0 This is what happened: Grace at 00:04

The first time I saw her, she was standing at the corner of the crosswalk in front of school, which would be totally normal, if it wasn't noon, in the middle of August, a month before school started.. While I waited on the other side for cars to pass by, I noticed her clutching her phone in one hand, alternately down at it and up at the street, scanning for a familiar car. The street cleared and I started crossing, my friends chatting behind me.

We made eye contact as I passed. I kept walking, but I already knew, in that moment, I was damned to turn around and talk to her. "Hold on a sec," I said to my friends, and jogged a bit back to the girl. "Hi. Are you waiting for somebody?"

She nodded.

"Have you been waiting for a while?"

Thirty minutes, she said.

"Is he coming soon?"

He said an hour, or two.

"Well, we're going to my house for some lunch and video games during our band camp break. Why don't youo wait at my house? It's just a minute's walk, you can see it from here.

She hesitated.

"It's really hot outside. Come on, I won't take no for an answer."

And so she came with us to my house. I had no idea what my friends thought of me having invited a random girl who none of knew to our lunch and Smash Bros. Melee party, but I preoccupied myself with asking her questions. She was a sophomore at Uni and her name was Grace.

She ended up sitting on the couch, holding a cup of water, with the tanned and sweaty boys yelling at the television and each other. I'm not sure what she did when she was out of my sight as I fried green onion pancakes in the kitchen and laughed with my friends. I pretended to not listen as I heard her saying on the phone, Where are you now, I've been waiting for an hour, Fine, Fine, Whatever, and she hung up and we made eye contact and I smiled but she didn't. Or couldn't.

When we left, I said she could stay at my house until her friend picked her up, just leave the door unlocked because it's never locked, but she wanted to go back to waiting at the corner, so we walked with her on our way to school, and left her standing at the corner of the crosswalk the last time I saw her.

0 Assorted knowledge 2: Public transportation edition at 23:47

Public transportation

1. Use Bart.gov and nextmuni.com
 -My tip for coordinating your trip: you can use nextmuni (and nextbus) to see when you'll arrive at a destination by setting the stop to your destination instead of your current destination.
  -I thought google maps' public transportation function was extremely functional for this, but it actually grabs information for bus and Bart times from a schedule, not real time, so it's useless at night. Bart.gov and nextbus gives information in real time.
 
2. If you're not going to campus, it takes about the same time to get to Southside from either downtown Berkeley station or Rockridge station, by walking or bus.
2.a) That said, Rockridge is one stop from MacArthur station, but Downtown Berkley is two.

3. Making a little effort to go to the farther cars (on the ends) when it's busy will get you a better chance of a seat. And a quieter/less crowded car.

4. At night, the 51B at Rockridge will wait for people from Bart.

5. At night, trains from Rockridge and Downtown Berkeley will wait for each other at Macarthur station, so if two are leaving from each station at about about the same time, just go to the closer station.

1 Assorted knowledge from one with a foot on either side of the bay at 14:00

Driving
1. During rush hour, just stay in the same lane on the 80 going east (out of the city), as long as it's not the rightmost lane (the one that people force themselves into after zooming by traffic in the exit lane). Everything gets faster once you get on the bridge, especially after treasure island.

2. Certain streets have timed lights so you never have to stop. Franklin, Fell and Oak: 25mph. Sunset and Great Highway (both directions): 30 mph.

2.a) coming up Sunset at night: if you get caught at the first red light (after the turn), you will also be caught at the immediate next one. But if you accelerate to at least 50 mph between the two, you will make the second and all consequent green lights (coast back down to 30mph!)

3. Going to the outer Sunset, with no traffic, going 280 ->brotherhood -> sunset is faster than 80/101->fell.

3.a) At night, do not speed on 101 south. You can speed on 280 south.

3.b) cops often wait after the turn on the bridge around Treasure Island.

4. Do not ever go up College St during rush hour. Even walking is faster. Instead, continue up Claremont and Piedmont to get to campus.

5. The 24->80 merging section is the worst designed piece of highway ever. As soon as possible after the turn, get to the leftmost lane (if going to the bridge). You can go back to the fastpass lane after it splits to 80 and 580.

6. Going to University is faster via Oxford than Shattuck. (tip from Glenda Tam)

Parking
7. Only "I" parking is free on Saturday. Not D.
5.a) the north (left) side of Dwight st, after college, is I, but the right side is D.

8. Arrive between 5 and 6pm on Friday. It is after people leave for the weekend and before all the people coming for evening stuff arrive.

9. No one ever parks on Dwight and Piedmont/warring, but it's all I up there.

10. There are segments of Ashby near Fulton that you can park forever.

11. You can park on Campus on the weekends (for about $1.50/hr)! Perfect for hitting up grad receptions but not parking super far away.

0 That; This is what I think about at 14:49

Gasps of either laughter or sobs.
Hesitancy, silence before a yes or a no.
Eyes, a window of pained thoughts, but of whose pain?
"I'm sorry." for what?
The thrill, the hope - I want to know you.

0 This is what I think about that: Chillun's at 13:19

This halloween, I finally broke out of my traditional annual introvert shell by going out to Regeneration's Halloween event, Trunk or Treat.

Because Oakland in general is not a safe place to go around the neighborhood at night (much less also knocking on random neighbor's doors), Regeneration hosts an alternative evening in their parking lot and gym. Vehicles replace houses - trunks are filled with candy - and carnival-esque activities are held in the gym.

I was roped into the responsibility of hosting a mask-making table this year. Initially I was stressed about such responsibilty - I have to be artistic and creative and funny the whole evening? what if the kid asks me for a dragon mask? A butterfly? How can I express that in mask medium? - until Erin suggested the kids make the masks themselves. Which is the format Christina had in mind when she asked me, anyway. I'm not sure why I thought otherwise.

Hosting that table was very conducive to interacting with the kids, though initially, interaction did not cross my mind as I raced to keep up production with the demand for mask templates. When I discovered that both the five-to-eleven-year-olds and I were capable of coloring and talking at the same time, I started asking questions and starting conversations.

"What's your favorite candy?"
"What is your costume?"
"Are you gonna share with your parents?"

Speaking my cute/children's voice (which is half an octave higher than normal, and at a slower rate of speech), I started to realize how easily the questions and comments came, and I felt like I was following certain unspoken rules of engagement- compliment their costume no matter how much effort they (their parents) put into it, call every girl's costume cute and every boy's costume awesome, give overwhelmingly positive critiques of their masks (which were random blotches of color, though I'll be the first to day I'm not sure I could have done any better), etc.

I'd like to think being able to hold a conversation with kids, as shallow as it was, is a mark of good children skills. But speaking to them in these governed phrases seems insincere, like as an actor or vocalist and I felt like I was watching myself. I was now repeating the inane, obvious cliches I had heard other people use in their babble to kids. If I had only witnessEd people treat kids more maturely, would I also engage with them differently?

Yes, it makes me happy to see them happy. But the teacher in me constantly asks, "How can I teach them something from this?"

I found the parents easy to talk to as well, since we could talk about their kids. Plus, they were the only ones who got my costume. If an 8-year-old-asked me what I was, I just said, "It'll be funny when you're older."

P.S. My costume was: a formal apology.

0 Stories of Spain 6 at 18:00

"Jamon!" I proudly proclaimed to the same woman at the counter. She just nodded and a few minutes later gave me the same thing as the previous morning, the coffee and the ham-in-a-bun. Not even a smile! Well, I thought I was cute.

I took my luggage with me and got onto the 22 bus, the same as yesterday, hoping it would take me to Santa Justa station. Sooner or later as we got downtown and kept going, ignoring the mustard yellow street signs that pointed elsewhere to Santa Justa station, I realized this bus was not going to take me there.

I end up at Prado San Sebastian again, because it's the end of the line, and probably after 10 minutes of wandering around studying the maps, I understand I need to get on the 22 bus. After another 15 minutes, I find the island and stop where the 22 is, and get on as the drivers switch to a young woman with short, dyed black hair. After I find a seat, I observe her settling-in ritual, which involved reaching up to turn on satellite radio, and immediately James Blunt's You're Beautiful blasts through the bus's speakers. We listen to American pop for the rest of the ride and I wonder if Spain has their own pop music. (The answer is, not really).

At Santa Justa's ticket counter #10, I spend the initial two minutes trying to buy a train ticket using only the words "Cordoba" and several strategically paced "Si"s, to no avail. In a strain of rapid Spanish from the teller, I hear "Quantas horas?" I recognize 'quantas horas'. I repeat it back to him. We stare at each other significantly. I want to tell him numbers, but I only know how to count to 5 in Spanish.

He tries a different tack, and on the back of an invalid ticket he writes '12:35'. "Si." Underneath that, '17 euros'. I take out the money. He gives me my ticket and change. "Platform six," he says in merciful english.

I hustle all the way to the platform for my train that departs in four minutes, and have to put my bags through the x-ray. "Coach numero uno," the person who rips my ticket says, and those words mean nothing until I see lights on the car closest to me blink "coche no. 4", and I realize my car is all the way at the end.

A whistle blows through the station and I start running, dragging my luggage, trying to gain some traction with my Rainbows on the slippery floor. The last person through the door, a man wearing an orange polo and a wide grin, leans back out and helps me lift my bag onto the train as I arrive, panting. "Gracias," I mutter.

"De nada", he smiled. "Casi, e?" He continued with rapit short streams of Spanish in a tone that sounded like he wanted to be acknowledged but not necessarily answered, so I said "si" in politely hesistant intervals. I put my bag up and after I settle in my seat, I see the grinning man loudly cracking jokes with the people around him.

Then, I get kicked out of my seat by an old guy in a suit because it turns out trains have assigned seating.

0 Stories of Spain 5 at 12:11

Minimart

On the second evening in Cordoba, I discovered this candy shop/minimart in a little nook near the Plaza de Saint Nicolas. The entrance was not a door but simply heavy strips of plastic. Initially I was put off by the lack of air-conditioning, but the refridgerator of frias bebidas made up for it.

The first time, I bought a two-liter of water, and at the counter the young man just counted in his head and said, "uno bente." I showed him a handful of coins to have him take whatever he wanted, since I didn't understand numbers. As he handed me my change, though, I held up a 20 euro cent coin and asked, "como se dice?" (That means, "how do you say...", which is wrong - I should have asked "como se llama" - "what is the name of this" )

"Bente," he said, and then took a few more coins. "Dias", he said, holding up a 10-euro cent.

He held up a 50-cent, and I interjected, "cinquenta," the only number I knew. He smiled and nodded. 

"dias, bente, cinquenta," I repeated slowly.

Pictured: Flamenquin. Which is not ice cream nor water nor related to the rest of this post at all except it's in the same city

"Bien," he said, nodding. I thanked him and turned to leave, but two kids running through the plastic threshold collided with my navel.

"Perdon," one of them squeaked before their attention was totally taken over by the shelves of candy. I laughed.

On a Domingo (Sunday) afternoon, I went by the shop again for some ice cream on my way to the mosque cathedral. This time, there were four yelling girls already in the shop, unchaperoned. They could have been sisters, since each were a different age, and the eldest in a cleanly pressed uniform was trying to chaperone the others by yelling over than the others. I also assumed she was in charge since she had a fistful of coins in her hand.

It was chaotic; the three younger sisters would randomly grab something from a shelf and put it on the counter (one had to jump), obviously grabbing whatever they wanted, each time messing up the eldest sister who was trying to add up the cost and judge if their haphazard selection would go over their parent's allowance. To add more stress, one little sister would add another piece of candy or bag of chips while the eldest's back was turned as she reprimanded another one.

 The clerk and I made eye contact and I grinned, he rolled his eyes and said, "ninas."

In the meantime I communicated that I wanted a scoop of vanilla ice cream in a cone, though he couldn't fulfill my order while the girls were still throwing and removing things from the counter. Eventually they shorted it all out and the younger three ran out of the shop as the eldest counted the coins in her hand and handed them over.

And then I got my ice cream.

0 Stories of Spain 4 at 13:36

When my friend Sarah comes back in the afternoon (and after my nap), we look for ice cream but end up sitting in a Starbucks reading for a few hours. If you know me, that is actually an activity I thoroughly enjoy as a tourist, or as a person in general.

Anyway, as the afternoon wears on and it cools off, I notice rollerbladers. At first it was the occasional solo or wobbly couple, but it becomes too frequent and regular to be a fluke. People actually take it seriously as a form of transportation.

After Sarah goes home for dinner I stay at Starbucks for two more hours, then force myself to explore more. I walk through the gardens in front of the Alcaraz, and find an interesting, well-lit fountain with a lion on top.

On the other side of the Alcazar are more restaurants and shops and bars. I spend an hour slowly eating a flan, and journaling.

I like flan in the states better. Or whatever it it's called. Custard?

At around midnight we explore an international food festival, which means tents featuring beers from that country. I didn't take a picture but I had a samosa from Thailand, and then we played on some really awesome playground structures. Also at one point this drunk guy stopped me and told me I was Asian.

We walk back some 3 km to Sarah's house at 1 AM. On the way a guy on a bike asked us for directions. Well, asked Sarah, I guess. On a big bridge, we pass by the fire station, which bears the emblem of Sevilla in the middle. Sorry you can't see it clearly, but if you're curious, just look it up.

 Featuring Sarah on the right.

I end up taking a taxi home after fruitlessly for a bus for half an hour. I get back for 8 euros instead of 12. The first taxi ripped me off. At last I go to sleep at 2 AM.

0 Stories of Spain 3 at 23:10

Let's start with the most important thing, eh? Food!

On my first full day in Sevilla, I went outside across the plaza to where a few other groups of people were sitting outside, eating breakfast. Wait, is that beer they're drinking? It's 10 o'clock in the morning. Hm. I went inside, to the counter, confident in my meager strategy of pointing at something on the menu randomly (which, you know, worked out so well for me the night before). But there was no menu, no chalkboard or signs or papers of any sort at all. I guess people just know what they want for breakfast, all the time. As my eyes wandered around looking for words with a price next to them, the large lady behind the counter stared at me intensely, hands on her hips.

I looked at her and sighed, still mute. "Caffe?" She said. I nodded, and she turned around quickly and added some grounds into the machine, and turned back to me. "Con leche?" leche means milk! and con means "with". I nodded again (maybe a feeble "si" came out). She put the cup on a saucer with a spoon and a packet of sugar (azucar). But I didn't move. I wanted at least some bread, dang it. I pointed at the basket of bread I suddenly noticed, and she took one and sliced it and put it in the open toaster. She says something in Spanish that I interpret as, "Anything else?" I point at the thin slices of ham I see in front of the basket. When the bread comes out, she drizzles the halves with liquid butter from a decanter, and puts piece of the ham in it. It goes on a plate, too, and I take them outside.

Well I'll be damned if it isn't delicious. The bread is warm and very soft when I expected it to be dense. The butter, well, it's liquid butter and soaking through to the plate, but the ham is also good. I empty the whole packet of sugar into the coffee and it's palatable.

I meet up with my friend Sarah, who's studying abroad in Sevilla, and we go downtown for the sights.

The entrance of the cathedral in Sevilla

We walk around the touristy area and down charmingly claustrophobic Spanish cobblestone streets. I hardly notice any of the shops and their wares as we catch up. Sarah goes home for lunch and I find a little restaurant in an alleyway around the corner of the cathedral.

Featured in this picture: Other people, and my Kindle.

I ended up taking a nap on a park bench, with my bag as a pillow hoping I wouldn't get jacked while I slept. Which I didn't! A nice siesta for me in the shade.

0 Stories of Spain 2 at 14:25

Before we begin, a picture of the jam session from the last post:

The most important thing about life in Spain that I didn't listen to was that everything is later.
Lunch is late. Dinner is even later. I'd generally say everything is about two hours later than typical life in America, and I could have factored that into the jetlag thing. In Cordoba the past two days I've woken up at seven, showered and dressed by 7:30 and still was up before the sun. Forget about breakfast at that time, unless you're fine with capsule coffee and yesterday's sweet pastries. (Turns out, I was.) Lunch places don't even open for business until 13:30 (1:30 PM), and dinner typically starts at 20:00 (8 PM). I hadn't really considered this time thing when I read about it, because they said the same thing about the Dutch when I went to Amsterdam, and my schedule transferred pretty typically. They're actually quite serious about it here!
Anyway, to continue with a more chronological narration:

I took a taxi from Santa Justa estacion to my hotel, since it was 5 km or so away from the city center of Sevilla and I couldn't look up the bus lines before I got there. I checked into my hotel at 20:30, at which time the sun was still out and there were a lot of kids (maybe a hundred) in the plaza outside my hotel, playing football and running around and all sorts of kid things. I showered immediately and sent some emails to tell people I was still alive, and went down to the hotel restaurant because I was starving. Only the bar was open, however (this restaurant didn't follow the rest of Spain time), and there were a few men sitting at the counter watching the football game. I decided to be adventures and point at something random on the menu that was decently priced. Huevos Rotos con Salteado de Gulas it is! I recognized none of the words on the menu besides "tiramisu" anyway, and ignored everything in that section. What showed up was super interesting.

Huevos = egg. Rotos = broken. So huevos rotos means broken egg, or refers to everything but hardboiled eggs (am I right, Spanish-speakers?). True to its name the dish had two sunnyside eggs that were well-done. Underneath that were a bunch of freshly fried chips, so fresh from the pan that they were still soaked in oil to the point that it would collect and drip as I transferred it to my mouth. But that's not what Salteado de Gulas was. That referred to the layer of white and gray worm-looking things between the eggs and the soggy chips. I suspected they were eels or seafood or something, because it was way too wobbly and uniformly thin to be strips of pork or any other meat. I don't eat seafood, by the way, I'm allergic to at least shellfish and aversive to everything else. I ate one but it was indistinguishably salty from the eggs and chips, and I started to feel nauseated so I didn't eat anymore. So for 6 euros, my first meal in Spain was essentially two eggs, a piece of gulas and some chips until I got sick of the grease. I found out the next morning that gulas = baby eels. Sigh.

I was exhausted but I took a walk around, just to explore. At other bars down my block there were a lot more people watching the game, sitting around and drinking. Other than that it was really quiet. I went back to my room and passed out.