Bike Wars!

For those who remember my “bike-accident blog post,” a recent update of the situation from The Economist…

Thanks for pointing me to this article, Nicolas!

America, Not Belgium: Wooden Houses

“Honey, I told you not to put the barbeque too close to the house!”

I think this might be one of the reasons why you hardly see any wooden houses in Belgium…

Shooting the “Berkeley Marina” and “Fourth Street Shopping District”

I’m lagging behind a bit with my blogging, so in this post you get what I have been doing the weekend before last weekend…

On Saturday, July 26, I went to the Berkeley Marina to play a bit with my newly-acquired Nikon D40 SLR camera. It is an amazing digital photo camera with interchangeable lenses. However, you have to learn how to handle it so my pictures might actually be worse than before for now. I hope to change this in the future…

Anyhow, on my way to the marina, I encountered this bagpipe-player next to the railroad:

If you have ever heard one of those things from nearby, you know why the guy was practicing here rather than in his apartment.

After some more camera-experiments in this industrial quarter, I continued towards the actual marina:

 

As one would expect from a marina, they have boats…

boat houses…

and painters!

By then, I was getting pretty hungry and I just couldn’t resist the smell of this guy’s barbeque:

so I had a one of his “steak burgers.” Just delicious! If an American sells you a hamburger—bar in an ordinary fast-food place—there is pride involved. This one was no exception: juicy meat, crisp onions, crusty bread and a luscious sauce. Getting hungry there at the other side of the screen?

Back to the photo-taking then. Another advantage of an SLR camera: these things are fast. When you press the shutter-release button, the picture is instantaneously taken. This allowed me to capture these playing (?) squirrels:

And yes, they belong on this blog because you see lots of these buddies all over the place. In Belgium you hardly ever get to see them, and if you do, it is probably in a forest—or at least what we call a forest in Belgium… Anyhow, in the US they really abound everywhere.

That day, there was a kite-festival going on at the marina:

Okay, it would have been nicer with a clear blue sky, but you get the idea. There were some amazing kites, obviously handled by Chinese—they adore kiting—as you can see from this dragon:

And yes, that flag in the background is actually a kite too…

By then I was getting a little cold—this place is very windy, and the Sun stayed away—so it was time for a nice cup of coffee. I found it in this coffee house in the “4th Street Shopping District,” next to the marina:

 

You can say what you want about Starbucks and the like, but I love them. On top of my coffee, I got a chat with this “US Merchant Marine at War” veteran, Dan, who asked me the time, noticed my accent and wondered if he could join me for a while:

He served in WWII as a “merchant marine” which means that he was a sailor on the ships that supplied Great Britain with all kinds of goods. It was a highly dangerous job, as their boats were sunk by the dozen by German submarines. However, these marines never got the benefits and compensations from their government that other soldiers did get. Dan still fights for this cause, and he maintains this site to promote it.

On my way back home, I still saw this bus:

Funny to see what people do to their cars here…

So far my last weekend. I will try and post what I did this weekend before next weekend. Got it?

Berkeley Bizarre: The Fishmobile

Berkeley is no longer the hotbed for leftish politics that it used to be. However, hippies and homeless can still be found in a higher concentration than elsewhere, as well as the smell of weed in the street. Therefore, I wanted to make “Berkeley Bizarre” a returning topic, covering “odd” things that I encounter in the streets. As I will only be three more weeks in Berkeley however, this plan might never really materialize…

Anyhow, consider this “Fishmobile” for instance, that I encountered yesterday while running:

I don’t have the faintest idea of which purpose it should serve, or about the motives of its owner to create such a masterpiece, but anyhow it looked quite cozy inside:

 

I didn’t want to linger on too long to take more detailed pictures. In the end, that might have looked a bit… fishy.

America, not Belgium: Danger!

Sometimes, Americans seem a little obsessed with risks in daily life, especially when it concerns their health. I found this one at the entry of a supermarket. It doesn’t need too much explanation I guess:

Rockin’ in Aantwaarpe!

No more San Francisco this time, but time for a flashback to Antwerp! As some of you know, my sister got married in the month of May. My father, brothers and I set up some sort of “family-surprise-rock-band” and played a couple of songs on her wedding. And yes, my dear friends, this blog is proud to bring you an exclusive preview of our whole set…

So crank up the volume, hit the play button, boost the movie to full screen and dig this!

Crazy Little Thing Called Love from Flaming Philip on Vimeo.

In the movie, you might have recognized my father at the bass, my brother Tom at the mike, my other brother Bruno dealing with the drums and me handling that gorgeous Fender Stratocaster lead guitar…

After this song we played “You don’t know me” from Milow and “Nothing else matters” from Metallica. (If you should check out the latter’s site: these guys might be better than us, but for sure they are also far more ugly!)

To view the other songs of our set, just click on the link under the movie and browse the other movies by Flaming Philip, our professional photographer/movie maker—thanks again, Phil! For those too lazy to click through to the movies, allow me to put my second favorite here, the last song of our set:

Rockin' In The Free World from Flaming Philip on Vimeo.

Oh Lord, what about that ending! Ain’t we rockin’ the place! Actually, this video was cut at the end because women of all ages just invaded the stage—a little embarrassing, and certainly not suited for this blog. One of them even tried to steal my boxer shorts, can you imagine? So, although we are clearly not short of groupies, you might want to leave your profile information in the comments, you never know!

And of course, please do lavish your praise for them funky bass lines, those compelling vocals, these thrilling drum riffs and that fat guitar solos on us in the comments…

More SF: Chinatown, North Beach, Russian Hill and Batman in IMAX…

Last Saturday morning, Jimmy, some guys from the lab and I went to see “Batman: The Dark Knight” in an IMAX movie theater in SF. IMAX means that he screen is HUGE and curved such that it fills your whole view, with sound coming from behind the screen. Quite impressive…

Afterwards, we went for lunch in “The Stinking Rose,” an Italian “garlic restaurant” in North Beach:

The whole menu is built on garlic—enormous amounts of it. They even have “garlic ice cream” for dessert! We tried it, and it was not bad actually. Maybe because our taste buds were already completely saturated by then…

After lunch, I went to visit Chinatown. I entered by the gate on Bush Street:

It’s a colorful quarter that really makes you feel a little in China:

Compared to the ones of New York and Honolulu, SF’s Chinatown is pretty clean and open. Maybe that is because of the busloads of tourists that descend on the main street—Grant Avenue—every day. However, even the back alleys were clean and quiet, without the touristy crowd:

You can tell that you are dealing with “real Chinese” here from the old men playing Mahjong in the streets, giving the finishing touch to the China-atmosphere:

After visiting Chinatown, I returned to North Beach, the city’s Italian quarter. I certainly want to return here to sample some of the myriad of cozy Italian restaurants.

However, after our garlic-lunch I could not stand lingering too long in this neighborhood any more, so I continued along Columbus Avenue towards Russian Hill, a primarily residential neighborhood with some incredibly steep hills and matching views:

This is the quarter where you can find the famous “Lombard Street.” It is so incredibly steep that cars’ brakes used to give up on it every now and then, with tragic consequences. Therefore, the city decided to add some artificial curves to it, which makes the street so unique. The Sun was already low when I got there, and I could not manage to make decent pictures from the street, but if you look it up on Google maps, you can use “street view” to take a virtual walk around there:

View Larger Map

Then, it was time to go home again…