Last week, I was working out in Oakland, CA and, outside of a couple of trips to Seattle when I was younger, it was my first time to the west coast. The majority of my time was spent on an island city called Alameda which is right next to Oakland and across the bay from San Francisco. The weather was absolutely perfect while I was there and I met some amazing people during my trip.

One of the neatest things about Alameda is the architecture. There is a really interesting mix of old Victorian homes and California Bungalow style houses. The housing market is crazy, of course, and I gathered that the average home there is around $800k-$1.2m! With hardly any yard . . . And earthquakes.

However, when you see the homes up close, they all have such character and detail that it’s really a sight to see. Coupled with the perfect weather year-round, it might almost be worth the price . . .

This is a shot of the courtyard at one of the middle schools on the island and it completely blew my mind. The area at the top is open to the sky and the lockers are lined up around the edge of the courtyard. Must be nice to have such beautiful weather! I was told that even when it rains, it’s usually light and isn’t a problem at all. I think we could pull that off in Kansas for about 9 days out of the year.

The rest of the city has a lot of charm to it. It is a little weathered, like most coastal towns are, but has a great multi-cultural influence and the vibe is very relaxed and almost like a small town.

After seeing the bay in person, I realized how critical it is to keep it as clean as possible!

There is also a beautiful beach area in Alameda. Actually, some of the schools back up to the bay and so that is what they see out the window every day! I wouldn’t get anything done with a view like that!

I was a little surprised to see palm trees that far north in California, but then again, I really didn’t know what to expect.

One of the days I was there, it was really windy and so the kiteboarders were out in full force. Each of those moon-shaped slivers was a huge kite that pulled the surfers around the bay. I saw a few of them up close and the sail is really large. I think the wind was around 45mph that day, so they were flying high!

The last day I was there, I had the chance to take the ferry over to San Francisco for dinner. Oakland has a lot of shipping ports, so there were a bunch of giant ships coming in and out. Those boxes on the boat are the size of the cars on a train which gives you an idea of how huge the ships are!

On our way to eat, we stopped off at the ferry building (with the clock tower) which has a ton of food vendors, flowers and mushrooms, apparently.

We ate dinner at a wonderful Greek restaurant called Kokkari and spent about 2 hours eating, drinking and talking and eating, drinking and talking. It was a lot of fun!

It was just dusk when we headed back on the last ferry to Alameda. We passed right underneath the bay bridge and you could see the golden gate bridge in the distance as well as Alcatraz! It was a beautiful scene.