Los Angeles and Berkeley!

Arriving in Los Angeles after a flight on which i actually only slept (i was SO tired), i went straight into a class, Future Documentaries, given by Eric. A good way to start my trip. Eric gave an assignment to the students: they had to go outside, record sounds, afterwards we would listen to them in a dark room and try to guess what sounds it were. That was impossible, but fun.

Eric lives in Westwood, close to UCLA, where he studies. 

The first day I went to Venice Beach, zon zee strand, nice!!

We rented a car for the weekend to go on a mini roadtrip to the Sequoia National Park.

I used the car to go to The Museum of Jurassic Technology (the weirdest museum I've ever been, go there if you are in LA!) and (of course) got fined because i parked in the wrong place...

In the Sequoia Park we got to see the giant Sequoia trees. In the park there is a part they call The Giant Forest. There you find the Sherman tree what they claim to be the biggest tree on earth (in terms of total volume). And it is quite big...

In this forest there are a lot of natural fires. The fires are neccesary because they exterminate other vegetation and the Seqouias get enough space to grow. People of course thought that the fires weren't good and they tried to suppress them in the mid 20th century, which changed the environment, the vegetation and the intensity of the fires. They would either stay away or become much more intense. It seems that because of that a lot of big trees have been killed or scarred by the fire. Some are burned out on the inside, so we were able to go inside the tree. And when a tree falls you just make a hole in it to continue your journey! We walked for more or less 4 hours and maybe we weren't wearing the best shoes for this. 

On sunday after sleeping in a motel and having a good breakfast we went to........SIX FLAGS!!! That was LOADS of  fun!!! My top 3: Superman, X2 and the Goliath :)

Would have been nice to post the pictures made by the park because on almost every picture Eric was looking like he was having the time of his life with his hands in the air and his mouth open. And I more or less looked like i thought i was dying... although i really did have fun! Apparently my expression doesn't really match my feelings... 

The last days in LA I went downtown and visited the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA). 

Wednesday I took the train from LA to Oakland. It was supposed to go along the coast with an amazing view, but I wasn't very lucky, because it was taking another route that week, inland, and that was REALLY boring... I got picked up by Andy, a friend of Eric's mom. Eric arranged for me to stay with them in Berkeley during the weekend I was doing the 3 days ' Be the Change workshop' in Concord. Andy and Kate are LOVELY people. I had so much fun there, talking about our country's, cultures, travelling, going to the movies, walking the dog on The Albany Bulb, a place on the shore of the San Francisco Bay. It was created by dumping construction refuse into this part of the bay. When they stopped dumping nature took over. There are some nice artworks made of metal and wood. About 200 homeless people live there in tents. And a lot of people walk their dogs there. You can see SF from the Bulb. After a rainy morning, the sun is coming through, so i will be packing my bags, going to San Francisco!