I learned my lesson about Asia-to-North America jet lag when my daughter and I visited the Bay Area in June. Go see late night movies, borrow a lot of story books, and get a hotel room. Trying to be quiet all night in a guest room with a four year old is no fun. For Thanksgiving we reserved a hotel room for the first three nights and then decided to stay there for most of the trip.
Bay Area sunset, November 25, 2009
This was the view from the Emeryville Courtyard Marriott, excluding Highway 80 directly below. When I was a kid the Berkeley and Emeryville mudflats — now wetlands — were covered with driftwood art. I remember at least one school field trip there to create art and you were supposed to use only the driftwood available and not haul in new lumber.
That there was so much naturally-occurring driftwood was either a lie or the bay is now surprisingly clean, because over the week I did not spot much more than a twig. In any case the massive clean-up in the late ’80s was a good thing. The tidal wetlands were protected from people trekking through and today we do not have to look at some sort of hipster art that would now be a combination of Burning Man and Silicon Valley wealth. Undoubtedly corporate and anti-corporate branding would be involved and there would be a lot of hand-wringing in Berkeley about it. I don’t like hotel views of hand-wringing.
For a trip to the Bay Area it was pretty good. We managed to avoid bizarro world most of the time and when it reared its ugly head we were not sucked in. The trick is to remain as calm as possible, keep your head above water, and eventually you get spit back out on the other side of the world. This also works for riptides.
Cousins, age 4
In San Francisco we met up with my brother, his wife and their two kids in Golden Gate Park. The kids did not exactly play together but were okay aside from a few turf skirmishes. I was proud of our daughter for being on her best behavior only realizing later she was waiting to play her cards on the 18-hour flight home.
Still, she did great on this trip especially considering the difference in time zones. She knows the drill when it comes to flying, going through immigration and checking in to hotels. She is getting more comfortable striking up friendships with other military children when traveling and even recognized a boy in the Vancouver airport at 2 a.m. whom she met a few days earlier in Seattle.
Now, we have had our fix of the States. Peet’s coffee, See’s chocolates, sourdough bread, raspberries, matzoh brei, clam chowder, burritos, REI. Plus we brought back some special chocolate sauce from Seattle and wild salmon.
The basic necessities. We are good for at least six more months.
