Postcard #6 Part 2: Oakland, CA, and Going Home Early

Just because of how the timing worked out, we needed to stay at a hostel for a couple days after the rooftop campsite and before our next stay (which I’ll tell you about shortly).

So we found a cheap place in Chinatown and spent some time exploring. Our biggest money and time savers we’ve used during our travels have been #1 Google Maps: an obviously amazing tool, but made even more amazing by their seemingly unlimited knowledge of local bus routes, subway fares, and activity recommendations. It’s not perfect, but it’s pretty damn useful (and I’m not even getting paid to say this, though I wish I was). #2: TooGoodToGo, an app that helps restaurants get rid of their leftover food at the end of the night by selling it cheaply to non-picky customers. Let me tell you, we ate our weight in Chinatown dumplings. One night, we actually had to give away some of our food to a guy on the street because we could physically not eat anymore. It was such a blessing to have so much food and for only around $5 per person! It made us also realize how much food the country wastes, and how stupid it is that people in America go hungry every day because some restaurants would rather throw away perfectly good food than lose a profit. But apps like this are a reminder that there are generous people out there, and that solutions are possible. We are fortunate to benefit from such a program, and hope that more restaurants around the country get on board.

One of our favorite things to do is go to interactive science museums. And oh my, did we find the holy grail. The Exploratorium, located on Pier 15, is a huge interactive museum for both adults and kids to explore science with a hands-on approach. I absolutely love places like these, because I get to engage with everything around me, and learn at the same time! We stayed there for hours and didn’t even get to see all of it. I loved everything about it, and they explored so many different fields of science, from magnets to electricity to physics to chemistry to ecology to light and colors! And, the best part is they even had an exhibit about psychology and socio-economics, and how things like racism and sexism develop in society. It was absolutely incredible and thought provoking. I can’t say enough about it.

Unfortunately our time in San Francisco was coming to its end, and what better way to wrap it up with another unorthodox stay: on a boat!

One of our friends from the hostel in Oahu grew up in Oakland, in a marina with his parents. One day when they came to the hostel to visit, we talked with them for a while about boat life. That’s one of Jasper’s dreams, to own his own live-aboard boat and get to travel all over the world. They graciously invited us to stay on their boat if we ever found ourselves in the bay area (they might not have thought it would be so soon!).

We met our friend’s dad just outside the marina. He showed us around, gave us the whole boat tour. It was a 1987 Ponderosa 42’ trawler; currently had three made beds, but could easily sleep close to 7, as most boats that size do. We had a fun time adjusting to marina life, and getting to explore Oakland. The boat didn’t really rock around too much in the water, since that particular cove had pretty tame waters (most marinas do). Once we were inside the main part of the boat, it felt just like a regular home. Only the occasional creak or sloshing of water reminded us that we weren’t exactly in a traditional space.

Even though San Francisco itself was a little too far for us without a car, we still found ways to explore the area. We went to the Berkeley Museum of Art and Pacific Film Archive, and that was profound in its own way. Their main exhibit right now is of womxn artists, and how their underrepresentation influences the art world. In this case, they spelled womxn with an ‘x’ to signify that the term ‘women’ reflects more than just those with female genitalia, and that the identity is key to so many people who don’t fit into the traditional label, so I am going to follow their spelling choice here.

Much of the focus of the pieces were interested in expressing womxns bodies as seen through various lenses of society. One piece in particular spoke to me. It was a bronze statue laid on top of a small platform in the middle of the room - a life-size model of a headless womxns body, naked, back arched and pelvis towards the sky. It evoked ambiguity, that it could be interpreted as either pain or pleasure or, as the surrounding section of the exhibit touched on, hysteria. I thought about how it seemed unsettling and almost violent, a lack of control over one’s own body, and what it meant to be examined, literally on display, by and for others. The entire exhibit did excellent work at pushing the boundaries of social constraints.

After all the fun and games, we were off to our next workstay gig - cat sitting in wine country! We made the long trekk north to Healdsburg, a two and a half hour endeavor from San Francisco. It was a much slower change of pace. Our host, a spunky cat lady named Doralice, was going on a work trip and needed us to take care of her cat, Gato. We met through a website called TrustedHousesitters, which is exactly as it sounds, sets up people who need housesitters to, you know, house sit. It’s unpaid, but hey, it’s a free place to stay with a snuggly cat.

Healdsburg is a suburban bedroom town, with lots of restaurants and not many tourists. It was our first time actually feeling watched by people. We got the sense that not many new people come there. Nevertheless, we made the best of it, taking advantage of the time to rest, not running around, and to appreciate the not-sensationalized everyday California life. From the house, we could see a school playground, and we watched as recess bloomed into laughter and chaos. We reminisced on our own childhoods, where recess was the best part of the day, and how formative some of those moments were, even though we didn’t realize it at the time. It’s refreshing to remember the freedom and lack of responsibilities of childhood. So carefree. Even though we’ve set ourselves up to have a fun life and go on these adventures, there are still things that we have to concern ourselves with every day: where we’re going to stay, how we’re going to get there, where we’re getting food, and so on. These challenges remind us of the bare necessities of living, things that were always taken care of for us when we were kids, a privilege in itself. For those of us that do get to have that kind of childhood, there is nothing more precious.

Unfortunately, my stay in Healdsburg was cut short due to my pepere passing away. Initially when I had left for this adventure, I figured this would be a possibility. But still, it never prepared me.

I had to fly back home to Maine to attend the funeral and mourn with my family (another reality of adulthood). Jasper is still out there with the cat, making sure he gets extra snuggles and that he’s well fed. I was sad to leave him, but I knew I had to be here.

Moreover, it was my first time traveling and flying alone. I’d always gone with at least one other person. But this time, it was all me. I realized that I usually subtly relied on the other person, be it a parent or a partner, to navigate us through the airport. Now it was all me. And even though sometimes it was confusing, I did it. And I felt so proud to get to make it all that way all on my own. It was no longer this big complicated thing that only other people had knowledge of, I could do it myself. And that was pretty cool.

So now, I am back in Maine, writing this from my old bedroom. Even though I’m glad to have seen my family and spent time with my parents and hometown friends, I still have a deep longing to be out there in the world. I’ll write more about this soon, but until then, know that all is still well, if not as planned, and that I will be out there with more adventures within the next week or so.

Next stop: Colorado!

See you then!

Nola