Amtrak: Day 13

7/21/21

Hello from the train to Oregon! It’s been a week since I last wrote in here and I spent the entirety of it in the Bay Area revisiting old friends, eating my favorite foods, and wandering about my old stomping grounds. This is my fourth visit to Palo Alto since graduating high school, the last time being two years ago. It’s kind of hard to believe that I used to live here only four years ago – it feels like so much has happened since then. Looking back at all of the old sites I passed by every month, every week, every day, I was reminded of all the happy memories and friendships attached to them but also of the stresses and anxieties and uncertainties that linger. It is encouraging to note that I feel more like myself now, not fundamentally different from who I was before but a little more developed and surer of myself.

            In fact, I can say that about all of the friends I met this week – everyone is the same person that they used to be, just a little bit more settled into that version of themselves. It’s pretty amazing how quickly I was able to resume conversation with my friends, most of whom I had not seen or talked to much in the past 4 years. It’s a good reminder that although friendships will naturally wane as life moves on, a strong friendship can survive periods of separation and pick up when the time is right.

            Over the course of the week, I met with old high school friends, bassoon friends, and orchestra friends who happened to be in town. In all likelihood, I was able to see so many people in a single trip because of the pandemic, with so many people either working or studying from their parents’ house. Because this was primarily a social visit, I have fewer exciting touristy activities to document, with most of my energy spent on hitting up as many of my favorite restaurants as possible. The bay area enjoys a high degree of cultural diversity, which is represented in a wide array of cuisine options; I ate Korean tofu soup, Chinese dim sum, Pakistani curries, a Filipino-Mexican fusion burrito, a Hawaiian poke bowl, my all-time favorite pepperoni pizza, and several rounds of boba and ice cream (including olive oil ice cream! I ordered it for the novelty, and it turned out to be one of my new favorite flavors). It was a week of indulgence and my wallet definitely lost a fair share of weight, but I allowed myself some extra budgetary leeway, as a treat. I did compensate slightly by avoiding all ride-sharing apps and taking lots of public transportation, the occasional carpool, or simply walking wherever I wanted to go. In fact, according to my phone I averaged 20,640 steps a day for the whole one-week period, equivalent to 7.9 miles per day. I think my body was eager to make up for the hours and hours of sitting on trains.

            The most touristy thing I did was to visit the SFMOMA, which had been under renovation throughout most of the time when I was in high school and only reopened after we had moved to Indiana. While in SF, my friend Jenny and I also walked along the Salesforce park, a recent construction in downtown that sits on the roof of a three-story building stretching the length of four city blocks. A walkway takes you on a loop of the long, skinny park passing through gardens from different regions of the world: California, the Mediterranean basin, the Chilean coast, South Africa, and Western Australia – all regions sharing a “Mediterranean” climate of dry summers and rainy winters. I had fun seeing the great diversity of plants and flowers, a collection which never seemed to repeat itself once along the length of the park. If I had more time, I would have enjoyed a beach day in Pescadero or half moon bay, or some more hiking in the foothills, but lacking a car I will just have to wait until my next visit. Next stop is Portland, I’ll recount my adventures there on Friday’s train.