Thinking About the Weather...
A very unusual day in Berkeley for late March: cold, blustery, with occasional storms scudding across the sky.
Fortunately, La Strada at College and Telegraph Bancroft has a covered portico, so one can sit outside and sip one's lattes.
And, more fortunately, the roof of the portico has munga munga space heaters. It's 50 degrees "outside": it's 68 degrees "in here."
There is no wireless connection. But that is by and large an advantage: one wants to be present to the weather and the latte, after all...
Suffer, suffer UC Berkeley professors. God it is a tough job but someone has to do it.
Wife and I spent the weekend qualifying horses for SO Search and Rescue Unit. During the mock search we were out in the driving rain at Woodside. It is a tough job but someone has to do it.
My ribbon is bigger than your ribbonl
Enjoy
Posted by: dilbert dogbert | March 23, 2005 at 04:08 PM
Strada: worst lattes ever! However, they are open late, and it is a great spot for Berkeley people-watching.
(This, unlike the economics, I feel qualified to comment on.)
Posted by: Jacob Davies | March 23, 2005 at 04:15 PM
College and Telegraph? I don't think they intersect.
Posted by: Jim | March 23, 2005 at 05:01 PM
College and Bancroft. And I liked their lattes. Death before decaf!
Posted by: tesla | March 23, 2005 at 05:11 PM
Ahhh, the Bancroft Ave. espresso bars. Even some of the bad ones were good! Add Fat Slice and Andronico's, Larry Blake's, Moe's, well, one could go on and on. Berkeley!
Posted by: viacondotti | March 23, 2005 at 07:17 PM
Goddamnit. I want to sit on Strada's patio and watch people gop by.
sigh . . . i'm going to go write a love letter to Berkeley.
Posted by: green apron monkey | March 23, 2005 at 09:10 PM
La Strada is a wonder for anthropologists, eavesdroppers, and those who love to gaze at the human form.
Alas I am c. 1500 miles away.
Posted by: Nicholas Mycroft | March 24, 2005 at 09:34 AM
God, I do so pity you today while here in New York, 50 miles northwest of the city, I dig out from 4 inches of new snow.
Maybe I should be thinking of living in Berkeley instead of moving to Cluj-Napoca, Romania. I couldn't find lattes in Cluj, but they have great cappucino. And wonderful caviar appetizers at less than $5.00 apiece.
Posted by: matt | March 24, 2005 at 11:02 AM
I miss Strada. I think I like the coffee at some of the other places better (walk over to northside, and try Nefeli, on the first block of Euclid), but Strada is just so quintessentially Berkeleyan.
Posted by: Auros | March 24, 2005 at 12:54 PM
As a former Berkeley student raised in Vermont I was always amazed at the outside heaters at Strada. My folks had a saying when I would linger for a fraction of a second at the doorway in cold weather: "Don't heat the outdoors." It's hard to dispute the illogic of creating entropy at this scale. The only more blatantly absurd HVAC waste I've encountered are the casinos in LV which leave their doors open in the middle of the summer blasting 55 degree air enticingly into the hundred degree streets.
Posted by: CleverMonkey | March 26, 2005 at 05:27 AM