Monday, October 22, 2012

Visit with me... San Francisco Bay Area : OAKLAND!

OAKLAND!!  
The Mystery of Oakland! My life in San Francisco Bay Area with mysteries!! 

I moved the direction San Francisco in California. 
I posted on the craigslist a post looking for a flatshare or for the subleting a room. One man wrote me and offered me a nice small room in his appartement. We settled some rules, and all was clear and I could move in. What a coincidence, I knew one person in SF Bay area, Jeff and he lived aswell in Oakland. Be honest I have never heard before about Oakland.
And I must say with this started all the mystery of Oakland.
I got  a clean room in Oakland, what a relieve after the messy room in New York!! 
In the Orange Street.  The man, Abe, helped me to buy a bike, I was very thankful to him, afterwards, it was so great to move around on the bike. I traveled also to SF with MY bike!    
I spent 6 weeks in the SF Bay Area. In the city I have never heard about before and after I got to know the small city at the ocean, in the Bay area, so well. It is the busiest port of the SF Bay Area and the third biggest city of the SF Bay area. 
The mystery is that almost all people I got to know in San Francisco come from OAKLAND!!

In Wholefood in Oakland I was sitting next one guy, who wrote and wrote so I asked him what he writes, --- well, it revealed that he, Evan is also an author! We got good friends and he introduced my to other friends who live also in Oakland! 

 Jeff invited me to some parties in Oakland, and I got to know there aswell some new nice folk, artist, musician, I like to meet again, who inspired me! Tony, the bookseller, who I met in SF comes from Oakland... Czaba too, he has a nice literary magazine, I also met in San Francisco, both belong to the Revolutionary Poets Brigade... Here you can see the meeting, I was invited to, thanks to the poet Jack Hirschmann, the leader of the Brigade. See on the pic with the hat.. 
In the bart from Oakland to SF, I went almost daily I got to know some nice people, who came later to my reading or they invited me to some event... so far, Oakland is my destiny. I like Oakland, city between the sleep and wake up, near to Berkeley. At the ocean with much better weather than SF. Well, the summer in San Francisco was my worst summer I ever had in my life, concerning weather. So cold, so windy, so dark... this SF after 3pm. Don´t go to SF without a winter jacket!! 
Ok, I was so happy to stay in Oakland. A city with a wonderful Meritt Lake and I called it Duck Lake, there were so MANY DUCKS, and I used the large lake for jogging, wonderful! 
All my friends come from this half-moving, half-sleeping-town. I was lucky, I was in the moving part. I met there artists, musicians, authors, well, great people they try to move this small city, to become artsy, to become cool... and it is near to Berkeley, the city of univesity, which is nice, tropical, far from a bad weather like SF. 




And OAKLAND! Famous writer, traveler Jack London lived here. He wanted to become a mayor of the town. Not successful, so he went on the sea... to Alaska. etc. 
Good for all of us, he didn´t become a politician but a writer! Now we can see on the Jack London Square his house, which was brought here by one of his rich fans from Alaska, just close to his favorite pub, where he spent hours, writing... drinking, talking... very lovely pub till today!!  In fact is this one touristic attraction, but it is an area of retail and office buildings that reside on the former heart of Oakland's port operations..




There is also the Jack London District encompasses more than 70 blocks and a significant stretch of the Oakland waterfront. 

I come back to Oakland, I have got there some friends there, my luggage left by Jeff and my cool bike!! I think the Mystery Oakland hasn´t finished yet!! 
see more here about other mysteries... :-)   

No comments:

Post a Comment