I call myself the “side quest master”.
I live for the thrill of extreme spontaneity and novelty.
Being a Berkeley student has allowed me to do the most random of side quests.
Some of which – are hard to believe.
Let me tell you about it.
Berkeley is blessed by being one of the only places in the USA with decent public transportation.
Trains provide direct transportation to airports from campus.
And connect the Berkeley bubble to the rest of the Bay.
I took advantage of this – maybe a little too much.
One time, I found a round trip ticket to Vancouver from San Francisco for $70.
For a random Saturday before a Monday midterm.
The catch: the return ticket was the next day. . . 18 hours later.
I was ecstatic and in awe.
How is that price possible?
Since I work part-time, I thought it was worth the price and well worth the memories.
I booked it. On the spot. No regrets.
I got one of my best friends to book as well.
We arrived in Vancouver. 18 hours to spare.
My friend looked at me: “What if we took a bus back to America?”.
We looked at Google Maps. It was doable.
A 90 minute bus ride.
I said: “Why not?”. And we got on.
We got off at the last bus stop in a border community called Tsawwassen.
Maps told us to walk 10 minutes past a neighborhood and we’d be back in America.
10 minutes later, we were talking to a border guard about why we were going to the US.
We told the guard: “We came from San Francisco to say we walked across the border on a weekend.”
The guard looked at us bewildered, and laughed: “You’ve got to be kidding me.”
“Nope. We’re dead serious.”
The guard stamped our passports: “All right, you guys are good to go.”
That’s all it took.
There we were.
We were standing in a US exclave only accessible via Canadian land crossing.
The exclave is called Point Roberts.
A place we only heard of through geographic anomalies on YouTube.
We walked around town. Talked to locals.
They told us about growing up there.
The nearest hospital was an hour away in Bellingham, Washington State.
Emergencies demanded helicopter escorts.
COVID-19 lockdowns left them locked out of their country.
The kids had to be dropped off in Blaine, Washington – a 40 minute drive away through Canada.
But the locals wouldn’t trade their hometown for the world.
They loved it.
They loved the peace.
The tranquility. The community. The camaraderie.
The natural beauty. The ocean breeze. The vibes.
To them, being a US exclave separated by Canada made them more proud to be from there.
Their hometown pride was clear as day, and the sky above.
We later walked back across the border as it approached sunset.
The Canadian guard looked at us.
We flashed our passports and he said: “Welcome.” That’s all it took.
We took the bus back to Vancouver.
By the time we got off, it was dark.
We had 10 hours left. We had to make it count.
So we explored the crap out of Vancouver.
Chinatown. Downtown. Waterfront. East Hastings. Gastown. Yaletown. West End.
You name it. We went.
Our legs almost gave out.
Rain poured on us as the city went to sleep.
We stayed up. The adrenaline kept us up, and we were too broke to get a hotel.
When the night turned to day and Sunday came, we went back to the airport.
The all-nighter in Vancouver was achieved.
It was my first all-nighter. And it wasn’t even academic.
It was for fun. For the giggles. For the lore.
And a night I’ll never forget.
When Monday came, I took the midterm.
Drowsy. Barely awake.
I studied all of the week before to make up for my shenanigans.
To my surprise, it worked.
I aced that midterm.
Solidifying the side quest as legend in my eyes.
This is only one of many.
Maybe you can pull something like this off too.