I don’t have some big trip planned for this year, or not just yet. I am a planner, and I make lots of lists to get my darting thoughts in order as a matter of course, so I gave some thought to this around the beginning of this month. If I write something down, it’s more likely I’ll make it happen. So I take list-making at the turn of the year very seriously, and it felt telling that I couldn’t think of a particular international destination I wanted to work towards. This is not to say I won’t be over the moon if I end up in Thailand or Amsterdam or Italy or Mexico (again, again, please), but it’s not the priority right now.

A big part of this is because I live here now.

Ok, I don’t actually live in Tilden Regional Park. But I do live a mere six miles from it, and I’d never been up it until yesterday. I was somewhat aware of it, but I had no specific plan to go to it, except in the vague way that I kinda want to go everywhere ever, if you ask me and I answer honestly.

This picture is the best I managed. The reality of it was much better, one of those moments that I find really reassuring, to remember that cameras can’t get everything, at least not as I wield them at this point in my life. What’s obscured there by the haze was an unfolding of the horizon before us, distinct layers delineated by barges and rolling hills and cities before cities and other large shapes that brought to mind the word leviathan. Apparently, with the haze, the view was not at its greatest advantage, but I was very happy with it. I am collecting hills and views as I live here: the peek of the Bay Bridge as I crest the hill before I get to my apartment; the collection of San Francisco all piled on itself from the highest point of Mountain View Cemetery; the broad spread of the cities along the bay from Indian Rock Park; and now Tilden. I fruitlessly took a few different pictures, shifting and bracketing, but I’m just going to have to go back another day. Drat.

The same little trek contained this: a very popular blue whale, perpetually lounging outside of the Lawrence Hall of Science, which is very close to Tilden (and, to my newbie eyes, all part of the same winding hill full of Stuff). Next to it was a giant spiral of DNA that is so much more enticing to climb than I would have expected. I was wearing a pencil skirt and tights and still clambered up both. To do otherwise would have been wrong.

Looking out from the rail at the edge of the whale-containing plaza, I saw a grand tower that looked like it might be part of a church. “What’s that?” I asked. So the next order of business became finding out. Down we drove, winding and winding, the tree-covered hills giving way to research labs and other big, very square buildings.

Coming down this way, the full collegiateness of UC Berkeley comes up hard and fast. I’ve been to Berkeley. I have had beers and Indian food, I have bought a used book, I have seen some amateur storytelling. I’ve been to the Bowl more than once. I’ve had some Berkeley in my life. But I’d never seen the university, and that was a mistake. My companion had never been up the Campanile, it turned out. I didn’t know what a Campanile was, it turned out. (Hint: it’s that big grand tower I’d spied from on high.)

And it holds cantillons, of course. Its real name is Sather Tower; Campanile is a nickname because it resembles the one in Venice. This one has 61 bells, and a little speech in the ascending elevator will inform you of the layers of gifts that furnished this full complement. (Bells can be a very big deal, it turns out.) A little electrical outlet in the elevator control box lets the elevator operator continue playing phone chess while he escorts tourists and other randoms up and down the tower.

Carillons require a player. We did not get to witness this, but based on the quick BONG from one of the regular, automatic, thrice-daily rings, I don’t think I want to witness it from up there. It did, at least, lead to one of those nice moments where a bunch of strangers go from startled as hell to laughing in relief in that particular communal way.

It’s $3 to ascend. It’s really worth it. It’s kinda extra great if you go in tandem with someone, and your pair contains one new arrival and one knowledgable person who just hasn’t had this particular experience yet.

You do not have to conclude your day at the Sacred Wheel, a cheese shop in Temescal that might be literal magic, but I do strongly suggest that you do. Any day will do, cantillon-containing or not. Ask for the perfect goat cheese to put on a chocolate chip cookie, then get a couple pickled eggs (choose from four flavors) before you go out the door. Even if you do not encounter the cheese wizard of Temescal, you will be doing just fine.

I did.