Aug 07 2006
California
So, I’m now out in Mountain View, California; where they have clear blue skies (apparently they aren’t an unnatural sight to see).
Unfortunately, the reports were true; Mountain View is for all intents and purposes, a large retirement community. There does not appear to be much to do here at the weekends, especially if you’re motor-vehicle operationally-challenged like myself. There should be more to do next weekend, when I get to go and explore San Francisco.
On my flights over, I learnt a few things:
- Airline food really is kak! I’d never been on a flight long enough before to get anything more than an overpriced, bland sandwich from Ryanair or Aer Lingus.
- These are the best headphones ever manufactured. They worked perfectly, making my flights as pleasant as possible.
- Apparently town planning isn’t as overly complicated and messy as it is in Ireland. All one needs is a copy of Sim City.
- So far, I appear to be either immune to jet lag (highly unlikely) or I’ve just been lucky so far. We’ll see how I do returning home in a few weeks, when I cross 10 time zones in 32 hours.
I find going west is fine, as long as the flight time isn’t too long; going east sucks. Enjoy your training!
From my experience with Mountain View (and a lot of the surroundings), town is pretty dead from an Irish point of view – restaurants, not pubs. There are a lot of nice restaurants though
There’s a good Indian restaurant down the road which leads away from the main street behind Molly Magees (if my memory serves).
House BBQs – but you need to know people for that; wandering around the streets of MV isn’t going to be very entertaining.
All the REAL fun is up in the City, alright – and it’s only ~70 minutes from Mountain View? It’s really amazing, the difference when you go under the mountains of South San Francisco though – on one side, blue skies; on the other, clouds and cold and damp.
One other comment about public transport, you’re lucky you’re in Mountain View – at least you can get the Caltrain around the place.
Last time I was stuck in Cupertino, and last bus back from Caltrain was at around 10pm…
I’ve found that going to California is no problem jetlag-wise, I seem to
synchronise quite easily. Coming back is something different.
I think the very nice Indian restaurant is probably Sue’s. It’s on Castro
street, near the railway tracks end, opposite an “Irish pub”. There’s another
one of Sue’s in San Jose, also good. Ryan and Fergal liked Baba Neo (on Moffett
Blvd, head north on Castro, cross the tracks and keep going, it’s on your right), but I’ve never
eaten there.
I’m also car-less, but Yellow Cabs of Santa Clara country are quite reliable,
you can get them on (650) 321 1234.
Hey Conall,
A trip to the Googleplex has got to be fun, even if Mountain View is not much to see. Myself and Dermot took it in on our road trip last summer, and even with the added thrill of evading Google car park security to take a geeky photo with a particularly company’s corporate logo, I remember Mountain View as being fairly boring and undistinguished American strip-mall land.
Oh, and I expect you to bring me back a life-time’s supply of M&Ms. You get them free, right?
Mark
PS> It took me a while to locate the main RSS feed for this blog. Perhaps I’m blind, but I don;t think you have a link to it.
Some mornings here have required sunglasses, although it comes with a cool breeze (which isn’t too bad).
Airplane food while not deligtful its certainly not kak from the airlines I’ve been on.
And the first hit is always free, the flight back will be the killer.
Wait!
Can you get ‘M&M’s in little boxes with the Google logo?
… wait- that’s that other place in America…
AW!
Get the ‘M&M’s in the bags with the ‘M&M’s logo on them!
[Noone ever asks for those!]
They’re not in a box, simply a perspex drawer with a scoop…
But there is a near unlimmited supply of M&Ms in the Dublin office. Over here, there’s more cereal and wonderful things such as root beer…