SLO -> Berkeley

Just a brief entry today, as there's not that much to say, and I'm uber-ready for bed.
got up early this morning in order to catch my 8:15 bus from San Luis Obispo to San Jose, from which I would transfer to a train to Berkeley.

Unfortunately, on arriving at the station and waiting around for a bit, myself and my fellow passenger were informed that the bus to San Jose had been cancelled due to a mechanical problem. myself and the half dozen other passengers had to wait around until 12:50 to hop on the next bus to San Jose.
In the end, that wasn't so terrible - San Luis Obispo is a nice, pretty town, so spending an extra morning there was hardly a tragedy. I took a walk around town, saw my first Frank Lloyd Wright building, and paid a visit to the library to catch up on the news (thankyou, New York Times. I love you.).

Eventually, I made my way back to the train station, and hopped on the bus to San Jose. Going up the middle of California's agricutural heartland, through places like Pasa Robles, King City and Salinas, it was a pleasant uneventful trip (and I got a lot of reading done).

From San Jose I ran to catch the Sacramento train, which passes through Berkeley. Past the huge salt flats at the southern end of the San Francisco bay, we made our way up it's east side, under one end of the Bay Bridge and wound up in Berkeley.

Unfortunately, my journey didn't end there - I was still a long way from campus, so I took a 10 minute bus ride up University Avenue to the bottom of the campus, then hauled myself way up into the foothills to Stern Hall, my on-campus accomodation until August 19.

So, first impression of Berkeley are very, very good.

It's a -huge- campus (even bigger than Monash, I reckon, and more densely populated with buildings). It's incredibly pretty - the 'theme' seems to be early 20th century neo-classical architecture, so we end up with suitably grand libraries, lecture theatres and academic halls, complete with grey stone and roman-style columns.

Plus, they have their very own clock tower, the campanille, which marks very hour of the day - I feel like now I understand the difference between what we call 'University' and what is known over here as 'College' - the feel and atmosphere of the two, while both focused on learning - is very different here to an ordinary uni.

No Flickr today, I'm afraid - I didn't get a chance to get the camera out the entire day.

All the best,

Jono