Hiking, Protest, Albatross, Oranges, Naked
Yesterday after classes Christian and I headed to Tilden Park for almost a three mile hike to the botanical gardens. It was a pretty day, not too hot but with lots of sun. Surprisingly, even though it hasn't rained in weeks, there was a ton of mud on the trail. I can only surmise that it's runoff from the sprinklers of the houses on the non-park side of Wildcat Canyon Road. As a result our feet got much dirtier than we anticipated.
We came out of the park at Grizzly Peak Rd and Shasta Rd to wait for the 65 bus to get back down to Berkeley. Jesus Christ the people driving around up there are complete assholes. They were driving way over the speed limit of 25 (around blind turns, mind you); they would not stop to let us cross the street, even if we were several feet out into the street already (they'd just swerve around us); and they were jerks to bicyclists as well, getting impatient when they couldn't pass them and then passing them really closely and very quickly. It's like you're on a whole other planet when you're in the hills: everyone's inconsiderate to pedestrians/bicyclists and everyone's driving an SUV. (not a surprising connection).
We took the 65 downtown, but the driver had to let us off a block early because the police had closed off part of Shattuck as a result of the protest against the Marine recruitment center. There was no counter-protest as on Tuesday, but there was still enough commotion to cause the police to be present. From the slogans and the protest signs, it seems like the issue of removing the recruitment station is becoming second-rate to the bigger issue of ending the war and getting Bush/Cheney out of office and holding them accountable. There were people of different ages protesting, so the anti-war aspect of it seems to be gaining momentum.
In the evening, Christian and I met pirate_artist at the Albatross. I had La Fin du Monde again--still quite tasty. We spent time playing an improvised 3 person game of Taboo, before coming back to our place for dessert. With great difficulty We had made candied oranges a few days ago and so we treated Karen to them with some ice cream. Then we watched a bit of an old "Jackie Chan" movie, which was only "Jackie Chan" in the sense that he directed it--he didn't appear at all in the movie. It was terrible, with its only saving grace being that all the dubbing was in Cockney accents! Bizarre. After tolerating about 20 minutes of that, we instead watched Naked Gun 2½, which in my opinion is the best of the trilogy. It doesn't have the same elaborate jokes as the first one, but it also doesn't have as much dead time. 8/10.
We came out of the park at Grizzly Peak Rd and Shasta Rd to wait for the 65 bus to get back down to Berkeley. Jesus Christ the people driving around up there are complete assholes. They were driving way over the speed limit of 25 (around blind turns, mind you); they would not stop to let us cross the street, even if we were several feet out into the street already (they'd just swerve around us); and they were jerks to bicyclists as well, getting impatient when they couldn't pass them and then passing them really closely and very quickly. It's like you're on a whole other planet when you're in the hills: everyone's inconsiderate to pedestrians/bicyclists and everyone's driving an SUV. (not a surprising connection).
We took the 65 downtown, but the driver had to let us off a block early because the police had closed off part of Shattuck as a result of the protest against the Marine recruitment center. There was no counter-protest as on Tuesday, but there was still enough commotion to cause the police to be present. From the slogans and the protest signs, it seems like the issue of removing the recruitment station is becoming second-rate to the bigger issue of ending the war and getting Bush/Cheney out of office and holding them accountable. There were people of different ages protesting, so the anti-war aspect of it seems to be gaining momentum.
In the evening, Christian and I met pirate_artist at the Albatross. I had La Fin du Monde again--still quite tasty. We spent time playing an improvised 3 person game of Taboo, before coming back to our place for dessert. With great difficulty We had made candied oranges a few days ago and so we treated Karen to them with some ice cream. Then we watched a bit of an old "Jackie Chan" movie, which was only "Jackie Chan" in the sense that he directed it--he didn't appear at all in the movie. It was terrible, with its only saving grace being that all the dubbing was in Cockney accents! Bizarre. After tolerating about 20 minutes of that, we instead watched Naked Gun 2½, which in my opinion is the best of the trilogy. It doesn't have the same elaborate jokes as the first one, but it also doesn't have as much dead time. 8/10.