out and about: San Francisco

Golden Gate Bridge

And now for the first time in my life I am in California! Woo! I've been staying with Matt Wing and Matt Betten for the weekend. We took a tour around Stanford and then went to Palantir (where they work) for dinner. Apparently a ton of RPI people work there because I ran into a lot of them. The dinner was soooo good too! I almost wish I was staying in SF but I'm hoping LA will be cool too. Palo Alto (where they live) is a really nice area. We also went to Ikea with Erez to get a futon for their apartment and spent some time assembling that and a bike rack. The next day we had brunch with some other Palantir people and then I took a day trip out to San Francisco via train (with a train conductor who would ask trivia questions throughout the journey) and met up with my friend from UCL (who is originally from SF) and we walked across the Golden Gate bridge and back. Had a great time with him and then had lunch with Henry, a friend from RPI, before catching the train back. On my last day we went on a cool hike. I wish I had more to say but now that I've waited a few days to post this I've kind of forgotten what I was going to write about hah :(

I left around 7am on Monday morning to drive to Los Angeles via the Pacific Coast Highway / CA-1. It was an awesome drive despite being really foggy. I didn't go across the cool bridge so I'm not sure where I went wrong there but I took the highway for most of my trip down the coast. The geography is just so cool. The coastline follows you along your right side while mountains rise and fall with the occasional ranch of cows or horses on your left. When the mountains are at their highest you can look up and see the clouds drifting over them like smoke signals from the tops. Eventually the road drifts away from the coast and you'll find yourself greeted into central California by various vineyards in the valleys. Occasionally you'll drive through some desert before finding smaller cities and then Santa Barbara and then finally, Los Angeles! I'm staying with some Stone Ridge friends, Sara and Becca while I look for housing. More on LA to come!

P.S. I forgot to write this part earlier but then remembered it. As my car was approaching 4,000 miles for the trip, Coldplay came on the radio (Hurts Like Heaven). And then another Coldplay song (Lovers in Japan which was even followed by Chinese Sleep Chant!). And then ANOTHER (Clocks). I was so taken by how awesome it was that 107.3 decided to play so much Coldplay that I decided at that moment that it was the best moment of my entire road trip. :)

Left: Someone with DC tags parked in front of me! Right: Skateboarding must be okay here :P

The entrance to Stanford's campus in Palo Alto

Stanford is ridiculously nice.

Matt (Wing) and Matt (Betten)! Left: touring Stanford. Right: testing futons.

We had dinner at Palantir where they work and it was really delicious! Makes me wish I had done Computer Science haha. There's still time... :)

Downtown Palo Alto

Got to see one of my besties from London (though he's originally from SF), Devin!!! We walked across the Golden Gate Bridge and back. As we were crossing he chose to tell me the story about the earth quake and the treasure island bridge collapse. Terrible tour guide haha. But I saw an AC72 in the bay!!! Totally worth it.