Today we will finally see sunny California, however, there are another 500 km of Oregon landscapes before. But thanks to modern technology, they will pass by for you with two photographs and one scroll. Instead, we had to search for a companion on Craigslist and ride 5 hours by new Acura.
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Closer to the state’s border, the scenery begins to change. Lush forests transform into a lush steppe.
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Do not guess: it protects the state from illegal fruits and vegetable traffic. So if you have restricted products, better drop them out before the border. But if you decide to bring a kilo or two inside yourself, try to behave naturally and try to keep calm, because they can send you to the personal examination.
If you don’t want to spend the rest of your life in а solitary confinement, check the list of banned for import substances.
At first glance, it seems that Californians are too concerned about their diet. But it’s made in order not to let some invasive species that can damage local ecosystem slip into the state. Judging by the fact that there are no such checkpoints in other states, California has its unique and distinct ecosystem.
Californians are surprisingly hospitable people, and once you cross the state border, they run up to make a photo.
5We thought that California — it’s ocean, sun, desert and half-dressed girls but it turns out that there are mountains and snow also.
6First stop — the state capital, the city of Sacramento. We remember it by many African-Americans, Russian-Americans, and cheap real estate. I think there must be some connection.
7If you plan to rent accommodation in the city, then, in fact, there is nothing more to do here… However…no, definitely nothing.
8On the West of Sacramento located main wine region of California — Sonoma and Napa Valleys, this is the second most popular place among tourists, after Disneyland, of course. Napa is more advertised, everything there is more expensive and there are fewer wineries, so we went to Sonoma, where more wineries and cheaper prices. Honestly, the number of wineries wasn’t a decisive factor.
9Average wine tasting costs from 15 to 25 dollars. But if you are about to try only one or two sorts, it will be free. In this case, you won’t need a bucket on the left, where unexperienced Americans spit wine.
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It turns out that Russians were not only in Alaska, but also in California, more precisely not all Russians, but Russian-American company, which extracted fur of the sea otters in coastal waters, and cultivated wheat on the surrounding land for the colony in Alaska. As a legacy, the company left the Fort Ross, which became an architectural monument and one of the oldest buildings in California, but we didn’t go there.
After wine tasting, life became more fun and California — more beautiful. Next stop — Berkeley. At the entrance to the city there is free from radiation zone:
12In the city, we no longer saw such tables, only Wi-Fi zones. So we decided not to stay there for long.
13Berkeley — young students’ town, where the air is thoroughly steeped with knowledge and Berkelium which had been synthesized here.
The best public university in the world located in Berkeley and the alley of plane trees leads to its buildings. Thanks to scientists from Berkeley we have such wonderful inventions like the atomic bomb, cyclotron, and operating system BSD.
14This is the house of women’s fraternity (or like they called it — sorority) “Pi Beta Phi.”
It is one of the oldest sororities, its history goes back for around 150 years. Maybe now in the house is one of those crazy student parties that we have seen in American comedies.
15However probably not. Berkeley Students prefer smarter entertainment. Nearby sorority house, we did not find any kiosk with beer or a night pharmacy. However, we found 3 stores with comics and board games.
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Moving on to Oakland — third biggest city in the San Francisco Bay Area. The symbol of the city — horizontal eucalyptus tree, which locals call The Tree. The Tree is almost as old as the city, once it had fallen and in order not to spend city budget for cleaning, they just hung a sign “Do not climb.”
18Outwardly peaceful and successful Oakland — ranks the second place in the list of most dangerous cities in the US after Detroit: http://lawstreetmedia.com/crime-america-2015-top-10-dangerous-cities-200000-2/ .
But we saw these statistics only when rented an apartment in the black neighborhood, and local teenagers asked us to buy them cigarettes and give the phone to call.
19Although there are many wealth areas as well, thanks to them an average income of households in Oakland is $56,000 per year. In comparison with Detroit — $25,000, almost like salaries in Kyiv.
20In cities with a relief, there is a clear hierarchy of people, if you live on a mountain — you’re rich. Additional bonus — a great view of San Francisco.
21Here is a bench for rich grannies in front of the entrance to the apartment building. Caught moment to take a photo when they went to watch Santa Barbara.
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Going down the mountain, met with a group of wild Turkish tourists (turkey — the name of the bird).
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In the morning, singing “If you are going to San Francisco”, we jumped on BART and went to see San Francisco.
26BART stands for Bay Area Rapid Transit. It’s a hybrid of metro and commuter train that connects together several cities in San Francisco Bay Area with the capital of Ireland.
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In the heart of San Francisco, the system called Mooney (Municipal Railway) is responsible for transportation of passengers. It has trams, trolleybuses and perhaps buses. Mooney is very popular among Asian-Americans.
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Few people know that the famous San Francisco tram has a less famous younger brother. But to go on it, you don’t need to queue.
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On the streets of San Francisco, you can see such form of transport, which is under threat of extinction in America — trolleybus. Now you can ride this cattle only in 5 cities, although 50 years ago there were 65 trolleybus systems in the US. No one knows precisely what caused the trolleybus genocide. Maybe with increasing number of private cars, and perhaps with buses dominating. In this field, Ukraine is more progressive, we have trolleybuses in 40 cities.
33Bus, interior. In American society, it’s not common to give a seat to pregnant women (seen on the poster on glass), because pregnancy is neither a physical defect nor the age. And with wild rampant feminism, giving a way to a pregnant woman or thick woman (everyone had mistaken once), you can even get hurt.
34After passing several stops, we came across a massive protest and to support protesters is noble, but at first, let’s discover the reason for a protest. To be honest, we expected something light and fun as it is in developed countries, unlike our major problems in life.
35Coming closer, we began to look at the banners, got familiar with the requirements, and they did not disappoint us. It turned out that SEIU — is a sort of trade union of people of laboring professions and they are protesting against cancellation of 1.5% of the city tax for technology companies. Because of this, the city budget loses 46 million dollars. The logic is: the city is trying to keep the big technology companies, by abolishing tax for them, but the average and small businesses have to pay this tax, that’s why small companies move out-of-town or in another case, they have to cut jobs. In fact, the issue is not simple, companies such as Twitter, Spotify, Zendesk and others stay in San Francisco, but because of high wages of programmers, prices for property, products, and services are rising, that also affects people who are not engaged in high technology.
Another difference of American protest from ours — is that Americans value their time, after an organised walk on streets they went to work on. The order is kept by cops and Agent Smith.
36Here is the first victim of the city program of taxes abolition for large companies. Rich are getting richer and the poor become poorer. The truth of life.
37The realities of life in San Francisco are: price for house rent are so high that recently movable huts are gaining popularity. You would think that the California is warm and it’s not a problem to live in a hut. But in fact the nights are sooo cold and it’s impossible to sleep, and everyone is asleep during the day and at night are actively moving.
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City center built so tightly that public spaces were equipped on the roofs of skyscrapers. Many gardens are free, but watch out for the door to the roof. Once we didn’t watch out somehow and were walking in a garden for several hours until the door opened again.
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Here begins that San Francisco, which we used to see: neat wooden houses on the hills. However, no elevators but there are stairs, God knows, how much.
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The skyline of San Francisco. The pyramid in the center — it’s Transamerica Pyramid, the tallest building and another symbol of the city. A little to the right, black building — a former Bank of America Center, and now 555 California Street. Generally, this picture shows the top 3 highest buildings, but from 345 California Center remained only horns, literally, they protrude of the building slightly to the right on the photo.
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Yet it’s not dark, we’ll go to see another symbol — the Golden Gate Bridge, but first, we’re gonna shop on the fair at the River Station — the main farmers market in San Francisco.
52Citizens don’t miss a chance to stop here and buy the products because prices are much lower than in the local stores.
We bought a little cabbage and hit the road.
53To bridge is about 10 km walk on foot, but we like to walk. So we would have never seen a trolley that has been evacuated for wrong parking.
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The line of a cable tram. The wagon is moving with the help of a motor, which is located not in the car, but in the depot or on a traction substation. Indeed, the tram — it’s just a wooden box, and the driver only transmits a signal when to pull or stop the car.
56Don’t envy the owners of cars with manual transmission. It’s hard to park on hills every day and far to run if you forgot to tighten the hand brake.
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Here we came to the Golden Gate. Incidentally, the passage is really gold — $7 for entry into the city, but you can leave the city for free.
60There is nothing to tell about the bridge, we’ll better tell you about less known but very romantic story associated with this place. Earlier, instead of Fort Point (photos below) there was a fortress of San Francisco — the residence of the governor of Upper California Jose Arrillaga. And in 1806 Russian vessel “Juno” decked here. On board was Nikolai Rezanov — co-founder of the Russian-American Company, who came to negotiate for the supply of grain to Alaska. During the six-week visit, he began an affair with the daughter of the commandant of the fortress — 15-year-old Concepcion Arguello. Rezanov was 42 years at that time. Despite the difference in age and religion, they were engaged. And while the Concepcion was waiting for permission from the Vatican to marry the Orthodox, Rezanov on the ship “Avos” went to St. Petersburg to finish his business. They were not destined to see each other again. Rezanov died on the road, and Conchita — 50 years later, never marrying, she remained faithful to her fiance. This love story you may recognize by rock opera “Juno and Avos” with Nicholas Karachentsov in the leading role.
Now San Francisco considered as the most romantic city in America.
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Palace of Fine Arts built for the Panama-Pacific Exhibition. At the end, nearly all exhibition buildings had been demolished and on their place built residential area Marina. The only exception was the Palace of Fine Arts, which the “League of the palace preservation” interceded for.
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The temperature goes down and those who were peacefully sleeping on the sidewalk during the day, begin to warm up.
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In the next article, we will discuss how to create a successful IT-startups, get financing and settle in Silicon Valley, do not miss, the programmers’ salary is in dollars.