uc berkeley and stanford

Let’s begin with UC Berkeley. On first impressions, Berkeley (or Cal, as the students like to call it), is not a very big university – as far as the size of its campus goes. University of Washington had a bigger campus than it. We got off the taxi at Sather Tower, the tallest structure on campus, a 307-foot tall clock tower that surprisingly showed the right time – it’s a rarity with these clock towers, really. The taxi driver (fun facts) was a Sikh dude from Punjab who felt indebted to my uncle for using his services for the past five years, and thus elected to wait while we went around Berkeley without charging us for it, and after that, take us to Stanford as well, and then back to Fremont. Returning to the nub, we got off at Sather Tower, which was named after the dude who made it, if I remember correctly. That’s where the tour began. The guide was a sophomore student (just like in UW), and a microbial biology major or something. Taking us around the campus wasn’t very a very onerous job, since, like I already said, Berkeley’s is a small campus – being located in the middle of town and all. After the tour we went all the way up to the observation deck on Sather Tower, took some pictures of the surrounding scenery, which included San Francisco and the Golden Gate Bridge, and then listened to a nice, baroque-sounding sonata being played on the 61-bell carillon, which took up an overwhelming amount of space and produced sounds so loud and so intense that one could literally feel oneself being vibrating like a tuning fork. The larger bells were easily taller than a really tall human being – the largest weighing over 10,000 pounds. It was an awesome experience.

Lunch was had at a – surprise, surprise – small Indian restaurant in some remote part of Berkeley. What amazed me was the fact that every other street was practically lined with Indian restaurants. Which really made me wonder if Americans were really that fond of Indian food. Deeper speculation led me to conceive of the possibility that it was just the Indians desperately trying to promote their cuisine who were setting up restaurants left and right and hoping that the next guy who passed their door would enter their restaurant. The obscure little restaurant my dad picked was called “Hyderabad House”. I seriously doubt it had anything to do with the more famous Hyderabad House, which actually is in Hyderabad, although I suppose fooling Americans into believing it was the epitome of Indian cuisine was no big deal. The only employee in sight was a confused little Indian who blended in with the surroundings only too perfectly, and blinked and goggled at you like a goldfish when you told him you wanted your order taken. The food was brought, and there was a mild bit of confusion, because it hadn’t occurred to us that we would have to go all the way to the counter to get our plates. Usually – I mean, in real restaurants – the plates are the first things brought. Then again, the fact that this confused little goldfish appeared to be the only employee at the restaurant pretty much obliged us to make allowances for these trivial breaches of etiquette. I would like to add here that the food tasted distinctly Chinese.

Next stop: Stanford University. Stanford’s was by far the most aesthetically pleasing campus I’d seen on this trip. Everything from the sidewalks to the buildings blended in perfectly with each other, and were amazingly well maintained. The first thing you would see is what they call the Oval, a large patch of lawn surrounded by palm trees. The next thing you would see is Hoover Tower in the distance. The tour guide was a sophomore student this time, too. It’s just a coincidence, of course. In the course of the tour it came to light that Stanford’s campus measured around 8,800 acres in area. I couldn’t ascertain whether all of it was actively used by the university, but it was mentioned that around 1,200 of those acres were used as a biological reserve, or something like that. In the course of the tour, we passed the church, where three weddings had recently taken place. (The three newly married couples were stationed at various distances from the church, depending on how long ago they’d got married, and were being photographed.) Apparently there was a cool organ inside the church, too, but I didn’t get to see it, because the third couple was conveniently positioned at the door. The tour went on for a bit longer, but nothing noteworthy occurred. Stanford University is the one I really, really want to be accepted into. Hopefully I will be.