Mitt liv som Tobin

Another weekend trip to Berlin. It's getting to be a habit.

Ryan (<lj-user="four">) was there. The spring weather was sublime, warm and sunny and glorious and everybody was outside. I brought the dog along. We hung out at the old Tempelhof airfield and at Görlitzer park and at Mauerpark and at the Prater Garten. We had a delicious brunch at Edelweiss, delicious burgers at BurgerMeister, and we hung out along the canals in the late evening drinking Helles.

Next trip to Berlin will be paid for by Nokia (job interview).

I'm getting kind of restless, starting to think more and more about what I'll do after I'm done here, next year. Not in any kind of concrete sense, but in the restless sort of daydreaming way. Next year, next year. I'm not actually any closer to graduation in any real sense, mind you, but I feel the gears in my mind turning, setting up for departure.

Ryan's talking about Oakland. When I first heard this, I thought I was over the bay area. But the more it rests in my mind, the more perfect it seems. The more the East Bay sounds like home. The cool weather, wearing hoodies, drinking good coffee, the bad smelling bart trains, all the good food, the spectacular view of the bay, being near UC Berkeley and being connected again to the real world.

San Diego also sounds appealing. Not the horrible sprawling North County, but the bikeable, diverse, funny old neighborhoods around North Park, Hillcrest, Normal Heights. The ocean and UCSD.

Mission Restaurant, North Park - San Diego, California

Ryan (four) in a subway station. April 16, 2006.

We went to New York this weekend. My first trip since I moved to this state to that eponymous metropolis.

I've been to New York before. On a school trip in 1997 (note hilarious contemporary website; also, the most high-brow travel with which I've ever been associated). Then passing through on my Grand Public Transportation Adventure of 2001. On that trip I came home from school one day and realized it was the beginning of spring break. I called Continental Airlines and left a couple hours later, leaving a few vague voicemails with long-unseen friends alluding to (threatening?) my impending arrival. That was a good trip, my first forray into what I suppose is called "independent travel." The extent of my stay in NYC proper, though, was to walk from Penn Station to Grand Central. I read Catcher In The Rye and visited all my friends in fancy colleges. Another time in transit between Chinatown busses.

This trip was to visit Chris. There were four of us, me and Bree and Lisa and Ryah. We wandered lazy Brooklyn streets. We drank beer at sidewalk cafes, examined free things on sidewalks. Ate delicious Mexican food at a twenty-four hour diner. Bree spoke a lot of Spanish. We slept on the hardwood floor of Chris's little apartment, made cozy by our bundles of blankets and pillows. It was a hot night. Sat on the fire escape. Attended a show in a hipster cave, Cloyne Court co-opers playing at Cakeshop. Walked across the Brooklyn bridge. Chris's apartment is littered with the remnants of our old apartment, lending a strange familiarity to the scene.

On Saturday before Easter it rained cherry blossoms upon us, hand-in-hand, in Central Park (okay, I'm told they are crab apple blossoms, but that's just not quite so poetic) and Bree and I walked a bit of the Met in exchange for our token $1 contribution, but the grandeur of the weekend was the lazy times in Brooklyn.

ryan: "Did you have a stamp collection when you were a kid?"
tobo: "What do you mean, 'when i was a kid'?"
ryan: ...
tobo: "you're just trying to judge how big a nerd i really am!"

tobo: "If it doesn't contain cheese—it's not food!"
tara: "are you half french or something?"

I am in Encinitas now, just north of San Diego. I came here on the train, the Metrolink train from Orange County. The train follows the shore—out the window you see surfers bobbing in the sea.

Ryan and I drove south to La Jolla to see Erin.. she has a beautiful house in La Jolla that is something like the antithesis of La Jolla, all wood and a firepit out back, nice housemates and a trampoline and friendly dogs too. We sat around the fire and then walked barefoot to the beach, I entranced by the ocean and the beautiful company. We saw the famous adopted bird-poop cactus too. I jumped on the trampoline.

Before entering the house we paused in the street, listening to the waves crash a block away.

"Fuck New York," Ryan concluded.

I would have stayed forever, but Ryan said it was time to go—tore away. With luck we'll camp at Cataviña tomorrow in the heart of Baja. In the morning we set out for the first phase of our trip: The transpeninsular highway. All of it. Looking forwards and looking back.

Just back from Baja (as of around midnight last night), and what a wonderful trip it was. Some memorable moments:

• cheerios and bananas in the sun on the steps
• street tacos in ensenada
• la bufadora -- "the snorter"
• the perfect camp site
• campfire stories, beans without a spoon
• mango for breakfast
• downtown cafe
• finding out that megan is friends with zestyping and other berkeleyans
• fish tacos for brunch
• tamales for lunch
• backroads of punta banda
• snorkeling near camp kennedy
• highway 3 through baja's "wine country"
• steak dinner in tecate
• "your papers please" - trafficking an alien

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four posted some more pictures, including an amazing panorama.