Last week, I flew into San Francisco, California to visit my friend who attends UC Berkeley. I have been to California multiple times, but I had never seen a college town outside of the East Coast. Personally, I love seeing how other students live in their day to day university lifestyle since I am only familiar with UMass. When I flew into SFO, I met one of my friends from UMass, Vaidehi, and we headed off to Berkeley’s campus. Because of the long travels and time difference, I was definitely tired, but also excited to see what the next four days had in store for us.
On the first day, we spent the majority of our time in San Francisco. Although I have been there before, it was nice to go back on such a beautiful day and see new things around the city. My friend Vaidehi, who is from Nigeria, had never experienced driving on the steep roads. It was funny to see how scared she was seeing cars parked almost perpendicular to ground level. We went to Fisherman’s Warf where we got a perfect view of Alcatraz and saw the huge sourdough bread bakery. We ended up going to In-N-Out for dinner because that is a classic California staple and enjoyed some animal style fries…something that could never be replicated on the East Coast.
On our second day, we really explored the campus of UC Berkeley. It felt so lively and like there was always something going on. For Vaidehi and I, it felt like it was straight out of a movie seeing the sun beat down on the huge academic buildings, clubs promoting themselves in the entryway, and even a dance off happening at the main gate. There was a huge lawn where a large number of students were just picnicking, reading, or playing frisbee with their friends. We realized that this does happen at UMass, but because of the New England weather, we do not get much time to enjoy it before we have to move out. It was so nice to just walk around campus that the next day I woke up early, got an iced coffee, and walked around UC Berkeley for almost three hours!
Outside of campus felt like UMass’ downtown, but 10 times the size. There was every kind of food you could think of and each restaurant had so many students lined up to get food. Right outside of our friends’ apartment was a place called Artichoke Basille’s which had the biggest and best pizza I have ever had (sorry Antonio’s!). There was also a boba tea place that was known for their one drink, Dirty Boba (creme brule boba tea), which was to die for. What I loved about campus was that there were always people walking around no matter what time of day it was. The weather was perfect and the area felt so safe to be around. Although there were many similarities, it was very interesting to see how Berkeley was compared to UMass students’ lifestyle. I know I will definitely be making a trip out there again soon. I still have so many restaurants around campus to try!
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