Oakland

I arrived in Oakland today via a 17hour train ride called the "Coast Starlight" from Portland. I met some characters along the way--Rider, a 22 year old from Fresno, more or less working the medicaid system in several states, who told me all about his new bridges he was going to be getting; Angel, a 35 or so year old african-american woman, who was moving to Oklahoma City, with whom I discussed God and Jesus at length, while she drank wine and then gin and I ate granola and drank apple juice (which she generously gave me); Shimion, a 23ish year old who was writing a book on enlightenment and kept asking me questions about my beliefs and about the book I am reading: Awakening the Buddha Within (a great book by the way). His conversational style was something like: ask a question and let you get 2 words out before he started talking again with fury. I was something on the verge of explosion trying to "chat" with him in the "cafe" car. I can't wait till that book of his hits the shelves...
From what I saw of the journey it was a beautiful ride...I'd recommend it though in the summer, because I only had about 4 hours of daylight. And if you ride the train, bring a water bottle (it gets dry with all that circulated air), a blanket (it get's cold at night), and something to throw over your eyes for sleeping, because the lights are pretty bright. All in all, it was a smooooooth ride.

Now to find some acro-yoga, eat some mexican food in the mission, go to the biggest most glorious bookstore ever, and hopefully go salsa dancing--though I had the very unfortunate experience of tearing my achiles tendon, and I'll likely need to continue my sabatical (I was so sad not to dance in Portland; it will be a shame if I have to miss out on the great salsa here too!).

OH yeah, and I'm freezing my ass because my brother's furnace broke last year and they are opting to go green and go without! Ah!

all the best, love, Rachel