Berkeley

Berkeley.
​The place where everyone wore So Cal clothing, sipped strangely named Starbucks drinks with their sunglasses perched on the nose, while I bundled myself in a winter coat, jeans and a scarf. It was seventy-five degrees. Imagine huge looming trees, impatient drivers, and distracted pedestrians. Plus, the street smelled like burnt pee and marijuana. I walked down the street with my earphones blasting, eyes switching left to right for possible thieves or homeless lunatics. This is how I spent my summer, taking a college class at a prestigious university about soil.
The sidewalks were always crowded, but once I crossed the street, noise died away. A long walk to class up rocky hills, dodging fleeing bicycles, I was cold shivering with icy delight, my chattering teeth almost frozen in my mouth. I hated Northern California weather, but yet, this is where I’ve spent fifteen and a half years. My body hated anything under eighty, yet here I was freezing to the bone on my way to class, where the hot breath of a hundred students would defrost my cold blood. I stepped into class seeing the teacher who somehow knew my name and sat next to my new friend.
That was my summer.