I live in the San Francisco Bay Area. The Bay Area is an odd metropolis in that rather than being comprised of one large city surrounded by suburbs, it is comprised of three large cities surrounded by lesser cities. This fractured state is mostly due to the fact that there's a rather large body of water smack in the middle of everything, which disturbs what otherwise might be a more centralized conglomeration. But don't be fooled; though we are seemingly disparate, the constituent habitations do combine to constitute one large metropolis, economically and culturally. On to the pictures:
The flagship city of the Bay Area is beautiful San Francisco. By the way, it is always "San Francisco" and never,
never "Frisco", "San Fran", or "SF". Ever. Actually, it's all right to
write "SF", but never to say it.
Skyline:
Largest Chinatown outside of Asia:
The San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge, one of the engineering wonders of the world. In the words of USF History Professor John Bernard McGloin: "The Bay Bridge is the longest steel high-level bridge in the world. As mentioned earlier, the Yerba Buena Tunnel with its diameter of 58 feet, which forms part of the highway between San Francisco and Oakland, is the tallest bore in the world. Additionally, the Bay Bridge can boast of the fact that its construction required the greatest expenditure of funds ever used for a single structure in the history of man. Its foundations extend to the greatest depth below water of any bridge built by man; one pier was sunk at 242 feet below water, and another at 200 feet. The deeper pier is bigger than the largest of the Pyramids and required more concrete than the Empire State Building in New York." And it was completed in 1936:
Skywalker Ranch, just north of San Francisco:
South of San Francisco, San Mateo County ("The Peninsula" if you want to sound like a local) is home to a few vaguely interesting things, particularly Stanford University.
Stanford University:
The SLAC (Stanford Linear Accelerator Center), which was at one time, if not currently, the longest building in the world:
Stanford's 150 ft diameter radio telescope:
Population-wise, the largest of the Bay Area's sub-areas is Oakland and the East Bay. Oakland exists, in a sense, to do the Bay Area's grunt work. San Francisco is afforded its ivory towers and emerald fields because of the sweat and blood of Oakland's longshoremen and factory workers. Poetics aside, suffice it to say Oakland is important, if not exceedingly beautiful. When viewing the East Bay as a whole, we see an interesting juxtaposition of largely working-class Oakland (birthplace of ebonics - no joke), the upper-crust, silver-spoon Contra Costa County, and the academic and outspoken Berkeley (home of, surprisingly enough, the University of California at Berkeley).
Oakland downtown:
Gathering in Berkeley:
I grew up in Santa Clara county, known around here as the South Bay, and known around the world as Silicon Valley. The "capitol" and largest city is San Jose. I was born and raised in Santa Clara, the oldest European settlement in the Bay Area. The South Bay is home to Santa Clara University, a prominent Jesuit university, the highly-regarded San Jose Mercury News, and it is or has been home to Nvidia, Intel, Google, Hewlett Packard, Adobe, Natl Semiconductor (I think), and a host of other high-tech companies. The South Bay was traditionally the agricultural nexus of the Bay Area, and for a long time led the world in production of apricots. Through the seventies and eighties, that was phased out in favor of high technology, but in the south South Bay, agriculture is still prominent, and Gilroy is the undisputed Garlic Capitol of the World.
Downtown San Jose:
Nvidia headquarters in Santa Clara (for lack of a better thing to show):
http://www.guru3d.com/admin/imageview.php?image=1267
Aside from the three major cities, there are a few satellites of the Bay Area. The least exciting one is Santa Rosa, to the northwest. An agricultural town specializing, as most North Bay towns do, in wine grapes. It is also boring. It is the Peanuts capital of the world, being home to the late Charles Schulz. It was also the setting for the excellent film
The Man Who Wasn't There.
A statue of Charlie Brown and Snoopy:
The epicenter of "Wine Country" is Napa. Napa is a popular destination for yuppies and middle-aged people who liked
Under the Tuscan Sun and think the idea of building a vacation around wine and cheese tasting is awesome. Napa, like all agricultural communities, is stupid bullshit. Even if it is pretty.
Winery:
One of the cool things in the North Bay is the Mothball Fleet, which the Navy has set aside in preparation for the day when Hitler rises from the grave and we desperately need a whole crapload of ancient destroyers and stuff:
I now live in Santa Cruz. Santa Cruz is a mid-sized town which subsists on college dollars (University of California at Santa Cruz) and tourist dollars (many good beaches, and one of the Bay Area's three prominent amusement parks). Near to Santa Cruz is Watsonville, an agricultural community noted for its artichokes and strawberries. And illegal immigrants.
Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk:
And finally, the Bay itself, which binds all these places together:
And that's it. 7,000,000 plus crazy people ranging from the richest of the rich to the poorest of the poor. At least the weather's great.
Thanks to all the people whose pictures I ripped off.
We have great watermelons, and little fundie rednecks.
University of Arkansas Community College at Hope, where I will thankfully be gone from as of August 2005.
Our hometown hero, whose steps I intend to follow exactly.
