USA

San Fransisco next destination.

From  San Miguel de Allende and Puerto Vallarta in Mexico
we headed for San Francisco and rented Velasca-Kennedy House over on the other side in the Bay Area.
We rented a car and drove in singing Hotel California with The Eagles in the dash board and indeed with
flowers in our hair. Stayed over in Hotel California as well.

Our aim then, was education, schools and courses and visiting other private universities like our own, which we had read much about. New Age and all that, so we traveled California, to learn. As we were the only such Institution in Norway,
in California there were many of the kind and we visited those to see what we could learn. That which we learned was that these enterprises were far from serious, or thorough, or interesting and the curricula poor or also non-existent.

While some of us schooled, some did the rounds. Among other a trip along the coast, Big Sur, to find the famous Esalen Institution. The rock-strewn beach was far beneath us and not far out big pods of giant whales were frenzied, spouting, speeding on their yearly long haul to Baja California to mate. A powerful sight.

Esalen was a flop and we will abstain from further comment. Shortly, nothing of all the famous places were as described like when we had had it sent in the mail. Us serious Scandinavians and Europeans on a culture shock trip, getting us a heavy reality-check. What was the nicest and truest were two events –on the university grounds drums were going,
had been for ten years day and night, and anyone passing could join to keep it going –Never stopped.
And experiencing the Red Woods was tremendous.

The other was Telegraph Street where the hippies were creative and selling their wares. Over the Bay Bridge  to find that Height n’d Ashbury was dead. From Kennedy house to high up in the Rockies for a stay of rest in the woods there.
Back to S.F. and one of the fantastic houses on Nob Hill.
All the Chinese in the morning doing t’ai chi in the Nob Hill park. China town, the eating houses and the medicine shops.
San Francisco is another town where one would dearly want to live .
However, we fled in time to avoid the rains and rains and rains, flooding, the earth quake and landslides.
Our planets warned us about that beforehand, apart from that our allotted time was up and we had to move on.