This is my longest blog of the year, but it was an important week. Our son and his wife in California had their first child, a son called Adrien, born in late May. He is thus our first grandchild. We were originally thinking of going there during the autumn, but a look at my agenda for September-November made it clear that if we did not go during the August summer break, I would not be able to go until December. So on Saturday morning we flew from Alicante to Madrid, and then on to San Francisco. After the 12-hour flight we picked up the rental car and drove to our son’s home in El Cerrito, north of Berkeley. We were there last August also, but this visit was obviously special. I have arranged the photos more or less chronologically.
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We drove the 20 miles or so to El Cerrito, checked into a hotel walking distance from our son’s house (he does not have space for guests), and went to see our grandson:
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We were also happy to see our four-legged grandchildren, starting wit Euclid the Samoyed:
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Jasmine, adopted a couple of years ago:
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Watson, initially fostered during the pandemic in 2020 when shelters were full, but then it turned into a permanent adoption:
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The next morning I woke up early, as I always do (the 9-hour time difference with Spain had nothing to do with it) and walked to my son’s house. As always, I was looking for small details, like this memorial to a traffic accident victim (I assume):
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Very California, this. An ambulance-chasing lawyer of Vietnamese origin advertising her service, including in Spanish:
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Across the street from my son’s place, there is some construction going on, and so there is a portable toilet for the workers:
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A private art exchange in a front yard, a manifestation of the community spirit in this part of the USA:
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Later on Sunday morning, my son and I went to buy bread at a nice bakery in the neighbouring town Albany, taking Adrien with us. The bakery was nice, certainly it produced good bread and pastries by US standards, but at prices 2-3 times what I pay in Spain:
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Feeding time:
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The two cats share a cat tree, with Watson generally occupying the upper perch:
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My younger cousin Dan lives about 20 minutes from my son. It is very nice to have family nearby, and my son spends a lot of time with them. On Sunday, Dan and his son Ben stopped by to say hello to us:
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This is the view from my son’s driveway. The street is very steep, and you can see San Francisco in the far distance, as usual somewhat shrouded in fog:
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The back seat of my son’s car is now dedicated to baby transportation, so when we drove to a nearby park called Point Isabel, Euclid had to travel in the trunk:
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Point Isabel is a large park on the waterfront near Berkeley. It is reclaimed industrial land, and the water is not safe for swimming (although some people do), but it is a great place to go for a walk, and dogs are allowed to run off the leash. Here is Moses and his wife Myrela, walking Adrien and Euclid:
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In the afternoon, Moses and I went back to Albany, to visit a specialised beer shop called Ale Tales:
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Ale Tales has an excellent selection, and it sells single beers, something not common in the supermarkets in the area:
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I like walking around my son’s neighbourhood in El Cerrito because there are always interesting or amusing details. Here is a Tesla owner with a rather smug attitude:
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A book exchange outside a private home. I have seen many such exchanges in public places like parks, but here some private individuals simply set them up outside their homes:
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There is also the habit of decorating the usually small front yards (land is at a premium in the Bay Area) with quirky figurines and other details:
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A bottle tree:
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Two small dogs barking at Euclid and me. They are the same breed as our Mochi back home in Spain:
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I finished Sunday by taking the BART train to Berkeley in order to visit one of my favourite bookstores anywhere, Pegasus Books:
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While the main purpose of our visit was to spend time with our family, of course we also did a bit of sightseeing. On Monday, my wife and I drove to the Golden Gate Bridge, a sight that never gets boring. This is the view from the San Francisco side:
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My wife noticed that there was a funny juxtaposition between the man’s head and the back of the bench:
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A dark aspect of the beautiful bridge is the suicides that have taken place here over the years. Signs like this are everywhere:
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Recently, more tangible suicide prevention devices have been installed:
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On the way back to El Cerrito, we stopped for lunch at a Puerto Rican restaurant in San Rafael, called Sol Food:
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The food was authentic, delicious, and for the Bay Area, not expensive:
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On Tuesday, my wife and I had another outing. We hopped on the BART and went to the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (SFMOMA):
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SFMOMA turned out to be a fantastic museum, fully on par with its namesake in New York which I have visited several times. And I was happy to see an installation by Danish-Icelandic artist Olafur Eliasson who also has created a large installation in my hometown Aarhus in Denmark:
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There were several exhibitions in additon to the permanent collection. The highlight was an exhibition centred around Henri Matisse’s 1905 painting of his wife called “Femme au chapeau – a modern scandal”. The exhibition recreates the Paris salon where the painting was exhibited in 1905, eliciting very divided opinions:
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What made the exhibition truly exceptional was the manner in which it was curated. The influence of Matisse’s painting was illustrated with paintings by subsequent artists. Here, “Woman with a hat” by Maurice de Vlaminck (1906):
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“Girl with pink hat” by Wayne Thibaud (1973):
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“Self-Portrait” by Joan Brown (1972):
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“Qusuquzah, A Very Beautiful Black Woman 1” by Mickalene Thomas (2011):
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A few days before going to California, I had ordered a 90mm Viltrox lens for my Fuji cameras, and had it shipped to my son. It arrived on Tuesday, and that evening, I tested the new lens on the pets, starting with Euclid:
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Watson in his tree:
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On Wednesday, my wife and I drove down to the famous Pebble Beach golf course on the Monterrey Peninsula. Our first stop on the 17 Mile Drive was the Lone Cypress, as far as I know, the only tree in the world protected by a trademark:
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Pebble Beach is a public course, meaning that anyone can play a round of golf there–as long as they are prepared to pay the $700 green fee plus the caddie (mandatory). We settled for lunch in the clubhouse restaurant with a nice view of the 18th hole:
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A photo from my chair–I liked the reflections and umbrellas on the terrace:
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After lunch, we drove the remainder of the 17 Mile Drive and then drove a few miles south to Point Lobos, an iconic spot for any photographer, as it is near Carmel where Ansel Adams lived in his final years, and where he took many pictures over the years:
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We started Thursday with another walk with Euclid and the baby through the El Cerrito neighbourhood:
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El Cerrito is definitely not MAGA country. Many front yards sport signs like these:
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Celebrating science:
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In the afternoon, my wife and I drove to the next town south of El Cerrito, Albany, where we went for a beer in a restaurant to which I was introduced during my visit last year:
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Visiting 5 Tacos and Beers with a friend:
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Albany sidewalk:
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That evening, we went to my cousin Dan’s house for dinner. His wife Tiffany is a truly lovely person who has helped my son and daughter-in-law a lot during the first difficult weeks as parents. Here she is, holding Adrien, with their little dog Kona at her side:
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On Friday afternoon, we all went to San Francisco, me using BART and the others in my son’s car. The destination was City Lights, probably the most culturally significant bookstore in the Western world. While walking along Columbus Avenue, I snapped one of the many driverless taxis one sees in San Francisco these days:
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City Lights, with timely poetry on the façade:
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City Lights, the poetry reading room upstairs:
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Next to City Lights there is a nice bar called Vesuvio, a good place to peruse the just-purchased books:
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Inside Vesuvio there are two floors, with a nice view from the upper level:
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While walking back to the BART station, I passed this sign in a window, typical of San Francisco in more than one way; a sign supporting striking teachers, in English, Spanish and Chinese:
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Saturday was the last day of our visit. We checked out of our hotel and went to my son’s place. While my wife was doing some last-minute shopping (or rather, returning stuff she had bought earlier in the week for which we did not have space in our luggage), I did some photos of the baby, including this one of his and my hand:
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Moses likes to make his own pizza, and he was going to make that for our last lunch:
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The toppings, with an interested onlooker:
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Building a pizza:
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Ready for the oven:
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Another pie:
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Tomato sauce:
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Checking the state of play. Moses has recently bought a small dedicated pizza oven, capable of reaching really high temperatures, like 800F/430C:
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Ready for the table:
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After lunch it was time to pack up and head for the airport. Our flight to Madrid was leaving at 6 p.m. but we also had to return the rental car, and it takes an hour to drive to San Francisco airport from El Cerrito, even on a Saturday afternoon. I swear that Euclid knows that we are leaving:
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The last photo from San Francisco–my wife posing with a sculpture in the departure lounge that matches her socks:
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The flight to Madrid took just 10 hours, 2 hours less than the outbound flight a week earlier, but then we had to wait 5 hours for the short flight to Alicante. This was probably the most tiring part of the trip. By now it was Sunday afternoon in Spain and my wife had trouble staying awake:
And so ended our big week.