Telegraph Avenue

I have often heard of Telegraph Avenue and People's Park in Berkeley. Years ago, I drove down the street and I have dim memories of the street. On Thursday, I decided to spend some time exploring the area. Unfortunately, I was not impressed. It seemed like a drab rundown area to me. If you were a college student, it would probably be a great place to hang out. There were several "great" T-shirt stores and a number of Thai/Vietnamese/Sushi/Chinese/Pizza/Mexican restaurants. Ben raves about one of the T-Shirt stores and the restaurants looked like they would serve cheap food, but not especially good food. Not much of it appealed to me.

I decided that I should find a cozy local coffee shop. A couple of years ago, I was in San Francisco and ended up in a cafe/coffee shop. It had several large couches and easy chairs spread around. It was nice to sit back in a comfortable chair, sip coffee and read a book. That sounded nice and there must be something like that on Telegraph Avenue, right? I looked around and did not see any coffee shops at all! It seems like you cannot walk 20 feet in downtown Santa Cruz and not trip into a coffee shop, there must be some in Berkeley. I saw several students walking past with takeout coffee cups. I looked closely at two of the cups and saw that they were from 7-11! Not quite what I had in mind. I did find a storefront where they were going to open a Peet's in the future, but it was not open yet.

I finally walked into a local cafe that had an espresso machine. Of course, it only had small hard wooden chairs, but it looked like a place I could hang out, sip coffee and read. So I go in and order a "Large Decaf Mocha with Peppermint". The guy replies that he does not think they have peppermint. I say, "Sure you do, see the bottle on the far left." He rings me up and I point out that I ordered a large not a small. So he rings me up again with the correct total. He then turns to the guy running the coffee machine and says that he needs a "Large Mocha with Peppermint". Luckily I was listening and say "Decaf! Decaf!" The guy making the coffee says, "We don't have Peppermint." The first guy says look on the far left. The second guy does not seem able to see anything past the middle of the bottles. The first guy has to go over and point out the bottle. These guys messed up the "Large", the "Decaf" and the "Peppermint" of my "Large Decaf Mocha with Peppermint" coffee! Sigh

The second guy starts to make my drink. This guy has a properly sullen college kid look. A friend of his comes past and asks how he is doing. In a stone cold sober voice, he replies "Ok - just surviving the jungle that we call the city." Oh, give me a break! Two weeks ago, I turned 50. For the first time since, I really feel my age. I'm sorry, but I just don't belong here. Anyway, I get my coffee and retreat to a corner and read a book for a while.
There were a couple of good music stores and a good book store. I spent some time in Moe's, a good book store. It was very large and had a good assortment of books. I found 8 or 9 books that I would like to read and ended up buying one. Having said that, every time I go into Bookshop Santa Cruz, I always find 2 or 3 books that I want to read. I never buy more than one or two at a time. And when I cannot find a book that I want, I can always find in on Amazon. It was fun to explore Moe's but I do not really need such a big store.
I also enjoyed going through Rasputin and Amoeba Records. Both are large stores with a giant collection of CDs, Albums and DVDs. I was especially impressed with Amoeba's selection of Documentaries. They even had a section for Errol Morris documentaries. It included some not very well-known titles. I am a big fan of his, but you do not see his movies around very often.

Some of my ideas are better than others. As I mentioned earlier, I was not very impressed with the area. I have to remember that when I go exploring, sometimes I will be disapointed. The trip was not a complete loss, I did enjoy the bookstores and music stores, however it was not a great trip.