Without the car in California

It seems much more urgent to drive a car when you are in San Francisco than in New York City. Nonetheless the good public transportation system in the city, when you talk with locals about a trip outside the city they can’t imagine it without a car. At least the most of them. Yet it was indeed possible, and despite that several times we considered to rent the car we managed without it. Probably that way was even more adventure. So we get to know the bunch of Californian buses and ferries. Sure, we were also walking a lot. And it was because of this walking that we discovered an impressive popularity of the old and bizarre cars keeping among the habitants of San Francisco…

Because the lack of our own driving experience I allow myself to quote here a fragment from Milosz’s book to show you the style of a guy who caused some of our adventures there, and to present you the portrait of America which I found accurate:

"If the goal is not sufficiently distinguished from what surrounds it, the pursuit of that goal is valid only as a decision arrived at, map in hand, but since no changes can be expected, the trip becomes no more than persistent montion, which at the same time makes it unclear whether we are moving or are immobile witnesses of a moving space dotted whit identical gas stations, roadside restaurants, and motels. The cities: the band of freeway takes us over their symmetrical rectangles, or else they are simply obstacles, for they force us to slow down and stop at their traffic lights. The trip takes place inside the car, the only ultimate contact is with the car, and the trip is measured by the speedometer's needle and the numbers crawling past on the odometer; everything outside flashes by, appears and disappears, silvery, unreal, a screen. Perhaps the passangers on long-disstance express train and planes are also severed from reality in the same manner, but their passivity was accepted in advance and written into the contract, the ticket. The owner of an automobile is actively passive, with a constant desire for activity, for an activity other than holding a wheel, but he is continually being cast into passivity again.

In the deserts of southern California and Arizona, the very thought of stopping for anything but gas or food seems absurd - why bother when you can see everything you need to out the window? There is nothing out there beside stunted, prickly vegeration. Though the coniferous forests in the Sierras is attractive, with its greenery and shade, it too, after a few steps, kills any desire for a walk amid its scree-covered tracts, rocks, inaccessible thickets. But our active passivity is also felt in relation to people. We pass them, busy with their daily work, immersed in their houses and little towns. We converse with them when we stop - in stores, restaurants, motels - but differently from the way people did when they traveled by camel, horse, or stagecoach. They do not bring us into their tents, they don't set out feasts in honor of their guests, who are precious because they are rare. The banal ritual of greetings and goodbyes, so smooth that we pass each other like pebbles roundes by a stream, puts a distance between us and them, and so their eyes, mouths, movements are all the more disturbing to us. They are enigmatically self-enclosed, and haunt our minds as if we were from another planet, staring at humans" - C. Milosz Visions from San Francisco Bay 1969

L

in California with Milosz

I traveled to California with Czeslaw Milosz. This Polish poet and essayist had spent over forty years in Berkeley as a professor at the California University and that’s where he wrote his best works (at least the most important for me). I have used his writings as the guide to the unknown. Or maybe in a way he was my reason for this journey and in practice whole trip was kind of a strange pilgrimage in footsteps of a dead writer. What ever it was I liked and enjoyed it.

Milosz the most openly described his impressions from San Francisco Bay in the end of sixties. For a fresh refugee from the postwar Europe the reality of California and most of all the specificity of San Francisco Area at that time (the hippie, gay and so on movements’ center) appeared so alien that it allowed him to observe his own everyday’s live from a distance of the botanist. Today for me NYC is not so strange, probably even for Milosz it wouldn’t be - after all East Cost is much closer to Europe. However I do have some difficulties in finding the vocabulary to describe my experience of being here, in US, and Milosz’s writings became an irreplaceable dictionary and manual for my understanding of the situation. So, when we went to California I finally got a chance to compare in very detail Milosz’s and mine observations, to find and to point all the differences, to check how the landscapes described by him will resonate in my imagination.

It was an intriguing experience to go there with him. First of all a religious or better a theological poet is not the most obvious guide to the place. But his unyielding attitude toward all the authority turn out to be an efficient pass to this rebellious city. His descriptions and opinions from sixties and seventies outlined for me a sort of the place mythology, a genius loci, and gave an useful key to the place that looks at first as a reverse of the stereotype of America.

Milosz vision of America is apocalyptic and surprisingly Proustian. The immensity, potency and diversity of this country make him speechless, its beauty make him defenseless. But in Americans, also in himself there, he found the basic complex of the Marcel Proust’s heroes. They had escaped to America for sake of the freedom, prosperity and self-sufficiency. They had desired it so badly that this passion pushed them through the endless oceans, deserts, mountains, and forests. Finally the strongest ones got here and succeed to conquer the land, its inhabitants and the concurrent conquerors. Already in first, second or third generation they got what they desired at the beginning, often far more that they could ever imagine in their villages in Europe or Asia. In addition at one point, some of them sooner some later on, they got something they had abandoned when they had started to move – the sense of safeness. And then they, their children, us find themselves at the very same starting point. Fulfillment of the original desire don’t bring the satisfaction. To the contrary – it causes the inevitable disappointment and only very rarely the conscious disillusionment. So the children of the cowboys become hippies and the children of hippies become … and so on. At the end of every turn we always find this same disgust and emptiness. The apocalyptical difference is only that by reaching this place the conquerors had discovered a totally new scale. Wherever they will turn now their footsteps will left far deeper marks and their march will trample more then ever before. Berkeley seemed a great spot for those observations – an intellectual center in the westernmost part of the country – at the place where human urge found a natural limit – the ocean shore; where the ideas and passions which pushed people until here have to be reverse. The very turning point, or at least quite often the one. Probably fifty years ago it was more evident then today, but the political, social or cultural agitation can be still felt on the Telegraph avenue.

We spent whole day in Berkeley. Beside visiting the University Campus and downtown (when the rest of the group went to prepare St Urho’s day) I wanted to see the house where Milosz had lived until nineties. Far more important than the building was an area, the garden and above all the famous view from his windows to the San Francisco Bay, which found its way to so many of his poems. Irresponsibly I rejected the idea of getting there by the city bus. The distance to the address given by a Milosz’s friend didn’t seem too long… His house was at the Grizzly Peak Blvd, a long scenic drive running along of the top of the hill. And I thought that it will be enough to climb the hill behind the campus. I tried and it went nicely. I passed the Greek amphitheatre, the stadium and many university buildings. The road twisted up the hill by a large park. Sometimes in place of twirl by the drive one could shorten the way by climbing up the handy stairs. When I was almost on the top, passing by some anonymous laboratories, I was stopped by the university guard. Apparently to get where I was one needed to have a special pass: the area was supposed to be strictly guarded and the laboratories were top secret. When they were carrying me downtown to the guards station they couldn’t understand how it had happened that I hadn’t seen/pass any of the numerous gates and that no one had notice me before them. At the station they checked my passport and visa, were almost about to contact Polish Consulate. I can’t clearly recall how I managed to convince them that whole affair wasn’t so serious and that it will be enough if they remove from my camera the photos of the protected areas. Finally they let me go. I was once more down the hill. They showed me which way I can take if I want to go to the Grizzly Peak – of course few times longer than my first one. After all there was nothing else to do than climb once more. At the beginning of the sunset, after few kilometers of hiking I reach the Peak at last. The weather was wonderful: worm, even hot day was going to end. The golden rose air was moving in the heat. Since few hours I had anything to drink, I started to be hungry and tired of walking. And there it was: the splendid view to the Bay immersed in the folly of the gold, violets and grey, full of the scent of the blossoming trees. The number of the first house on the way was 1679, I needed to get to the one on 978… Well, it took a while, but the way was just beautiful. On both sides more or less fancy houses hidden in the blooming gardens, and the never-ending view to the bay, to the skyline of San Francisco, to the Golden Gate bridge, to the green and red hills, above all to the gray gloomy ocean.

When I stood in front of the gate number 978 there was the last moment of the spectacular sunset – as if everything was just as it should be. There was no one inside. The house was one of the older, modest and smaller then all the others. It was also probably the most neglected in the whole area. From the drive there is first the house and then to the west descend the garden opening the view to the bay. Longing for the Lithuanian forest Milosz had planted many trees there. In unkept garden they grew really tall, and today are a hallmark of the place. Apparently neighbors didn’t follow Milosz example and simply didn’t interrupt their views. On the sunny and chic Californian hill the house of Polish poet looks like a common forester‘s lodge.

When I turned there was a bus stop on the other side of the drive. After few minutes in the darkening twilight I rode the bus downtown to get some freshly made munkki.

L.

San Francisco, California

It's about time that we write about our Spring break that we spent in the oh so sunny and flourishing San Francisco! 8 Days was a very decent amount of time to get an overall look of the city and the surrounding areas.

We had a local guide there, a guy that is doing the same thing there as I’m doing in NYC. So first he recommended us to sleep in a hostel called Green Tortoise (pronounced in the most amazing way, I still don’t know how to say it). We felt cozy about this hostel because they wrote on their webpage that they have a free sauna. And what a sauna! Basically this was a hostel built in an old building that had all the bathrooms on the corridor. So was the sauna: you just opened a door and there it was, a wood-covered room with a window and that was it. It was a “dry” sauna, which means you can’t poor any water or beer or any liquid on the stove. You just sit on the bench and wait for the room to get hot. Oh boy, never been to that kind of a sauna before but after all my prejudices, it got hot in there and I almost felt like in a sauna.

That was a curiosity about the first hostel we stayed in. Otherwise the hostel had a very San Francisco like feeling in it: the staff gave us tips where to eat vegetarian food, where to legally smoke inside, where we can find the closest liquor store… As if we needed all that information. In any case we just had a different kind of feeling of the city from the moment we entered it. As the days went by, the feeling grew stronger with all the visits to the hippie or gay neighborhoods or to the Berkeley University campus, where the students were very loud and visible even on a regular school day.

As in NY, there are many neighborhoods with inhabitants, new or old immigrants, of a certain country. There are neighborhoods like Chinatown, Japantown or Russian hill. It seemed to me that the Chinatown there has two sides: one for the tourists with all the souvenirs and clean sidewalks. The other side was for the locals that do their shopping in Chinese. So when you e.g. order some cheap and delicious Dim Sum, it can be a surprise what you have inside the dough. But that’s part of the adventure, isn’t it?

We did all the “must do’s” in the city, like walked across the Golden Gate Bridge (unlike other tourists, we kept on walking until the small town called Sausalito from where we came back to the city by ferry). We also ate the sourdough bread that serves as a plate for a soup. We walked on the top of a hill where the Coit Tower is located. That and many other places give a really beautiful view to this city of hills. One can see a magnificent view from the Marriot hotel’s (55 4^th street) bar on the 39^th floor.

One thing that we didn’t manage to do was to visit the Alcatraz jail on the island. The attraction is so popular that it’s recommended to buy the tickets in advance by Internet. Instead we saw the sea lions on the Pier 39…

Well we could have chosen to go see the prison, but we preferred hiking: on one morning very early we hopped on a bus that took us to Marin city from where we had a plan to go further and find Muir woods, the protected forest where you can see one of the eldest redwood forest. We ended up in Mill Valley, a small village with a bookstore and a post office. When we asked for advice how to get by walking to the Muir Woods, the locals rolled their eyes and told us that even with a car it takes a very long time and we can’t walk there. That was until we met a really nice and helpful woman in a bookstore. She knew that there’s a path called Dipsea that will take us to the forest. She warned us that it might be difficult to find the path but she sold us a map and wished us good luck.

I must say it didn’t take too much time and effort to get to Muir Woods. It was a very pleasant walk, rising up stairs and the hills, then going down on a forest path. We arrived to the almost magical Muir Woods and just stared at the old giant trees.

But that wasn’t all of it. We continued our hiking until we reached the Pacific Ocean and put our toes in the freezing water at the Stinson Beach.

We did one more trip away from the city: we took a ferry to Vallejo city, from where it was supposed to be very easy to go to Napa Valle winery area. Well it wasn’t so simple, but the eagerly helping tourist guide in Vallejo showed us the way to the bus stop from where we could get to Napa. After having arrived to the city we had two hours to taste wines. So the first thing to do was go to the Tourist information, get tips where to go and also get a couple of half priced wine tasting coupons. We managed to try two places, and those regional wines were just so delicious that we were more than happy about that adventurous trip of the last day in California.

There would be more stories about the neighborhoods like the Haight, Mission or the financial district, but I guess this will do for now. I’ll let L. tell about Berkeley. But one thing is sure: the Spring Break gave us a whole lot of energy with all its sun and adventures. Now the a bit less than three months here will be easily managed.:)

E.