D'Afrique. The next challenge, now that I can hold my right arm above my head and therefore can actually swim again, is to attempt a triathlon.
For our first dinner we made full use of our apartment to cook pasta with white sauce and to indulge my watermelon lust. We bought a local pasta that was very dense (almost tasting undercooked) and caused me a moderate amount of stomach pain the next day!
Since Bologna, we've been seeing small Piaggio trucks parked on intersections with piles of watermelons being sold. Lacking culinary facilities and a way to store and carry an entire watermelon, we abstained. Here, however, it becomes much more feasible - and for a whole €1.60, we bought 5 kilograms worth of delicious watermelon. There was no knife in our apartment though, so we had to butcher the watermelon with a spatula. This worked surprisingly well, no doubt due to the sheet metal like thickness (or lack of) of the spatula.
The ride into Bari from Pescara was surprisingly quick thanks to a wondrous tailwind which pushed our average speed up to 17.7 mph, over 5.52.12 hours and 96.01 miles. We made fantastic time into Foggia which allowed us time to stop at a gelateria /caffe for an espresso (Phil) and hot chocolate (me). It was a bit of a gruelling ride after that and our accommodation in Bari (at the B&B La Finestra Sul Centro) was depressingly unlike the advertised room. The en-suite was actually just guaranteed sole use of a bathroom and many of the promised furnishings were not present. Still, they had air conditioning and wifi so things were ok! They also didn't take payment by card as they had advertised...
In Bari itself we spent some time looking for a barber to get rid of my wonderful beard (and to see if people still thought I was Greek after that, they were amusingly confused by my ethnicity - having been asked three times that day). After some fun we found a place that said they did it but operated a bizarre queueing system where, despite waiting for longer, I was served after 2 other customers. Still, eventually I was served and although there was a moment of concern as the barber apparently tried to stop my face from bleeding, it was a smooth shave and I came out €5 poorer and looking ten years younger. In this time Phil managed to get his hair cut at one of the hair dressers (but not a barber) that we had come across in our search for a barber.
After this, we wandered into the Bari old town which was a delightful assortment of tiny streets, ancient buildings interspersed with many bars and restaurants. Motorcycles and scooters rocketed up the narrow streets with such speed that I can only imagine the honed reflexes their riders must have. We stopped at a bar in one of the streets that also happened to be a lottery outlet, selling a wide variety of scratchcards. It was doing good business. After this we went to the sea front and saw locals (although probably just tourists like us) patronising a stall selling what appeared to be fried cheese. Curious, Phil and I bought a bag for 2 Euros. The rectangular slabs were doused in salt and were initially palatable but we quickly felt ill after a handful. We threw half of the bag away in the end and marvelled at how this was even an economically feasible business.
Feeling quite hungry, we managed to get swept into a pizzeria with terrible service that lined one of the tiny side streets. Several times our waiter was almost bowled over by a buzzing scooter coming down the street at pace. Spotting several groups of teenagers walking towards the sea with gelato, our after dinner mission was made clear. The piazza they were coming from was absolutely humming with activity making a pleasant contrast to the apparently deserted town we had ridden into.
The final ride into Brindisi was equally rapid and we managed the 73.41 miles in 4.24.21 hours, an average of 16.6 mph. There was some confusion finding our route out of Bari at first and we accidentally rode illegally down a highway for a couple of miles. We soon realised that actually it was taking us down a parallel single lane road that was much less trafficked and where bicycles were legally permitted!
This single lane road became parts of the old Roman Road after a while, which was beautiful and somewhat technically challenging to cycling down. Most of it has been re paved but as is typical of Italian roads, it was heavily potholed. The road took us amongst some pleasant lime groves and then further amongst some other (unknown) fruit farms. Occasionally our route took us along the coast and I found a wondrously stark piece of rocky beach which was devoid of sunbathing Italians.
We soon arrived to Brindisi, alarmed a little at the sheer number of used pregnancy tests that lined the base of the Brindisi town sign. We've been taking it pretty easy here, it's a small enough town centre to walk around in a day. We spent most of half a day looking for packing materials (eventually settling on bits of cardboard), cleaning and then packing our bikes. Our B&B owner was a little concerned at the size of the bikes when packaged, since he was providing us with transport to the airport. I half suspected he would turn up in a Fiat Panda or a similar tiny hatchback. Thankfully he had some sort of MPV which fit our bikes horizontally.
For our last meal in Brindisi, we visited a busy restaurant on the waterfront where I had my LAST Italian pizza which, thankfully, was as excellent as always. (I'm not looking forward to the relatively doughy American pizzas.) After dinner, I tried grappa, a brandy like spirit which is served in all the restaurants here. Phil had warned me that it was foul stuff but I didn't think it could be that bad. It was as terrible as he had suggested and I could not finish it. Lesson learned.
This morning we had an uneventful check in at the Brindisi airport although they did come find us twice after we had passed security - once to rescan our pannier bags which we were carrying onto the plan and again to ask us to deflate our tyres. Extensive online discussion suggests that this isn't strictly necessary but most airport staff wrongly seem to think it has to be done.
On the Ryanair flight back to London, that truly concludes this tour. I'll post one further writeup of the tools we used to plan the trip since this took some trial and error. It's been great fun and passing through fairly small places, we were able to truly experience both Italy and France - and not just the most heavily trafficked tourist cities. France was somewhat awkward (albeit with excellent pastries) and Italy has been superb. I think it is now my all-round favourite country in Europe.
I'm also relieved that my bike and body were able to cope, three years and three surgeries on from the Tour D'Afrique. The next challenge, now that I can hold my right arm above my head and therefore can actually swim again, is to attempt a triathlon.
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