Ode a San Francisco

My application season is slowing down a little this week, so I'm taking the occasion to look at my old pictures and see how many wonderful things I have to write about. This year has been full of really unexpected things, and I will for sure remember it for the rest of my life. Here I want to record some of the impressions of the really good things that happened.. and since a lot of them has happened in San Francisco, I want to dedicate this post to this wonderful city. If I were a director, I would set a movie here. The landscapes are just unbeatable. So here are a few snapshots for you, my dear readers, from the non super-touristic places of the city. Imagine some nice music in the background while you start this tour.

We begin with the symbol of the city: the Golden Gate bridge, in all its beauty, from Baker beach. Brave people actually go for swims here. I just had a walk and enjoyed the beautiful landscape. If you look around, you can also find reasons to giggle a little... Baker's beach, close to the bridge in particular, is populated by people who don't like too many clothes on. :)
Here instead is the Palace of Fine Arts. It's a really nice area of the city, and the Exploratorium is there: amazing science museum full of hands-on activities that captivated me. I've actually learned a lot of things by playing around in the museum for a few hours, and managed to visit only about 1/4 of it. Definitely recommended to visit if you have time.

This is the Conservatory of Flowers, in the Golden Gate Park. Beautiful building. I still have to visit inside, I think it's going to be as wonderful as the outside.

And this is another beach, the French beach, close to Lincoln Park: looking west..
.. and East, another view of the bridge:
The fog is coming! This part of the city is almost always foggy.
This is the Thinker, a statue outside the Legion of Honor, another beautiful museum in this part of the city:
If you go on Sunday (at least in Summer time), you'll listen to a free organ lesson-concert. Well, this is my post for today. I will leave you with this last picture of SF by night. This shot is taken from the top of Twin Peaks. Notice the Bay Bridge, on the right side of the picture. It's so beautiful, both during the day and at night. The view at night from this hill is just amazing, my picture is just a very reduced part of it. Going up Twin Peaks is unbelievable: it's like suddenly going in the country side, and it's in the middle of San Francisco!
Obviously, there is a lot more to see of this wonderful city. I hope I captured your attention - I will try to write more about it soon.

Alba

I already posted about the sunset view from my window. Yesterday I discovered that the sunrise is as charming as the sunset. However, the sunrise arrives subtly, and you can see it from the reflections in the colors of the clouds.. it would be impossible to see the sun rising from the ocean, as we're facing west.
Do you see the moon, almost full, high up in the sky? This was the first shot I took in the morning. It was around 5.45 am (just as a point: I'm not usually up this early, it just happened that for some strange reason I couldn't sleep, and seeing this view was a wonderful gift). A few minutes later the sky was more and more violet, as you can see here behind the Campanile.
The colors kept changing, and there was a white light diffused all over, which reflected in the water of the bay, while the rising pink sunlight reflected in the skyscrapers windows of San Francisco.
And then at some point, the Golden Gate bridge changed color, and became pink! I had never seen something like this. In the very clear days, you can see the red color of the bridge from our windows. But this pink color was unseen. This is the best picture I managed to take, although it doesn't completely capture this phenomenon.
I'm not sure when I'll be up so early in the morning again, but this view was definitely worth it.

La marina di Berkeley

There are a few spots that I particularly love in Berkeley and that I haven't really mentioned in this blog earlier. I will start describing one of them in this post, and the second one will come later. Here I'll talk about the Berkeley Marina. You can see where it is on this map, which is a personalized Google Map that I started updating. You'll have to look around for it.

View Larger Map
I started making this personalized Google Map of Berkeley, with all the spots I like, including places to visit, restaurants, cafes, shops. I'll keep updating it, so you can check on this link if you want to see later versions.
Ever since I first went to the Marina, I fell in love with this spot, and the Hugo Chavez park that on one side faces San Francisco and the Golden Gate, and on the other Berkeley hills. Today I went there, and I took a few pictures during one of the most sunny days I've seen in Berkeley.
This is a view from one of the tallest hills of the Hugo Chavez Park, looking at San Francisco. During such a beautiful day, lots of sailing boats were there. It would be pretty cool to try to go on a boat here, and I'm sure I will, one of these days: for example, thanks to the open house days at the Cal sailing club.
A lot of people come on this hill to fly kites. I have actually never flown a real kite in my life. It seems like it could be fun! I took some pictures of the pretty kites in the sky:
Such beautiful colors, and the wind was perfect, so people could get them really high up in the sky.
And many interesting shapes!
Many months ago, I came here at the sunset. Here is a shot of San Francisco again, in this completely different atmosphere, from about the same spot.
I surely wasn't the only one admiring the sunset:
And I also want to show the view from the other side of the park, with Berkeley and the hills. It has its own charm:
And what about these colors? Breathtaking.
So if you happen to come to Berkeley, visit the marina, any time of the day or night. I went to walk on the long pier last night, and the image of the moon reflected on the water, and the lights of San Francisco, were an amazingly beautiful show.

Perche' dicevo che sono alquanto contenta..

Today I received my new camera, so I can start taking pictures again, at last! I'm really excited about this, and also, I'm extremely impressed by the quality of this new camera I bought. It's a Canon PowerShot A570. I spent the past few hours taking pictures from my new apartment, and the results of these first few attempts are just beautiful, in my opinion. I'm happy to show them here, so my dear readers can begin to understand why I decided to rent this apartment.. :)
This is a part of the view from our living room, without zooming in. It's the sunset, about an hour after I arrived home.
In the living room, we have five windows, looking over the bay. We see San Francisco, the Golden Gate Bridge, the Bay Bridge, Oakland, the Sausalito peninsula.. And from the small 'office' room we have, we see the campus:
In the next few pictures, I'm going to show you some zoom-ins of the sunset over the Bay Area, and some night shots that I took afterwards. As usual, you can click on them to expand them.
The Golden Gate Bridge:
The sky is in flames:
And everything looks so peaceful:
And it's now turning more and more pink:
Again the Golden Gate Bridge, with a pink sky behind:
And everything is now pink, and a few lights start being turned on:
And with this amazing camera I can take a picture of the skyline of San Francisco, with the sunlight from the sunset reflected on the windows of the skyscrapers:
Now it's dark purple, and more and more lights are on:
Here is almost night, and you can see the beautiful lights of San Francisco and of the Bay Bridge:
And now it's really nighttime. If you use your imagination, you can match the lights with the pictures that I was showing earlier: the Golden Gate bridge is there, in the distance..
Whereas this part with all the lights is the Oakland port:
And at last, here is the Campanile, the symbol of our university, at night:
This is it for today. Now you can understand why I started working more from home, and why I'm so happy to have found this place.. I'll show you more beautiful things about this apartment in some more posts to come :)

Acquario di Monterey

Last Saturday Lucas, Sonya and I went to visit Monterey and Santa Cruz. I was particularly amazed by the visit of the aquarium in Monterey. It's huge, and everything is beautifully arranged in gigantic pools of water where fishes of all kinds swim around, and smaller ones where the beauty of the colors of the plants and other inhabitants of the ocean really touched me. I want to share a few pictures of these wonders here, and you can see more on my Picasa Web album.

Some of the most amazing things to see were the school fish. They really seem to be one whole entity, which can move in a super fluid way, divide and reunite when something approaches them.
The anemones have some of the prettiest colors
.. and their waving in the water is amazingly elegant.
All the plants and animals in the deepest oceans have the most beautiful colors. But everything is dark, in reality, down there, so no one is attracted or repelled by their brightness. They just are colorful, for no reason. This is an amazing wonder in my opinion.
One of the richest and most beautiful sections is that of jellyfishes. Their elegance of movements and transparency fills everybody with awe.


There were also some very small ones, which were so numerous that the whole pool of water seemed to be pulsing. Unfortunately I couldn't take a good picture of them. We also saw a 'Sun fish', which was huge, and seemed to be brought directly from the Mesozoic. Truly, seeing the life in the oceans really filled me with awe and admiration.

Ristoranti Asiatici in Berkeley

I've been collecting pictures of food I ordered in good restaurants here in Berkeley and closeby, and now I think it's a good moment to post a little summary of a few of them. The theme of this post is going to be 'Asian Restaurants in (or very close to) Berkeley'. I'll describe a Szechuan Chinese, a Nepalese and a Modern Vietnamese restaurant that I went to in the past few months.

China Village
This is a Chinese restaurant serving very traditional Szechuan cuisine, located on 1335 Solano Ave (Albany). From the outside, it doesn't look very pretty (or at least, not as pretty as all the other restaurants on Solano). Still, I went here because one of my Chinese groupmates told me that it was the BEST chinese restaurant in the whole Bay Area, the most authentic one. I've been there twice, and I must say, it hasn't disappointed my expectations of authenticity. It's completely different from any other Chinese restaurant I've been to. The food is quite spicy and oily. This is the characteristic of Szechuan cuisine, and you have to keep it in mind. You can find some non spicy food, but you have to look for it.
One of the best things we had were this wonderful bread:
In my ignorance, I didn't know that Chinese had also such good bread. All the restaurants I've been to always served rice. This bread is quite soft, and stuffed with vegetables. A must-try if you go to this place.
The best dish we had was a wonderful pork roast, which unfortunately I didn't take a picture of and I don't remember the exact name. The description said that it was cooked for hours in a special mixture of spices. It's spicy and sweet and cinnamony and soft - even for someone who's not that big on meat like I am, it was delicious.
I must tell you, though, to follow the suggestions of the waiters. The will tell you what is really very chinese and they don't think that Westerners will like. We tried some stew which was really chewy for us.. and I really wanted to try 'bitter melon', so I ordered 'bitter melon with eggs'. The plate looked great:
So colorful. But the bitter melon is really bitter! It was like eating a medicine, in the first bites. I tried to finish it (at home), and I finally ate it, mixed up with other vegetables and sauces, but it took me a while to get used to it. So, if you're vegetarian and you don't want to try this .. interesting experience..., I'd recommend getting the eggplant with soy bean paste - they were really good.
So, pay attention to what you order.. everything will be an experience - in the end, it's nice to have something that's really authentic, to understand what people eat far away in the world.
Prices: low - also because I'd recommend sharing your dishes (one is usually more than enough for two people or more..)
Service: variable - depends on how many people there are, but in general, ok. There is a guy who seems to be more like the owner, who was suggesting to us what to have and what not to have, at some point.

Yak and Yeti
This is a recently opened Nepalese restaurant located on 2985 College Avenue, Berkeley. It's owned by the same people who own the small shop 'Derby' that's a few blocks from our place - we like them, and they really insisted on us trying their restaurant. Of course, I was curious, and we went. It was a delicious experience. They serve only organic food. He recommended to us 'Chicken Momo', these great dumplings, as appetizers:
They were very good. Then, he suggested to have the specials - I had a vegeterian one and Lucas the lamb version. Unfortunately I don't remember the names, but they have only four specials in their menu - and I promise I'll update this post as soon as I go back to the restaurant. They came with rice, and some greens and various sauces. It was really good, especially Lucas's (mine was a bit less intriguing). The taste was slightly similar to an Indian dish, if you want to have a comparison, but the spices were somewhat different, and it was less greasy than most Indian restaurants around.
So.. we'll definitely go back! Ah, and one more thing: if you go to the upstairs floor, the ambiance is very particular: the tables are very low, and you eat seated on cushions! My friend told me it's the usual way they have their meals.. so, one more plus for the authentic experience!
Prices: moderate (~$20-25 a meal, depending on what you get)
Service: good (a little slow, but it was good to feel relaxed - sometimes they didn't seem to understand 100% what we were saying though)

Bui
This is another restaurant on Solano Avenue (1647 Solano Ave, Berkeley). It's defined 'Modern Vietnamese cuisine' - we went there last week, after our trip to Sonoma.
The atmosphere is very elegant, and the food is presented very nicely. It's definitely the most 'upscale' in this small collection. We went there with Sonya, whose mom had explained to her some tricks of Vietnamese cuisine. So we had some fried rolls with meat and vegetables, as appetizers, which we were explained by Sonya how to eat: take a piece of a leaf of the lettuce that comes with the dish, put a piece of roll and a leaflet of mint inside, and wrap the lettuce around. Dip in the sauce and eat! It was very good.
All the entrees we had were also delicious, although I think mine was the best:
It was 'basa' (a fish, similar to bass but not bass), broiled with some delicious spices around, served with mango salad. I really liked it. Sonya had some filet, and Lucas a curried duck. Also their dishes were very good. We also shared a Creme Brulee with lime as dessert - this was wonderful, served with a leaf of basil! So, I'd recommend this place especially if you're in the mood of something a bit 'special', or for a date.
Prices: moderate/high (~30 dollar a meal tip included, no wine)
Service: perfect - the waitress was super attentive and not overwhelming

Sonoma Valley

I've been wanting to go to Sonoma Valley in a while, and at last Sonya, Lucas and I decided to just hop on the car and go! We read a few things about the wineries and Sonoma, but not too much.. we just wanted to see how it was.
I was very pleased by the fact that it wasn't super crowded as I was thinking - evidently it's really true that Napa is a lot more famous than Sonoma. I enjoyed the scenery and the sun - for once this summer I was hot!
It's not comparable at all with the wine growing country I'm used to - Le Langhe, in Piemonte. Here there are almost no hills, and what's most amazing is that it's a desert! Wherever people don't water, there's only dry soil and burnt grass. It's amazing that it's one of the most important wine counties of the US.
Given the fact that we left at 1.30 pm (after Mass and brunch, it was Sunday!), we had time only to visit three wineries. In particular, we went at Mayo (on Sonoma's main square), Valley of the Moon and Cohn's. Among these three, I preferred by far Valley of the Moon (see here one of their corners):
The lady who was serving the wine for the tasting was really nice, and their wines were very good. We had a Barbera that amazed me - in Piemonte, Barbera is the cheapest wine, and that's kind of acidic and tart (basically, I don't like it). This was so good we bought a bottle of it. We also bought a bottle of Pinot Gris which we really liked. It wasn't super expensive (~$18 a bottle - much more than I would normally pay, but for once it's ok), and the tasting was free (it's the only place we found). The wines at Mayo were also good, but too expensive. I wasn't enthusiastic of the white selection that Cohn's had us taste.
In the end, it was a very nice day - thanks to Lucas who volounteered to drive and didn't drink as much as Sonya and I ;) - we'll go again and visit more! For the moment, enjoy the beauty of these grapes:
I love their color, in the sun.

Berkeley Botanical Garden

When we went to see the Titanus, we also visited a large part of the Botanical Garden. Apparently it's the second largest in the US! It's really nice, with plants really from all over the world. One of the most impressive sections is that of cactuses and such.
They have thousands of them in several greenhouses, with shapes that I never saw even in movies:
And outside, huge ones:Some of them were flowering:
On top of the hill, there are the European plants, and the 'garden of old roses', with plants from the XIX century! Here are some flowering daliae:
There is also a Japanese garden, with a peaceful and beautiful small lake, with water lillies. This was one of our favorite places.
So, if you're around Berkeley, this is a nice place to visit. There are also picnic tables here and there. It's free for affiliated of UC Berkeley and Lawrence Hall of Science... I'm going to come here more often!