This February, my mother and I had to
drive my sister and her friend to a Panic At The Disco concert in downtown
Oakland. Since driving back home and driving to a friend’s house were both
unavailable to us, my mother and I were granted with the opportunity to explore
downtown Oakland around midnight while my sister and her friend attended the
concert.
Oakland isn’t exactly the best of
neighborhoods to begin with. According to numerous polls and surveys, Oakland
has gained the distinction of being one of the most dangerous cities in the
United States. Luckily, nobody in our group ran into any trouble during our visit.
After dropping off my sister and her
friend, my mother and I began to look for places to eat. My cousin (who attends
college not too far from Oakland) recommended we try a place called Forge
Pizza, in Jack London Square, right by the bay. After having to wait in the
wind and rain, we finally got seated and got our food. The place was designed
sort of like an off-the-beach style pizza place, and if I recall correctly,
even had seafood options as toppings for your pizza. Overall, I liked the food
and the laid-back atmosphere at the Forge
After we left, we found one of those
telescopes where you have to put money in them to work. We put some of our
parking meter change in and began to look for stuff across the bay. I found the
new span of the Bay Bridge, as well as AT&T Park, home of the San Francisco
Giants. However, we were unable to locate Candlestick Park, the now former home
of the San Francisco 49ers.
When it was finally time to leave, we
were surprised that there was very little traffic for how big of an event the
concert was. My mother and I found my sister and her friend within 10 minutes
of the concert ending, and quickly got back on the road. The freeway system in
the Bay Area is already very confusing, but when rain and idiots who can’t
drive in it are added to the equation, it becomes a much more frustrating
experience. Eventually, we made it through the maze of freeways and got
ourselves home in one piece.
Overall, I would say the experience
wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be. On first thought, downtown Oakland late
at night sounds like a very shady place to go. After going down there, it still
is, but as long as you keep yourself out of trouble, you should be fine. I
still wouldn’t go back there late at night, maybe if it were earlier in the day
I could be convinced to go back. If I were given a ticket to anywhere in the
world, I would probably use it to go to North Carolina or Indianapolis, because
there is a lot of racing history in both places. Indianapolis is one of my
choices because of the Indianapolis 500, one of the most prestigious IndyCar
events, is held every year at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway. North Carolina
is my other choice because it is basically where NASCAR began, and there are
many NASCAR race teams as well as NHRA race teams that call North Carolina
home.
