Berkeley

I woke up at 6:15 on Thursday morning, in order to make my way from Atlanta to Oakland, for the Days at Haas weekend for students admitted to Berkeley's business school. My friend Dustin was kind enough to roll out of bed before 7 am to give me a lift to the MARTA (Atlanta's public transportation), so I wouldn't have to leave my mom's car at the airport.

It was a long flight -- over five hours. Kinda strange, actually. I guess being away from the States so long, you forget about how big this place is (especially given the fact that a flight from Tokyo to Shanghai is only two or three hours. Of course, that doesn't take in to account the hour and a half trip to Narita airport...). While I didn't get to sleep as much as I would have liked, the flight in general was a good one; I was pleasantly surprised with the condition of the Delta plane.

Arriving in Oakland, I made my way to Berkeley (once again using public transportation). I had made a reservation at the Berkeley Travel Inn, a few blocks from the North Berkeley BART train station, and only seven blocks from the UC campus. Alarm bells started ringing in my head when I first saw the hotel (motel, really), as they had a huge sign with scripture from the Bible next to their name.

Apparently, they're under "new management" and are working on rennovating a lot of the rooms. Well, they had better get their asses in gear with the rennovations, let me tell you. I guess it was relatively clean, which was a relief, and they had cable (sort of), but luxury it was not (my first night I didn't have shampoo, you have to ASK to have your phone turned on, and I was a little worried I was going to get electrocuted by the bedside lamp). But cheap it was, and kinda close to campus. Or so I thought.

The first organized activity for the weekend was a welcome reception on campus. The Haas buildings are at the "top" of the Berkeley campus (the western end, but since everything is on a hill, it ends up being at the top). It was a good 25 minute hike just to get to the BOTTOM of campus, so it was a good thing I had left plenty early, as I had planned on stopping in a cafe and reading a bit before I hit the reception. It was another 20 minutes to get to Haas, so it was with some relief that the following day I found a bus stop across the street from my motel.

I'm heading out to dinner in the City (SF) now, so I'll hopefully finish my weekend report tomorrow.