A very long ride.

So, after a final, very Chicago meal of Deep Dish Pizza (tastes good, but nutritionally I imagine is something like standard pizza²), I stayed a final night in the (rather excellent, all told) Chicacgo Hostel, and headed to the train, to be confined in a moving metal box for approximately 43 hours.

Now, I had really enjoyed my time on the train up to now, but it's difficult to compare even 22 hours to almost two days in such an environment. Turns out, however, that I had no more difficulty on this trip than any of the previous legs.

The key, I think, to enjoying a long train trip such as this lies in good preparation and a positive attitude. You wouldn't want to just step onto the train like you were going to work in the morning. I burned through the end of one book and most of another,  as well as almost exhausting a fully charged Ipod battery. The other issue was gonna be eating. After trying the dining car on the trip between Boston and Chicago (I had a very boring, rather expensive burger and chips) I decided that wasn't the way to go. Instead I ate before I got on, and in Albuquerque, where an hour's stopover allowed us the opportunity to get off and have a quick meal. Also in Chicago and Albuquerque, I bought a sandwich and drink to stand in for another meal.Breakfast came from the cafe car, which is far cheaper than the dining car, and snacks were courtesy of a box of granola bars in my carry-on luggage. As that rather long description might suggest, it's certainly possible to travel such a long distance without relying on an expensive dining car, but it takes a fair amount of pre-planning.

One unpleasant and one pleasant surprise presented itself upon boarding the train. Unlike in my previous two trips (but like on the way from LA to San Francisco), there weren't power points next to the seat on my car (other cars did, but I guess I was in an older model). While it did mean that I couldn't spend my entire trip playing Simcity 2000, it lead me to the observation car, a very pleasant surprise. Decked out with extra large windows which curve up almost to the roof, the observation car has benches, comfortable swivelly seats and, downstairs, the cafe car (Along with the coach cars where my seat was, the observation car was a double-decker). This proved the best place to just sit and admire the scenery as it passed - something which took up almost as much of my 43 hours as anything else.

Of course, I say 43 hours, but that wasn't, in fact, the amount of time the trip took. Despite a couple of delays totalling probably 45 minutes to an hour of delay (one caused by a failed switch engine ahead of us, the other caused by some kind of mechnical failure in one of our locomotives), we actually pulled into Union Station, Los Angeles about an hour early. So make that 42 hours.

Over the course of those 42 hours, we travelled through 8 states, and nearly as many type of terrain and scenery. We left Illinois in the middle of a snowstorm, and travelled through snowbound farms and praries until we hit Iowa, which is dead centre of corn country (lots of grain elevators by the sides of the track), but no grain in the middle of winter. It was dark by the time we crossed the Mississippi River, but Kansas City, Missouri (go figure - it's actually on the border, and there's a Kansas City just across the way) was a welcome change in scenery. I slept through the majority of Kansas , and woke up in a new timezone (Mountain Time) and a new state (Colorado). Colorado was perhaps snowiest of all, and certainly rockier and higher than any of the other places we traversed (Raton Pass is 7834 feet above sea level). On the other side of the pass we hit New Mexico, and suddenly it wasn't snowy anymore - instead, we had clear skies, scruffy pasture land and spectacular hills and rock formations. After passing through Las Vegas, NM (somewhat less popular than its sister city in Nevada), an hour-long stop in Albuquerque meant that, as well as getting some lunch, I could spend just a little while poking around the largest city in the state of New Mexico.

After watching a spectacular sunset over the mesas of New Mexico, I had something of an early night, and slept so well that I more or less missed Arizona ( it was dark anyway, and the night was made somewhat longer by another early morning timezone change, from Mountain to Pacific). Once we hit California, it was all home stretch - the couple of hours from San Bernadino to Los Angeles seemed like nothing.

Arriving at about 7:20, I collected my bags and took the special shuttle bus from Union Station to LAX airport. My motel is right down the road, but it was too early to head out there, so I waited in the terminal for a couple of hours, then  took their complementary shuttle back here, where, after a couple of days, I am well and truly grateful for a big bed, my own shower, wireless internet and a change of clothes.

My plane leaves Los Angeles airport just before 2 tomorrow, with stopovers in Taipei and Brisbane before I end up back home. As I've said, once I do get back, I'm gonna write up a bit of a summary post, but that mightn't be for a few days.

Until then, for the last time from the USA,

Jono

Snow and adventure, Chicago

Well, my last couple of days here in Chicago, and I've had a great time in this snowy metropolis.

Snowy being an important adjective there. While it hasn't been insanely cold (a couple of degrees below zero), the last couple of days have really brought the snow. Which, I've gotta say, I'm not terribly opposed to - I guess if you lived here, you'd get sick of it pretty quickly, but I still reckon that a layer of snow makes anything look prettier. Negatives: wet shoes + socks --> cold feet, brown slush in the gutter and on the road, having to relearn how to walk so as to avoid slipping on snow/ice-bound sidewalks (Am yet to make an idiot of myself by falling over, but have had several close calls :P).

Something else I've noticed in the course of my walking-around here. I knew already that Chicago had stood in for Gotham City in the most recent Batman movie, but I've been struck by exactly how much of this city was used verbatim - which is great, because I keep seeing pieces of the city that were in Dark Knight, so now the whole city seems like part Chicago, part Gotham ('Hey, that's the street where Dent was kidnapped!' etc.). Fun.

So anyway, yesterday I got up early and hopped the Green Line (still loving these El Trains), and rode out to Oak Park. Oak Park is a fairly typical middle-suburban neighbourhood, made worth a visit by two famous residents. Ernest Hemingway came from Oak Park, and (more to my interest), it was the long-time home of Architect Frank Lloyd Wright. Wright's home, and something like 36 houses designed in his characteristic Prarie style are in Oak Park, so I took a pleasant walk around the place, with the aid of a map from the Oak Park Visitor's centre (they really play up the Wright connection (The 'Wright Stuff'? :P) in this this town - precisely for people like myself, I guess). Also in Oak Park is the Unity Temple, one of his most famous buildings, an amazing Unitarian Church with all the hallmarks of Wright's style (incredible Art Glass windows, beautiful wooden detailing, amazing light fixtures etc etc).

Yesterday evening, I had an excellent night out with a group from the Hostel - most nights, a Chicago native leads an outing to an interesting destination in the city. Last night Chuck, a volunteer guide who's been giving tours of this town  for 14 years (an appears to know, quite literally -everything- about the place), took us out to the Green Mill Jazz Club. The oldest suc venue in the city, the Green Mill opened in 1899,  and is rich in history. When the area was a silent film hub in the early 20th century, Charlie Chaplin used to visit. Al Capone owned the place in the 20s, and we sat in his customary booth, which faces away from the stage, but has a clear view of both entrances - they still have a photo of Capone behind the bar. Anyway, the coolest thing about the Green Mill is that it takes its music very seriously. Now, I'm no jazz connoisseur, but I was impressed when, before the band was up, the manager asked everyone to turn off their mobile phones and keep quiet during the performance, out of respect for the musicians.

And the musicians were awesome. Three young guys, dressed the part (suits, slicked back hair + thick black-framed glasses), on Guitar (and later a pedal steel guitar), Double Bass and Drums, played and improvised all manner of jazz, and even a little Blues. My highlight of the evening, though, was in their second set, when a new instrument joins in, seemingly out of nowhere. I look around and behind the bar is a big bald guy with dark glasses playing a real Hammond Organ - which I've never heard live before, but just sounds incredible.

So after a very fun night at the Green Mill, I had a somewhat quieter one today - I woke up to a snowstorm, and many people decided to stay inside for the day. After considering a visit to the Art Institute Museum (apparently everyone else had the same idea - too busy), I took a long ride on the Brown Line train, as recommended by one of the visitor information volunteers - when you can't walk around (and in this weather, walking isn't very pleasant for very long), it's a nice way to see some new parts of the city. A visit to the public library on my way back was nice, as was the Cultural Centre (with a Tiffany Glass dome!). This afternoon I'm spending getting things in order for my departure tomorrow. Planning on fulfilling my Chicago culinary goal (Deep Dish Pizza) at dinner this evening.

So, as I've got a long train trip coming up, I won't be able to blog for a couple of days - probably my last entry from here in the US will come from Los Angeles in a few days time.

'til then!

Jono

Chicago, man.

Hey all,

Another missive from the last couple of days, this time spent getting to know Chicago.

Which, it turns out, is an interesting sorta place - there's a lot going on here, a lot of construction, lots of museums and galleries, lots of fun  to be had - and despite the fact that the metropolitan area of Chicago is enormous and sprawling (they sometimes call it 'Chicagoland', and it spills into three states), the downtown area is surprisingly compact - unlike Manhattan or San Francisco and even, in some ways, Boston, pretty much anywhere in the downtown area is walkable within, say, half an hour.Which is nice, given the concentration of cool stuff here.

So, yesterday morning was mostly spent walking around the place admiring the architecture. Seriously, from that standpoint, the whole of downtown Chicago is like an enormous museum. Again, I'm gonna do the comparison thing - unlike in Manhattan, where tall buildings are more or less a necessity (tiny little island, lots and lots of people), Chicago's skyscrapers seem to be more 'for their own sake', so to speak. What this means is that there's a lot more variety, a lot more adventurous buildings, and a lot of cutting edge stuff. More or less every super-famous architect has worked in this city, and it shows. Of course, adventurousness sometimes leads to utter failure (whose idea was it to paint a 50-odd storey skyscraper red?), but the successes are amazing.

Speaking of failure, sometimes Chicago developer types tend to overextend themselves, as was made plain to me yesterday morning. The Chicago Spire is a 2000 foot (approx 600 metre), twisting, corkscrew of an apartment building which will be the tallest structure in America. If it ever gets built. I guess the developers chose the wrong time to make a building targeted at uber-rich foreigners on the market for 3rd, 4th, 5th or whateverth homes. They started this thing, but as of right now, all construction has stopped. So, sitting on a vacant site near Lake Michigan is a hole in the ground. made of concrete, about 8 storeys deep and 30-odd metres across, it sits there today, surrounded by snow, with no clear future. Like I said, Chicago is a city that likes to take risks with its buildings.... Unfortunately, risks don't always pay off.

At any rate, yesterday was mostly spent walking around downtown, admiring the real-life architectural museum that is Chicago. The weather wasn't altogether pleasant however - the snow set in in earnest in the afternoon, so I retreated to the Chicago contemporary Photography Museum, which is small but rather excellent.

I talk about the snow like it's a bad thing, but actually it's quite fun being in a place where snow is nothing out of the ordinary. And while I'm only slowly developing the skills for coping in a snowy environment (particularly figuring out things like how to avoid getting your feet soaked by slush), on balance it's pretty and fun and quite a novelty.

So, after a snowbound day and an early evening yesterday, I got up this morning to a beautifully clear sky. It was time to cross off the number one thing on my 'Must-do in Chicago' list: Observation Decks. In fact, when I think about it, observation decks are close to the top of my 'must-do' list in every city I visit. Someone asked me recently what I liked so much about them, which set me to thinking. Certainly, part of it is a weird kind of completionism (I've been up 7 of the 25 tallest buildings in the world, and visited another 6). And part of it is because it's just plain pretty up there. But a big thing, I think, is that it gives you a different perspective on the city you're in - it can allow you to see the big picture. So often, you can walk around a city looking at what's around you, but at best, you're looking through the city - you get caught up in the details. But from up high, you can look out over or across the city - get a sense of its structure and scale, and a feel for the place as a whole. It's also a useful way of picking out landmarks and orienting yourself, which is useful when you do as much walking as  do.

Philosophizing aside, however, I have one word for the view from both the Sears Tower and John Hancock Tower - awesome. Sited at more or less opposite ends of downtown Chicago, the two buildings give you very different, but equally impressive view of the city - plus, the 99th floor of the Sears Tower is higher above the ground than I've ever been (while still attached to the ground - flying doesn't count). Got to that tower, for many years the tallest building in the world, just as it opened at 10 O'clock. Luckily, winter is off-season for tourists, so there was no line, and I went up with the first batch of the day. I got out to the John Hancock Building at about a quarter to 4, just in time to watch the sun go down and the lights come on across the city - a truly beautiful sight.

Well, that's about it from my last two days - I've got two more here in Chicago, then I start my long trip back home - only a week until I touch down back in Australia. hopefully I'll get a chance to update a couple more times between now and then.

'til then,

Jono

Taking the train to Chi-town

Good morning from Chicago, y'all.

So, one long train trip down, one to go - and, all in all, this journey was rather pleasant. Taking off from the Boston at a quarter to midday, we were scheduled for a 23 hour trip through Massachusetts, Upstate New York, Ohio and Indiana before arriving in Chicago, Illinois. 

So, I might've mentioned this previously, but I am rather a fan of the train, certainly by comparison with a plane trip. While the train obviously takes much longer, there are several advantages. First of all, there's a lot more room to move around when riding the rails -there's much more leg room, seats are significantly bigger, they recline more and have a little kick-out at the bottom to allow you to stretch out a little more. Sleeping still isn't easy, but most certainly better than it is in the air. Plus, it's much easier to get up and take a walk - my train was something like 10 carriages long, plus there's a lounge car with tables and seats if you just want to admire the scenery. Which is the second advantage - while there's definitely an appeal to looking down out of a plane window at the whole landscape, the view is even better from the ground. Finally, there are power points in a train. Big point, as it meant I could plug in my laptop and spend several hours playing Simcity.

Anyway, enough raving about rail travel. On the trip, we had a short stop in Albany, NY, so I took the chance to hop off and have a little bit of a wander, then continued our trip, arriving in Chicago about 10:15.

Took a  bus out to where I'm staying for the next few days, the HI Hostel Chicago. Apparently it was voted the best large hostel in the world in 2007, and I can see why - apart from the usual (clean, nice staff, free wifi (not in the rooms, unfortunately, but it's free, so I'm not complaining), free breakfast), it's also got its own staffed information desk, a bunch of discounts for local attractions, one bathroom/shower per room (of 8 beds), and an amazing location. I think I know now, the origin of the term 'in the loop' - downtown Chicago is contained within a loop of 'El' trains - elevated above the streets, they put you within a couple of blocks of most of the important places downtown. Anyway, my hostel is inside the Loop, right next door to El tracks (Think Blues Brothers, though mercifully less noisy), and hence within about 10 minutes of anything downtown.

Speaking of downtown Chicago, my time since arriving here has mostly been spent just walking, getting a feel for the town. It seems like a great place - less crowded than New York, but with almost as many tall buildings, and architecturally much more adventurous. Again, as in NYC, I keep running into buildings and places I've read about and heard about but never visited, and it really is great to such such places 'in the flesh', so to speak. 

Arrived into fresh snowfall yesterday, which was absolutely beautiful - and I think I'm becoming accustomed to the cold - I feel like as long as I'm sufficiently rugged up, I could walk around all day in temperatures sitting just below zero, as they were yesterday. The lake (Lake Michigan) is frozen out to a couple of hundred metres, as is a good part of the Chicago River, which cuts through the centre of downtown.

Anyway, that's about it for today - spending my first full day today further exploring the Loop - at some point I'm planning to get up the top of both the Sears and John Hancock towers, but, no that the snow has stopped, I just have to wait for the clouds to lift above about 300 metres, so that I can actually see something from the top :P.

'til next time,

Jono

Spending the day in Cambridge, MA

Just a short blog this evening, I'm afraid - I'm leaving town tomorrow for Chicago, so I've gotta get everything packed back up and ready for the next leg of my great train trip.

Anyway, yesterday I took a trip out to Cambridge, MA,, home of Harvard and MIT. The place, like everything around here, it seems, is terribly pretty (although I have reached the conclusion that everything is more attractive with a coating of snow :P). MIT is the home of 56 Nobel prize winners, and its small museum is very interesting - everything from electric cars to sonar to holograms, robots and kintetic sculptures make an appearance, all of them coming from researchers and students working here.

Further along the Red Subway Line is Harvard, and its adjacent community, Harvard Square, which exhibits a now familiar pattern  of development - lots of bookshops, record stores, cafes and priviledged-looking, wealthy white people. Yawn. That said, the campus itself is beautiful, and the history in America's first college, a place which is over 350 years old, is undeniable. 

Coming back to Boston, I paid a visit to the Boston Fens (close to the famous Fenway Park Baseball Stadium). These form part of a network of parks known as the Emerald Necklace, designed by a man who is now officially a hero of mine (amongst his many achievements were Central Park in New York, Golden Gate Park in San Francisco, and one of the original layout plans for UC Berkeley). While I usually associate the term 'fen' with an ugly swamp, these fens are surrounded by beautiful, maybe 15 foot tall reeds, and in the snow are a sight to behold.

Today's exploits involved even more walking than usual which, in my case, is rather a lot of walking :P

Started the day out with a stroll around the Institute of Contemporary Art Museum in South Boston (Contemporary Art/Modern Art museums have somehow found my way onto my 'must-see' list, regardless of what city I'm in.), which is architecturally awesome, and, while small, had a couple of excellent exhibits. Walked back across the bridge to Bosston proper, and explored the North End of town. Traditionally the Italian part of town, the North End used to be cut off from the rest of the city by a great big, ugly surface freeway. After an enourmous, hugely expensive project to put the freeway underground (the infamous 'Big Dig'), this part of the city is once again connected and easily accessible to Downtown Boston. An incredibly dense, warrenlike connection of small, 3-5 storey buildings, the North End was also the home of famous revolutionary Paul Revere. More importantly, it's the site of any number of awesome Italian eateries - Boston's Lygon Street, if you like, and after an awesome sandwich in just such a place, I pushed on.

Last on my list for the day was the Bunker Hill Memorial, a 221 foot tall obelisk across the river in Charlestown. Commemorating the Revolutionary War Battle of Bunker Hill, the memorial is situated at the site of the battle, on top of..... Breed's Hill. Apparently, they decided to fight from the hill next-door. And no-one mentioned that when they named the battle. sigh. Anyway, Charlestown is another lovely, old-school New-Englandly city of the colonial era. Unfortunately, the stairs to the top of the monument were closed today, 'too icy', apparently :roll:, but the museum across the road was informative, plus it had dioramas - and I'm a sucker for a good diorama.

Anyway, that was more or less my last couple of days - I leave for Chicago in the middle of the day tomorrow, with an ensuing 22-odd hour train trip (which, strange as I am, I'm actually rather looking forward to - a good chance to relax, watch the scenery and catch up on some reading :P). I'll update again in a couple of days, live from America's second city.

'til then.

Jono

From New York to Baawstun

So, my last few days, one in New York, one in transit and one in Boston (I can't get over that accent! - Baaaaawstun) have really run the gamut.

So, got up on New Years Eve and met up with Alice and Bonnie again, for a trip to the Top of The Rock observation deck. so, there are two observation decks in New York City - one at the top of the Empire State Building, and one up top of the GE building at the Rockerfeller Centre. Now, I'd never been up the Rockerfeller Centre one, but we all knew that we didn't want to wait in line for hours to go up the ESB (Literally hours - every time I went past, the line was out the door and halfway down the block). The Rock Observation deck has a timed entry system, so the night before I went and got tickets, and we walked right in at midday, no queues or lines at all.

Unfortunately, between the time we went inside the building and the time we got to the top, the snow which had been dusting the city most of the morning really set in. From the top, we could still see the buildings arround us, but not much else - no Central Park, no rivers, no downtown. That said, it ws hardly disappointing - in the place of clear vistas, we got an eerie, Gothamesque view of the city which made it look like the whole thing had no beginning and no end.

(pictures are returning, however only in a limited capacity - I'm uploading these directly rather than via Flickr)

So, after a spot of lunch, we took a little time to rest before heading down to Times Square to finagle a place for the big New Years Eve celebration. Arriving just after 4PM, we got a place relatively close to the action - relative being the key term here - in fact, we were 6 blocks back from where the famous New Years Ball drops, at the intersection of 48th St and Broadway. The next day, I would speak to someone who had an even better position - she was 3 blocks forward of us, at 45th - who arrived at 10 in the morning. Our 8 hours standing in the cold seems like a pittancee by comparison :P. Anyway, after a long and sometimes difficult wait (it was -10 degrees through much of the evening), the big countdown came, and made it all worth it. A couple of minutes before midnight, they played John Lennon's 'Imagine', then the big screens counted down from one minute, the ball dropped, a tonne of confetti was released (literally one metric tonne of confetti), a million people yelled "Happy New Year" (again, no hyperbole here, there were literally 1 million revellers in and around Times Square), and they played Frank Sinatra's "New York, New York" - and I think I really understood what 'ole blue eyes meant by "I wanna wake up in a city that never sleeps". So, after stumbling, stiff and bleary-eyed, back to my hostel, I slept soundly, with a truly once in lifetime experience (never again!) under my belt.

Waking up the next morning was somewhat difficult, but I managed, packing up my stuff, checking out and hauling my bags down to New York's Pennsylvania Station. As I may have mentioned earlier, my whole trip back across the country via Boston and Chicago is happening on Amtrak trains - after a good experience from LA to Berkeley, I figured I'd give the cross-country thing a shot. So, first leg being the shortest, I hopped the 1 O'clock train to Boston. I've gotta say, if this trip was anything to go by, I don't think I'll have any problems with the trains, thankyou very much. Unlike at an airport, I didn't have to take off my shoes, belt, jacket, watch, Ipod, wallet, coins etc before boarding, and we left within 15 minutes of our scheduled departure. The cars were warm, had big seats which reclined generously, and there were power points next to every seat for me to plug in my laptop and tap away. Plus, I could get up and walk around as I pleased, or look out the window at the beautiful New England scenery. 5 hours passed by in a flash, and I arrived in Boston safe and sound. Overall, a very positive experience.

Today, then, I got started on exploring Boston, on the first of my 4 days here. Without knowing too much about the city, I wanted to have a bit of a wander, get a feel for the place and generally try to get a handle on the city. The snow of the last couple of days wasn't falling today, but it was still thick on the ground through much of the city, and it just adds to the beauty of the place. There are a couple of insights that I gained in my walking today. Firstly, Bostonians looooove themselves a good statue, plaque or memorial trail. As a very old (as in early 1600s, about as old as you can get on this continent) and traditionally important city, Boston can lay claim to a great deal of firsts and historical events. They've got a Freedom Trail, which walks visitors through important Revolutionary points of interest (remember the story of the Boston Tea Party?), and a great number of historically important people and buildings to memorialies - a task which they tackle with vigour. Another key realisation about Boston is that it really is "America's College Town", as the literature goes. The storied institutions are, of course, Harvard (first University in America) and MIT (home of 56 Nobel Prize winners), but really, there are universities and colleges scattered all over the place. As such, there are all of the wonderful things you expect in a college town - lots of book shops and record stores, lots of upwardly mobile young people, and a really impressive public library (All of these were very familiar from my time in Berkeley). In the afternoon, I got up to the observation deck (I'm a sucker for these things - there are two more on my 'must see' list, in Chicago) on the Prudential Centre, which gives a great view of this rather lovely city.

A walk along the frozen Charles River topped off a thoroughly enjoyable day, and cemented my impression of Boston as a pretty and very pleasant place - it's not as exciting and hustle-bustley as NYC by any stretch of the imagination, but neither does it have the sheer, overwhelming (even alienating) hugeness of its bigger sister to the South.

And that really is an awesome accent.

'til next time,

Jono.

Around about Downtown Manhattan

Hey all, back again with an update from the last couple of days.

Unfortunately, flickr connection is still borked, so still no photos :(

So, I've spent a good part of the  last couple days hanging out with fellow Australians Alice and Bonnie, and I've greatly enjoyed having awesome people to chat to and see things with (not to mention having someone to take pictures of me in front of New York skylines - very important, that.)

Yesterday, after a bit of stupidity on my part (left my mobile at my hostel, had to return to Brooklyn to get it in order to arrange to meet), we caught up at Battery Park, at the Southern tip of Manhattan Island.  After taking in the excellent view of the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island, we walked up through downtown, past Wall St and the New York Stock Exchange, to the City Hall and Civic Centre. We then braved the crowds to walk over the Brooklyn Bridge, a spectacular structure, built in 1875, with an equally special view of both Downtown and Midtown Manhattan. After a stop for lunch on the Brooklyn side, we paid a visit to the incredibly picturesque Central Park, which is especially spectacular at its Southern end, with skyscrapers as a backdrop to the pond and landscaped beauty of the place. After a visit to the Apple Cube (Which I think I mentioned a few days ago) and FAO Schwartz, plus a walk through the bright, flashing landscape of Times Square, the girls were ready to call it a day. Before I headed back to Brooklyn for the night, I took the oppurtunity to do a bit of exploring in Midtown, and some night photography - if Flickr was working, this would be the point where I posted an amazing shot of the East River and Queensboro bridge which I stumbled upon in my walkings. Instead, you'll just have to imagine it, and take my word that the view was -amazing-.

Today, my morning was taken up with more mundane tasks - specifically, laundry - which I hadn't done since I left San Francisco. That out of the way, I headed into Manhattan, taking a long walk in the low-rise neighbourhoods between between Midtown and Downtown. Starting in Chinatown, I visited Little Italy, Noho, Soho, Chelsea, the West Village, Greenwich Village, and probably some other neighbourhoods that I didn't even know were there. Later in the afternoon I met up again wit Alice and Bonnie, who had spent the day at museums which I'd already hit up. We endured the long lines at Magnolia Cupcakes (Made famous, I'm informed, on Sex and the City), but the resulting sweets were well worth the wait - I mean, I don't use the term 'best cupcakes ever', but damn, these were really good cupcakes :P.

After another early night on the part of my travelling companions, I again took a night-time wander in this wonderful city. Taking the Subway South to 34th street, I paid a visit to the base of the Empire State Building (line was too long to consider going up), then moved on to 'the biggest store in the world', Macy's New York. Certainly, this is an enourmous store, and it has a lot of old-school charm. Of particular note were the wooden escalators throughout the uooer floors - I've never seen escalators that old before, and I suppose that through a combination of nostalgia and inertia (if it ain't broke...), they're still there in Macy's, running just as well as you'd expect an escalator to run.

After a wander through Macy's I realised that I hadn't, during this visit, been to see the famous flatiron building. Anyway, I felt like a walk, so I schlepped down Broadway, took in the flatiron by night, then continued down to my subway stop at 14th St.

Well, that's all from me for the time being. Big plans for tomorrow - it looks like it might snow in the morning, we've got a visit to the Rockerfeller Centre Observation Deck lined up, and, of course, New Year's Eve in Times Square.

Might not get back to the blog for a couple days, and New Year's Day has me taking the train to Boston, MA, where I'll be staying for a few days.

'til then!

Jono

More New York

Hey again, just wanted to drop back in and say hello, and get y'all updated on goings-on over the last couple of days.

Unfortunately, no photos today - having some flickr-issues at the moment, and my uploads aren't going through.

So, yesterday, I got up earlyish and made my way out to Coney Island. Site of the original Luna Park, Coney Island was a popular beachside resort and day-trip destination for New Yorkers in the early 20th century. On a downnhill slide since after the 2nd world-war, most of the original theme parks and fairgrounds were long ago replaced my moderate-income and public housing. A few places survived along the waterfront, but last summer's closure of Astroland Park effectively spells the end of the area as an amusement park destination (there is, of course, still a beach, and the New York Aquarium is here).

So, I went out here mostly out of curiosity, to get a look at the retro-decay and degeneration. The parks that are still open always shut down for the winter anyway, but on a foggy day like Saturday, the whole place looks almost ghostly - appropriately enough, like it might just fade away into the mist. It's kinda sad, of course, to see a such a significant place slowly melting away, but there's little to be done if people don't want to visit anymore.

Another famous Coney Island sight is Nathan's famous hot of stand. Established in 1915, Nathan holds an annual hot dog eating contest - you know the one, on the news every year, with the little Japanese guy absolutely dominating a whole bunch of huge American dudes. Well, I paid a visit to Nathan's and tried one of their famous hot dogs. The verdict? Not bad, but I couldn't eat 63 in 10 minutes :P

So, the original plan for yesterday afternoon as to meet up with a friend of a friend, Alice, who's on her own epic international trip, and is here in New York for New Years. Unfortunately, true to form, American Airlines failed abjectly, and left the poor girl sitting in San Francisco Airport for 9-odd hours. At any rate, my Saturday evening was more pleasant than being stuck in transit all day, and I spent some time exploring midtown Manhattan at night - rather spectacular when the fog is as low as it was yesterday evening, shrouding tall buildings and reflecting city lights.

By this morning, Alice had made it to New York, so we met up for Breakfast on the Upper Weest Side. After breakfast, we hit up the Natural History Museum, which was a strange experience indeed. To me, the Museum of Natural History is something of a meta-museum - a museum of what museums were like in the early-mid 20th century. eschewing the interactive, interpretive exhibit of many more modern museums (think of the Melbourne Museum, for example), the museum of natural history is old school. Like, stuffed animals, dioramas, human skeletons and exhibits called 'The African People' and 'The Asian People'. This really is a retro-experience - even an exhibit on the new-fangled concept of 'biodiversity' can't resist such charming inclusions as a stuffed Panda and a Dodo skeleton. Hardly a great contribution to biodiversity there. The natural history museum, incidentally, is the setting for that Ben Stiller movie, Night at the Museum.

Next stop was on the other side of the park, at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. In addition to the largest museum store I've ever seen (they sell rugs, for goodness sake), they've got a huge building, housing an enourmous collection spanning the whole gamut from ancient pottery through Roman and Greek, Renaissance, Impressionist and Contemporary Art (including the only Damien Hirst I've ever seen - the piece where he suspended a whole shark in a tank of formaldehyde (kinda reminded me of the Natural History Museum :P). After spending a couple of hours wandering through that particularly impressive collection, we took a subway South and paid a brief visit to Roosevelt Island (which I wrote about a couple of days ago) right around sunset. I'll tell you what - if that place is spectacular by day, it's even more amazing with all the lights going. Quite a sight indeed.

A quick visit to Times Square for dinner rounded off a fun and productive day - Alice's travelling companion arrives tomorrow morning (again, scheduled to arrive this evening, but not to be), and I think we'll be hitting up the bottom part of Manhattan Island - Bryant Park, the Empire State Building, Battery Park etc.

'til next time!

Jono

Christmas in New York

While it was always going to be hard being away from home on Christmas day, if you're gonna be anywhere at such a time, it might as well be New York. So what did I get up to on Christmas? Well, after a bit of sleep-in, I took a walk along the East River, on the East Side of Manhattan. A pathway, of varying quality, runs all the way along the edge of the island from where I joined it, around 6th street, all the way up to 40somethingth street. One of my favourite things about this city (or any city, really), is that is has so many different faces and aspects - depending on where you see it from, there's an infinite number of beautiful views to be had - plus, in New York, you can look across the river and see Brooklyn, an impressive city in and of itself.

Diverting from the shoreline, I made my way into the North end of midtown, past the Citicorp centre (the giant, slope-roofed one in the skyline shot above), and found a couple of stores that were open on Christmas afternoon - one was that Apple store (Which is housed in a bunker underneath a hyper-futuristic glass cube, and literally never closes (24 hours a day, 365 days a year)). The other was even better then - the world's most famous toy store, FAO Schwartz was open, so I took the time to go in, have a wander around and see the famous giant keyboard (As famously seen in the Tom Hanks movie Big).

After a giant pretzel from one of the ubiquitous street-cart vendors (possibly my favourite New York photo so far, btw), I took a quick stroll through the southernmost part of Central Park. Despite the warmer weather, the surface of the lake was still frozen. It's a beautiful place, Central Park, and plays so well off of its uber-urban surroundings.

Heading back downtown, I came to Times Square, which is just as crazy a place as you might imagine - they reckon that half a million people pass through there in a day, which explains the cacophany of flashing lights, huge video screens and 10-storey billboards. It's like Las Vegas compressed into three blocks. Or maybe Las Vegas is Times Square spread out over a whole city - either way, with that number of computers and video screens in all packed into one place, something is bound to malfunction eventually :P

So it seems that Christmas Day is big movie release day today, so my plans to go See Gran Torino were disturbed by a sold out session. My alternative, while not exactly festive, turned out to be one of the best movies I've seen all year - Doubt, with Meryl Streep and Phillip Seymour Hoffman is pretty dark, but really excellent.

My Christmas Day was topped off by a nice meal at a restaurant nearby (including a very classy hamburger, and a ridiculously indulgent desert - espresso ice-cream, punctuated by chunks of brownie, topped with whipped cream and bookended by caramel-coated peanuts - yum!), then back to the hostel for an early night's sleep.

Today, I spent some time indulging some of my geekier habits. A morning visit to an awesome used video-game store was fun, followed by a trip to Battery Park City in Lower Manhattan to visit the Skyscraper Museum - student entry cost me two bucks fifty, and I spent almost an hour and a half in their one gallery - an exhibit about Hong Kong and New York kept me occupied for that long - what a bargain! Although I must admit that some of that hour and a half was spent in the museum store, wishing I could afford a 3200 piece skyscraper modelling kit :P. I rounded out the day with a trip to the P.S.1 contemporary art centre (my MOMA ticket got me in for free - it really was a thrifty day!). P.S.1 is really interesting, actually - it's a real, 29th century school building which has been retooled into a gallery - some of the spaces feel like ordinary galleries, but others are woven into the building - including one 'gallery' which is actually the old boiler-room, with furnace intact (but sadly inoperative :P).

All in all, then, a good couple of days - I'm still loving experiencing and exploring this city, and its many, many faces.

The streets of Manhattan

Bugger.

Well, somehow I appear to have just lost a whole bunch of writing I just did for this thing, so the following is a spark notes version of my last couple of days in New York City.

On Tuesday, I walked downtown, and did my architecture-geek thing, peering up at all the famous (and just plain impressive) buildings at the bottom end of Manhattan Island.

Plus, the view from down there, of New Jersey, Ellis Island and the Statue of Liberty are mighty impressive.

Next, I headed back uptown to Roosevelt Island, in the middle of the East River. The two notable attributes of Roosevelt Island: #1 - The Aerial Tramway which serves the island.

#2 - the views. Which are incredible - from Roosevelt Island, the Upper East Side of Manhattan looks like a man-made mountain of concrete and glass and steel. Just stunning.

A return to the bigger island by subway took me to the Rockerfeller Centre, which is perfect at this time of year for a festive fix - ice skating, bright lights, a giant christmas tree and thousands of people all in the one place.

Additionally, I'd like to throw out that the main building (used to be called the RCA building, now it's the GE building) of the Rockerfeller Centre (which stretches over several blocks of Midtown Manhattan) is quite possibly my favourite skyscraper full stop. Which (for me at least), is a big call :P. But I really love it - it's tall, and long, and oriented such that, from the North or South, it takes up a whole block, whereas from the East or West it's so narrow you hrdly see it at all - it's like a sleek, beautiful, art-deco, 270-odd metre tall stone cliff face - like something that would be eroded out of a mountain, rather than being built. Just wonderful.

Anyway, after all that excitement, today(Christmas Eve) was a somewhat more subdued day. I went out to the Museum of Modern Art in the morning, and boy, was it ever busy! I got there 20-odd minutes before it opened, but the line for tickets already stretched out the door. There must've been 1000 plus people in the museum at any one time - place was packed. They've got a great collection, though. I'm no art-expert, but it's great to see some of the uber-famous pieces, like Van Gogh's Starry Night, and Warhol's Soup Can paintings. 

This afternoon, I took a wander through the Greenwich Village neighbourhood, which is charming, but terribly confusing - because it predates the regular street grid (parallel numbered streets running East-West, parallel numbered avenues running North-South) you find further up the island, you get wierd things happening - I gave up trying to navigate when 4th street intersected with 10th street -_-.

So, those were my eventful couple of days - I'm still having a blast over here, and learning more abou the city every day. Tomorrow's Christmas Day, and my plans include a sleep-in (so much walking the last couple of days!), a movie in the evening, then a nice meal.

A merry Christmas to y'all, hope it's a good one!

'til next time.

Jono

Live from New York!

Hy all, I'm coming to ya tonight direct from Brooklyn, New York - and starting to remember just why I liked this city so much the first time around.

So, after spending a bit of time over the weekend taking in a last bit of San Francisco, I packed up my stuff from the frat and headed out to SFO airport.

I had an overnight flight, leaving San Francisco at quarter to eight at night and reaching JFK airport in New York at about 7:30 the next morning. In the end, due to various delays, the trip turned out to be somewhat longer - but in the end, I left the airport a little before ten this morning. Hopped a taxi to my hostel, which is in a very cool part of town, Brooklyn is on Long Island, across the river from Manhattan, and I'm staying in East Williamsburg. For the Melbournites amongst us, this area is a bit like a less gentrified Brunswick - lots of galleries, converted lofts and creative types, spotted by low-income housing and a few industries and warehouses which are still running. Except that Williamsburg is on a much greater scale than you'd find in Melbourne. The Hostel I'm staying in is a converted loft, and they've done an amazing job. My room sleeps 12, but the space is so huge, you're not cramped in with everyone, as you get in many hostels. It's all very new, and there's a cool lounge/kitchen space, with new appliances and fittings.

Anyway, after dropping my stuff of at the hostel, I had some time to kill before I could check in. So I hopped the subway (like a block and a half away from the hostel) and did what I always do when I arrive in a new city - walked around - so a bit of a photosummary is in order.

So, after a 15 minutes ride to Union Square on Manhattan, I took a walk up the famous Park avenue - no photos of this, I'm afraid, I was still in cold-shock at the time, and was more focused on getting something hot and breakfasty (two eggs and bacon on a roll saved my morning  today :P). Made my way up to Grand Central Terminal, which is probably the most impressive train station I've ever seen - and it's not just a pretty face - there are dozens of trains which arrive and depart from here, and hundreds of people at a time coming and going.

The great thing about actually being in New York is that something spectacular and iconic is always just around the corner - case in point, I walk out of Grand Central, and run into this baby.

Yup, that's the Chrysler Tower, quite possibly the most elegant, beautiful skyscraper in the world - and in New York, it's just there, all the time, ready to be seen and admired.

Not one to quickly move on from unhealthy obsessions, I soonfound another building to fawn over - this time, one that I had missed out on during my first trip here. The UN secretariat building, as well as being pretty and architecturally significant, is also a place where a whole lot of good work goes on - which lend the whole thing a certain gravitas, I reckon.

(see the gravitas :P)

Plus, there's an amazing view down the street (42nd? I think.) from outside - there are not very many places in the world where you can have a view like the following, with such a variety of buildings in all different styles, shapes, ages, heights and sizes.

Next, I took a walk across the island from East to West, ending up on the Hudson River, where I saw the aircraft USS Intrepid (Which I only knew about because I'd seen Will Smith use it as a driving range in I Am Legend). 

Again, I feel compelled to point out that, no matter where you are in New York, there always seems to be an amazing view just around the corner - this one's taken at the West Side train yards, with the new New York Times Building at left, and the Empire State in the middle there.

Anyway, I made my way back to the subway via the East Village neighbourhood (nice, but far too many hipsters/yuppies/fashionistas) and hopped on a train back to Brooklyn.

So, that was my eventful day - got a few things planned over the next few days - Roosevelt Island, Wall St/Downtown, Central Park, the Rockerfeller Centre, Museum of Modern Art, Coney Island etc - but mostly I'm just looking to spend a bit of time doing exactly what I was up to today - wandering, exploring and being in awe of this crazy, crazy city.

'til then,

Jono

Reboot

Hey y'all

After a hectic couple of months, a lot of schoolwork, a lot of assignments and a lot of fun, I'm officially all finished - with finals, with my studies here at Berkeley and, in fact, with my Arts degree. Which feels good. Anyway, I'm now officially in holiday mode.

So, between now and when I return (Jan 16th), I've got some travelling to do. New York, Boston and Chicago are the places on my hit list - flying out to New York tomorrow evening, and then making my way back across the breadth of the United States by train. Which I'm thoroughly looking forward to. So, itinerary.

Itinerary, December 21 – January 16


21/12: Depart San Francisco Airport, 7:45PM, Transfer at Las Vegas

22/12: Arrive New York, 7:30AM

22/12 – 31/12: Overnight, New York Loft Hostel, Brooklyn

1/1: Depart Penn Station, New York, 1PM, on train to Boston

1/1 – 4/1: Overnight, HI Hostel Boston

5/1 – 6/1: Depart Boston South Station for Chicago @ 11:55, arrive Union Station, Chicago, 9:45AM, 6/1

6/1 – 11/1: Overnight, HI Hostel Chicago

11/1 – 13/1: Depart Chicago Union Station for Los Angeles @ 3:15PM, Arrive Union Station, Los Angeles, 8:15AM, 13/1

13/1: Overnight, Super 8 Hotel, Los Angeles Airport

14/1: Depart Los Angeles Airport @ 1:50PM, return to Melbourne via Taipei, Brisbane.

16/1: Arrive Melbourne Airport @ 3:40PM

As you can see, there's a lot of time spent on the train in there (I count almost 70 hours total), but I actually really enjoyed the train trip up here from Los Angeles, and it's more scenic than flying and cheaper than hiring a car. So that's the gist of my next few weeks - Now that I've got more free time, I'll make sure to keep this thing good and updated with all of my adventures in three exciting American cities. 

Victory

Looks like the American people have voted.

And for the right guy this time!

It was a crazy night out here - hundreds of people came out into the streets for an impromptu Obamaparty.

I'm afraid it wasn't all good news this evening - Here in California, it appears that voters have narrowly passed Proposition 8, which writes the state's 5 month old acceptance of gay marriage out of the constitution. Looks like 52-48% in that race - but young voters were strongly against the measure, so who knows - maybe they can turn it around in 2010.

'til next time.

Jono

PS: Sorry about going without contact for so long, y'all - I'll be sure to blog shorter and more frequently going forward.

Hills of Berkeley

Hey again, everyone - long time, no post, I know, but here I am with a new post.

So, things are getting seriously underway on the academic side over here, but that doesn't mean I'm not finding the time to get out and explore my surroundings.

As the weather cools down, in fact, it's easier for me to get out and about - For a few weeks when I arrived, it was a bit too warm for comfort, but now it's cooled down beautifully - just the right conditions for getting out and exploring the Berkeley Hills.

So, Geography lesson first: The East side of the San Francisco Bay consists of a fairly narrow strip of urban and suburban development, backed by a long chain of hills. Many of the suburbs here in the East Bay climb a way back up into the hills, but as you get further back from the water its mostly state and national parks.

I've been intending to get out there for a while now - I've spent over a month now living entirely in the city, and while I love being here where the action is, I'm still a hills boy, so I do occasionally feel the compulsion to get out into a less urban landscape. So I took a couple of longish walks out into the hills last weekend, keen on finding out what there was to see back behind the campus where I spend all of my time.

The University of California actually owns a lot of land in the hills back here - the Lawrence Berkeley National Labs (a Physics research centre - think syncotrons and the like) extends right back up Strawberry Canyon, the source of the creek running through the middle of campus.

I had almost forgotten how much I enjoy getting out amongst the trees. I guess it's not something you think about when you live next door to a forest, but I forgot how great it is to get out away from the concrete, at least for a little while.

And boy, it's spectacular up there. Strawberry Canyon climbs up and up until it reaches the highest point in the immediate area, Grizzly Peak (for reference, Grizzly Peak is around 1800 feet above sea level, so a similar height to Mt  Dandenong). There are groves of redwoods, which I've decided are my favourite species of tree (is it strange that I have a favourite species of tree?) - when you're out there in the late afternoon, the light streaming in can be so spectacular.

Apparently, the hippies(or cultists?) like it up in the Redwood groves too - check out the forest circles!

The other big attraction of getting out into the hills is the view - it was hazy when I went out there, but when it's clear, I bet you could see the whole Bay.

Looking down Strawberry Canyon, over the top of Berkeley to the San Francisco Bay - SF itself is obscured by the haze.

Looking down to the Campanile and the UC Berkeley Campus (note the Eucalypt trees in the foreground - they're introduced here in California, but it turns out they thrive in this climate)

Downtown Oakland through the haze

Downtown Berkeley, and its precisely two highrise buildings.

Well, that's more or less it for the time being - hope you're enjoying the occasional blog-age, I'm certainly having a good time putting 'em together.

As usual, all my photos from the past week or so are on Flickr.

'til next time!

Jono

The end of the Tree Sitter

Disclaimer: This is just my own impressions of what went down these last few days, along with my own opinion, biases and inaccuracies - if you're after the full story, pay a visit to the Daily Cal - I know that a good part of my weekend was spent refreshing their page to get the latest and best news on what was happening down at the Oak Grove.

This morning I took a walk down to the Oak Grove on Piedmont Avenue, as I've done for the last 6 days. I knew, of course, that there weren't any trees their any more - but all the same it came as a shock to see nothing but piles of wood chips where, just a few days ago, were over 40 oak and redwood trees.

So, what's the story?

Well, first we've gotta look at a little bit of history - I know I've mentioned the tree sitters in the past, but lets go over the basics again.

On the 2nd of December 2006, Zachary RunningWolf(below), a local native American and sometime political aspirant climbed into a Pacific Coastal Oak tree in the Memorial Oak Grove just West of Berkeley's 80,000 seat Memorial Stadium. The University had plans to construct a Student High Performance Athletics Centre - training facilities for their college sports teams - on the site of the cluster of around 40 Oak and Redwood trees. At first, many people came and went to the ongoing protests, and a network of ropes and cables stretched across several trees in the Grove. In the meantime, a lawsuit was brought against the University by The California Oak Foundation, the City of Berkeley and the Panoramic Hill Association. These actions combined to delay the construction of the new Sports Facility, and the University grew increasingly strict on the tree-sitters - erecting one and then a second fence and topping the fences with barbed wire in an attempt to cut off the tree sitters.

Zachary RunningWolf

(Note that the guy I identified as Zachary RunningWolf in a previous blog was, in fact, some other dude named Zachary, and not the initiator of the Berkeley Tree Sit)

So things continued until just last week. The tree sitters grew fewer in number, and were confined to a single tree, but their presence was still felt (largely by the efforts of their ground crew, who were encamped across the road from the trees). The legal battles dragged on, but eventually, it became clear that the University of California was winning this fight. decisions were passed down by judges, appeals were made and the protest became the longest urban tree sit in American history (longer than all of those other urban tree sits that we're all familiar with, like... err...). The supporters were banned from supplying the tree sitters with food and water - a task the University took up themselves. Occasionally, the ground support team would stage a protest event, and the UC Police would get annoyed. Occasionally, the University would send up a cherry picker to hack off some limbs, and the protesters would get annoyed. But generally, by the time I arrived in Berkeley, there appeared to be a fairly stable status quo in place - sitters up the tree, supporters hanging out on the sidewalk and police standing watch over the whole thing.

Which helps to explain why I thought nothing more of it when I read last Thursday that a judge had given the UC the go-ahead to begin construction, and against which an appeal was  apparently pending. Imagine my surprise, then, when I arrived back in Berkeley from a field trip on Friday afternoon to see three helicopters hovering over the stadium. At first I was confused - had there been a major crime on campus? It took me a little while on the walk up the hill to realise that this could only be about the tree sitters. So I went home, gathered up my camera + equipment and headed out to the grove. By the time I arrived, most of the trees had already gone - the tree fellers would cut a chunk out of the base, then swing an earthmoving machine at it, battering the whole tree to the ground.

As the evening went on and more and more trees came down, the situation down at ground level became more and more heated.

At first, it was mostly hippies, standing around looking distraught - as you may well expect - when you've devoted such a great deal of your time to saving something, it must be difficult to see it so summarily destroyed.

The police, too were relatively chill at first - just standing outside the fence like they'd been doing for literally hundreds of days.

But at some point, things got more heated.

It's probably worth diverging from the plot at this point to note that there were several different types of protesters present on the ground, and they fell broadly into three categories. The largest group were the hippies - your stereotypical 'save the trees' type, for whom the key objection seemed to be philosophical - that the trees in question, as part of the wider ecosystem, should be preserved for the general well-being of the earth.

A second group was the native Americans - people like RunningWolf, who we encountered above. These people tended to emphasise the cultural importance of the site - the claim was made, for example, that the Oak Grove was a burial ground for the local Ohlone indian tribe.

The third group were what you might call the environmental radicals - these guys and girls had similar concerns to the hippies, but were more focused on the politics of the decision and the University, and tended more to anger than to sadness at the loss of the trees.

Of course, there was significant crossover between these groups, as well as significant room for outlier-craziness - RunningWolf, for example, is on record as claiming that cutting down the trees is a project of the Mormons and the Illuminati. This crossover of motivations and politics made the whole protest some what messy, with a litany of different messages and methods of protest.

Back on track, however - 

The enviro-radicals also made their appearance, and tension continued to mount.

The outbreak on Friday seems to have been started by percussion, of all things.

At some point, with the protesters lined up on one side of the road, and the police hanging back behind barricades on the opposite side, someone started banging on an empty plastic bottle, like the kind you would use in a water cooler. More people joined in, banging on whatever plastic or metal they could get their hands on - the anger and frustration of the protesters was manifesting itself as music and dance.

Unfortunately, dancing around on a major university thoroughfare doesn't win you any friends amongst the police.

Eventually, the assembled cops cleared everyone from one side of the road - at which point, they crossed the median and continued their dance on the opposite side. Things were getting more and more heated between the police and the protesters - traffic was backing up along Piedmont Ave (it didn't help that there was a big Dave Matthews Band concert on that night, just down the road at the Greek Theatre) and the tree-sitter supporters were getting more and more worked up as the trees continued to fall.

Eventually, a police car tried to come through down the road which was being blocked by dancing hippies. Probably not the greatest idea, in hindsight - a gentleman with a pair of bongos sat himself down there, and simply refused to move.

This proved the flashpoint for the evening - when police tried to forcibly remove the man with the bongos, sympathetic protesters intervened, and everything got quite chaotic quite quickly - I'll let the pictures do the talking here.

As you can see, once the cops try to remove the guy from in front of the police car, all hell breaks loose - protesters are yelling "LET HIM GO!", and several young guys (mostly of an enviro-radical bent, it seems) jump right into the fray, trying to wrestle police away from the action.In doing so, the gentleman in the last two pictures become the fray - the police's training and the majority's reluctance to get bashed around or arrested eventually wins out. Police escort the man into custody to the shouts of his fellow protesters.

One girl's obvious distress catches my eye - there's clearly a lot of emotion in the air on this Friday evening, and it can be enough to really upset a person.

So, I went home on Friday feeling very bummed out about the whole situation - Nearly all of the trees were now down, and the University had given the remaining sitters a 72 hour deadline to come out of the trees.

Over the course of the weekend, the University first cut and then chipped all but two trees in the grove - one redwood which is the be transplanted to another spot on campus, and the temporary home of the four protesters still up that tree.

Come Monday, then, when the deadline expired, the place had turned into even more of a media circus than it had been on Friday. All of the biggest TV channels, Newspapers and Radio Stations in the Bay Area (and a whole bunch of small ones, too) gathered around to wait for.... something to happen. They conducted a walkie-talkie interview with one of the remaining sitters in the morning, but it became clear that today would not see the end of the Berkeley Tree Sit.

In the end, nothing happened on Monday except some more UC 'pruning' of the last tree still to be cut down - more lower branches were cut off the tree sitters' Redwood, further tightening their living space, while the University stopped providing its usual daily food and water provisions.

Tuesday, then, was the day. I woke up to the sound of helicopters for the 4th morning in a row, and made my way back to the Oak Grove. What I saw when I arrived was surreal, and somehow darkly humourous. Around the base of the tree swarmed construction workers in white coveralls, looking for all the world like Iranian nuclear technicians. Except that these particular men in white were building stairs. Up a tree. Or, more accurately, building scaffolding around the protesters' Redwood, so that they could build stairs right up into the canopy.

Meanwhile, the Chief and Assistant Chief of the UC Berkeley Police department (Yes, the university does have its own police department) were swinging around in a basket hanging from a crane, trying to talk down the 4 remaining sitters.

At around this point, with the scaffolding about to reach the bottom of the tree sitters' nest, and with the two highest ranking police officers on campus swinging around on the end of a crane my camera ran out of batteries. Which was probably just as well, considering that if they hadn't, I probably would've stuck around for the rest of the day, and missed three lectures. But this next part is all second hand info. Basically, at around 1:30PM on Tuesday September 9th - 648 days after the tree sit began - the protest came to a peaceful end. The remaining 4 sitters climbed down from their perches, were escorted down the scaffolding and arrested.

Returning after classes that evening, I was just in time to witness the final act of the tree sitter saga - a lone tree feller started at the top of that last redwood, attaching each section of the tree to the end of a crane and cutting it free for the crane to lift away.

And, after less than half an hour, he reached the bottom - the last section of Redwood was lifted away - all that was left was a tree feller and stump and two fences between it and the people who worked for so long to save it.

So, what can we say about this whole thing?

Well, a few things, maybe. My first thought is that, while the University of California may have won the war, this collective of hippies, enviro-radicals and Native Americans won 647 battles - one for every day they defied the university and stayed up in those trees.

Of course, we can't forget the police, and what a bloody difficult job they have in all this - after all, they didn't start this battle, but it was down to them to fight it. And (with a few exceptions, when certain individuals got too rough in the heat of the moment), they did a great job, given the circumstances.

The whole experience also hammers home to me that radicalism and a spirit of dissent still have a home in Berkeley today - and while the University again finds itself on the wrong side of history (As it often has in the past), the tree sitters and their supporters can surely claim to have sent an important message.

And I feel like the message here is that there is value in symbolism, and in choosing where to draw the line. In the scheme of things, of course, 40 trees don't mean a great deal - there are thousands of trees being clear-felled every day, even in the United States. But this isn't about Carbon Dioxide emissions or urban heat islands or public greenery - at least not directly. To me, this protest was about priorities - how we value the trees and animals that we all live amongst and how we value burly 20 year olds running into each other in front of 80,000 people. The University of California has shown its hand here, and revealed what it values within its campus. But more importantly, I feel, some people have had the guts to question this. Whatever their flaws (mixed messages, lots of crazies amongst them, unruly appearance, tendency to throw human waste), these people have had the foresight to not simply allow these things to be slowly eroded, but instead to draw a line, to say 'this far but no further', and to have the guts to get outraged over something most of us would simply have let pass.

So here's to all the tree-sitters out there.

PS. Apologies for the long post - there were lots of things bouncing in my head that I needed to get out. If you're interested in seeing more from the last few days of protests, check out set 1 or set 2, or if you're really feeling adventurous, flick through the entire, unabridged collection of 306 shots taken between Friday and Tuesday.