On Sunday, I went with my my friend Alain to the Golden Gate Park. We took the Bart to get there. We chose it because it was on our fieldwork list and also in our bucket list, so we had to see it before we leave especially since we don’t have a lot of time left. So we want to make the most out of it before coming back to our home, but we also have our final exams. We’ll try to balance everything because if we don’t give each thing the time it needs we will regret it later. If I fail a course, I’ll regret it all my life and if I miss something I wanted to do, I’ll also regret it all my life.
First, I have to say that it’s huge! You could easily walk and get lost, in a positive way. It’s beautiful: a green park for everyone kids, family, friends, lovers. There are a lot of spaces to sit and relax in the middle of the nature. It’s very clean and very well maintained. If I lived in the Bay Area I can easily imagine myself going there every weekend to chill after a long and tough week. There is also a small and very nice lake.
It was very crowded as I expect for a Sunday. We saw a lot of families and friends having picnics, playing frisbee, walking their dogs or just chilling. We also saw people biking and skateboarding. We also a gay couple there and this reminded of the movie Milk where Harvey Milk sets the floor for this kind of coming out of the closet where you’re free to express your love in public. It’s really a place for everyone where you leave all negativity outside. Not to forget about the weather we had which was perfect for that.
I think this portrait well the American way of life: people getting together, having dogs, chilling in a park, having a skateboard. It’s kind of what you see on youtube which is actually true. I’ve been here for around a month and a half and I can confirm that this is true. Another thing I noticed that youtube videos do not show you is the number of homeless people on the streets. It’s really sad to see the social and financial inequalities between people here because the difference is big.
Unfortunately, I can’t relate this to anywhere in my country. We actually have a lot of parks but they are very small and they’re not well maintained at all. They are vey dirty no one respects these places and they feel like it’s their own. They don’t care about nature too so they just leave all their picnic trash where it is. They don’t clean after there dogs either. It’s really sad to see the potential of these parks that are being ruined because of people thinking earth is their own and it will last forever. We should appreciate what’s given to us. We should take care of our earth and not abuse it.
As for bikes and public transport, it is really bad back in Lebanon. Bikes are not encouraged since they do not have a lane for them and drivers don’t expect to see bikes on the road. It would be actually weird to know someone who goes anywhere by bike. There are a lot of uphill roads too. Public transportation is even worse. There are no trains nor metros. Taxis are very cheap but the cars conditions are very bad and they don’t usually get you wherever you want it’s more of a paid carpool taxi. A lot of people don’t trust these taxis and prefer to order private taxis. Finally, there are buses but their condition is very bad too. Most of the work only in Beirut, the capital, and they do not have fixed schedules and they don’t even have bus stops, they just stop whenever they see a client. Plus, they are not air conditioned which is extremely bad since summers in Lebanon are very hot and humid. So even if we neglect the bad conditions of the vehicles, you can’t rely on them to get where you want on time.
English Through Film 