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Check Out Oakland
& Berkeley, California!
If there were
a sandwich made out of one slice of the world, it would taste a lot like the
California East Bay. The city that spreads out along the east side of the
bay represents a little bit of every part of life on this earth. The cities of
Oakland and Berkeley both play a unique part in the beautiful landscape that is
east of the San Francisco Bay.
Well
developed and nestled in the hills, Oakland and Berkeley offer some of the best
traits to be found anywhere:
Start off
with the climate. A little bit warmer than foggy San Francisco, a little
bit cooler than the sun-baked Central Valley, Oakland and Berkeley's days or
nights are rarely uncomfortable. Winter temperatures almost never drop below
freezing; summer heat waves generally shut down by 8 o'clock in the evening,
giving everybody a break until the next day. You can live years here without
realizing that you've passed through more than one season.
Although
Oakland and Berkeley are located quite close to each other, each town has a
strong character of its own.
Oakland
officials like to boast that it is the "most intermixed city in the United
States." This is one time when rhetoric is more than matched by reality.
Walking the length of three blocks in some of the city's neighborhoods is like
walking across three continents, with the smells and sounds of East India,
Cambodia, Mexico, Native America, Puerto Rico and Nigeria intermixing with hard
rock and McDonalds. If diversity is at the top of the list of desirable
qualities, then this is the place to be.
It is one of
California's more diverse cities, geographically, as well. Oakland spreads
itself in a gentle crescent between the San Francisco Bay system to the west
and wooded foothills sloping up to the east. Along the waterfront, you can dine
at outdoor restaurants with postcard-quality views of white-topped sailboats in
their berths, foreign tanker ships gliding sedately by or the spectacular Bay
Bridge and the San Francisco skyline beyond. But a five-mile drive into the
Oakland hills takes you into thick, rolling redwood forestland, with trees so
tall you can hardly see their tops without getting out of your car.
For more information and some of the best
links to the Oakland and Berkeley areas-
see my Local Links Page!
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