Street view

Hello Berkeley! It's so good to meet you.

I spent a lot of time (too much?) using Google Maps before I arrived in San Francisco for this house-hunting trip. Each posting for housing on Craigslist includes a link to its specific location on Google Maps. There's an icon of a yellow person-figure in the top left corner of each map. It's possible to drag this little person onto the map and place it in a specific spot. Then the map zooms in for a "Street View" and the viewer has the experience (more or less) of walking down the street and looking around.

When I arrived here on Friday, I wished that I had the ability to be the little yellow figure. I wanted to pick myself up from where I was at the airport with my heavy suitcases, fly through the air and touch down on the street in front of the place where I'm staying.

In my explorations with Google Maps from home in Edmonton, I started to get a sense of the layout of the streets in San Francisco and the East Bay, and the neighbourhoods where I'd prefer to live. But it isn't the same as real life, of course. Today I visited Berkeley for the second time. (The first time was in February when it was pouring rain.) And I was amazed by the abundance and variety of all that was growing there: Willow trees, lavender, flamboyant flowers in every shape and colour, blackberries, artichokes, fruit trees of all sorts... A beautiful, beautiful place.

Other highlights of the day: Tibetan tea, the Berkeley Marina, buses that run at five minute intervals.