Berkeley at last!

Very delayed getting this all up....bear with me!

Right before the end of the semester, I had the opportunity to present the research I've been talking about at the International Religion and Spirituality in Society conference, being held at Berkeley, CA. Students and other will probably recognizes this as being Holy Ground for me.  I forgot that I had submitted my GRE scores to graduate school here, but they were apparently not up to snuff. 

I have not as many pictures as I would like, but here are some.

Berkeley was basically ground zero for the Free Speech Movement in the 1960s. We wandered around and did get to see People's Park, or what has become of it. It's overgrown and is "home" to the many homeless people around the area, so not exactly for all anymore.  Those who have taken up residence there are protective of that.  Still, it was cool to see. There was an iconic bookstore at THE corner near the People's Park which had changed names, and was re-closed again.  Still, as seen by the bike racks, Berkeley embraces the history:

I also was able to go to the OTHER Holy Ground, Haight-Ashbury:

I think these are the original street signs, outside a Ben and Jerry's. 

In a lot of ways, both Berkeley and Haight-Ashbury are kind of familiar.  Telegraph Road in Berkeley reminds me a lot of OSU's High Street before Campus Partners came in and ruined it gentrified.  Both of them have a lot of shops that look like Comfest if it were permanently in place. 

THE Corner.

Jim and I at The Corner.

Jim spent a lot of time here.

There were all these sayings on the sidewalk. I only took one picture, to avoid looking more like a tourist than I was already.

We did also hit China Town, but not for as long as we would have liked.  It takes forever to get anywhere, even on the BART,

Oh ... and yes there was the presentation. Here is my photo taken by the spouse on the way to said presentation. It's really fuzzy because of the bright light.  Yes, that is a tie-die long vest I was wearing. Did I mention I was in Berkeley?

The conference was good, my presentation was okay. Note to students: There is a reason I tell you to triple check everything. There is nothing like noticing something is wrong when standing on front of 30 or so of your peers (even though they didn't likely notice).  I also got to meet Professor Dollahite, who's survey I'm adapting for my research. We didn't get to talk very much, as I had to leave on Wednesday.

As I was leaving my presentation this little guy was just sitting in his tree, watching all the people.  I had to take a picture for my dad.

Berkeley Squirrel!

 Finally, we were on our way back to the airport on Wednesday.  What you see in this picture is my failure to capture a SINGLE freeway sign that said 'SAN JOSE'

Now we'll never know the way.