The Great American Road Trip: Days 39-41

On Friday I drove Elena to the Bart station, then proceeded across the Bay Bridge into Oakland and Berkeley. One of the things I had timed my trip for was to coincide with a meditative mind/body workshop, with some discussion components combined with a good dose of breathing exercises and digging into some nooks and crannies individually as well as in pairs or groups. I had read about this particular one (I got the sense in the Bay area that such things happen all the time) on a blog I've been following for some years, and even though I felt like it was a bit of a leap, it was one of those moments where I was reading about it and had an "ah ha" moment that made me think it was something I really needed to try. I've tried writing about the experience of attending, but one of the facilitators put it best - there are some things that defy words and are just experiential. I will say that the experience was an amazing one, partially because of the incredibly diverse group of people who came together for it; a number were from the Bay area, but two people (who didn't actually know each other) flew down from Seattle and we even had one guy from Australia and an English woman who flew in from Singapore with the intention of spending several weeks on retreats and workshops. I know it sounds, as we all put it, a little "woo woo" new age-y, but I do sense a distinct change in how comfortable I feel in my thoughts and in my own skin and body and I'm really glad I took a chance and did something that felt like a bit of a leap from my comfort zone.

I didn't take many pictures and even tried to stay out of my email and off facebook over the weekend, but I did take some pictures of pretty flowers and graffiti that I saw around Oakland. In hindsight I'm a little sad that I didn't take any of my housing accommodations - that's a story in and of itself!

I knew that the workshop was meeting in Oakland and I looked for airbnb hosts in the area that weren't crazy expensive so that I wouldn't have to drive back and forth into the city during rush hour, or risk disturbing a hosting friend with my early leavings and late returns. I found a hostel near UC Berkeley where I could stay in their "women's dorm room" and come and go as I pleased, so I went for that. What I didn't realize is that the hostel is actually more of a co-op house that happens to be smack in the middle of the block of frat houses! Having never had that college Greek life experience, I found the whole thing rather amusing, nothing a good pair of earplugs couldn't solve ;)

The house itself pleasantly reminded me of the Transit House in Burkina where the volunteers would stay when we were in Ouaga. It felt secure (keypad entry to the house, locks on each room) but also welcoming, with an interesting mix of ages and stories - some people lived there for longer stretches in the private rooms, others were shorter term or visitors like me in either dorm or private rooms. The common areas like the kitchen and living room were eclectic, and occasionally bizarre, but mostly clean and usually full of welcoming people who were more than happy to stop and chat with you. I did appreciate the free food area of the kitchen being packed with bread - baguettes, bagels, crusty round loaves of various sorts - all were delicious, particularly when I was looking for something to accompany my yogurt for breakfast. I can't speak for the other rooms but the three mattresses in the dorm room were wrapped in plastic to protect them, which made a terrible racket every time you moved, and the floor was pretty squeaky, but I never heard my roommate come in at night (earplugs) and apparently she never heard me stumbling around in the mornings (we finally were both awake and in the room at the same time my last night there, so we got to talk and confirm). Not a place I would recommend for anyone with strong priorities on comfort or privacy, but for an inexpensive and fun place to crash for a few nights, you could do a lot worse. I'd even willingly stay again now that I finally found the shower on the ground floor that heats up quickly!