Quick notes on California

  • Only in flights to San Francisco can you sit next to and have pleasant chats with a marketing director of HP.
  • There is an ad poster for Ubuntu Linux on freeway 101, going towards Mountain View.
  • I am in culture shock over the change in scale of things.
  • A Peugeot 407 is a small car.
  • Anti-gas-guzzling-car lobbyists must be depressed.
  • A small road is 2 lanes wide in each direction, plus a bike path on each side.
  • Pedestrians don’t exist, only cars.
  • The small main street in Mountain View is the length of Belfort north to south, and has about twice the number of pubs, restaurants and shops.
  • When you buy food, you have 1 month to decide you don’t want it. You get refunded upon returning it.
  • It is always sunny in Mountain View.
  • When people complain about the weather, they are talking about the slight overcast in the morning, the one that soon gives way to nothing but blue skies.
  • Jet lag isn’t that bad in this direction.
  • I have trouble grasping the concept that it is 2am in my biological timezone, when the sun says it is 5pm.
  • Google has a cool sculpture opposite building 43.
  • I’m going to eat at Google tonight.
  • The previous fact produces a surprising amount of childish excitement in me.
  • Wheeeeeee!