Apartments and Driving.

Robert and I left work early to go and have a look at an apartment for me and also got and get something for work and for Robert place from IKEA. IKEA (pronounced Ick-Keea)

The apartment was one that I found on craigslist.com and is part of a housing complex built into the bay and called Redwood Shores. The estate was called Pescadero and looks like this
The flat that I was looking at was Plan D but flipped left to right. It was a nice apartment on the ground floor. The first one we looked at wasn't very private. It was right on the corner of the main path and everyone walking to the pool would be looking in. The living room was also very long and thin. The second flat that we looked (Plan B flipped top to bottom) was a lot more private and the living room was more square. I thought that it was a little expensive for the price, the walls were too thin and it is a 37 minute bike ride to work.
I'll keep looking.

San Francisco doesn't have a lot of roundabouts. I have only seen one or two, despite having a lot of crossroads. They have a system called 4-way stop signs. Basically you come up to the crossroad and come to a complete stop. You then look at the other roads leading into the intersection and decide the order in which the other cars arrived. You then wait your turn and proceed when you think it is your go. If that sounds bizarre then it is even more wierd in real life.

There are a lot of strange road signs here, going though the estate, there was a dead end street with the sign saying "No Outlet". The sign out the front door is to warn of the dead end road and says "Not A Through Road".

At the traffic lights, if you want to turn right (from the right hand side of the road, remember..) you can sneak around the corner, if your way is clear. Through the red light ! It was so wrong when Robert did it the first time.

Anyway, I'm off to bed. Goodnight !

Weird things in America - Part 1

(Click on photos to display larger images)

#1 Fire hydrant are yellow.



#2 Bathroom taps are strange. The pin at the back is to push the plug open...



The pin on top of the tap is to switch between shower and bath and the lever underneath it is to open and close the drain ...



#3 Toilets are really wierd, they start off as half full of water then swirl drain and refill.



#4 Light switch are big and ugly. Some of them go sideways and some go up and down. On is normally up.





#5 Milk comes in quarts (946 ml) and has Vitamin D whether you like it or not.



#6 Butter is whipped and white.



Still tastes like butter though. :)

#7 Power sockets don't have switches. The switch is for the insinkerator.



#8 Money is almost all the same colour and made of paper.

Second day of work.

I've survived my second day of work, but only just. I was falling asleep about 4:30 ish.

I've taken some photos of the factory in Redwood City. Google Map link.

The small red Toyota Corolla in front of the building is Robert new car. It was cheaper for him to lease a new car than to buy a second hand one. We are both not used to the other side of the road and keep getting in the wrong side of the car ! No accidents or near misses yet, but some wierd road laws. If there is one of the generic big yellow American school buses, stopped on the other side of the road, then we have to stop as well. Just in case the kids run out from behind the bus ....

The blue lines on the floor of the factory in photo 4, is a sketch out of the size of the plant that we are building as a demonstration. The bit that I have been designing is in the bottom left. We had moved the desks away from the wall on the left, as we were getting carpet laid there. We are now moved back next to the wall near the whiteboards, with new red carpet underfoot !

Robert took me down to Palo Alto for dinner and to do some shopping. We went to Il Fornaio and had a lovely Italian dinner and then to Whole foods to stock up on organic muesli and gluten free bread (for Robert).

I also took some photos of Robert house that's 6 minutes drive away from work. And according to Robert a 37 minute walk !

Everything looks just ever so slightly strange, the street signs are a little bit different, the houses look 'American' is a slightly larger than life, fake sort of way, and the cars are huge. They love their large pickup trucks ! There are a lot of Hispanic people in California and a lot of the signs are bilingual English / Spanish.
We went to a Mexican place for lunch and when I ordered, I only understood one word in 5 of what the waitress was saying and I'm not sure if she was talking Spanish or English.

I'll start with getting an apartment tomorrow and also organise to have my bike put back together.

That's all for now, more tomorrow. :)

landed !

The new time zone is not too bad. On the flight I felt like it was another day as they served us dinner, we had a couple of hours sleep and then they served breakfast and by the time that I landed it felt like dinner time again, so I haven't been too bad. I worked all day today and then came home for a nap !

I went to the Social Security Administration today to try and get a social security number (SSN) which is a cross between Centrelink number and a passport number. They couldn't give it to me as there Deptment of Homeland Security hadn't updated their computers and they didn't have comfirmation that I was in the country despite the fact that I was standing in front of them with the paperwork saying that I had entered the country ! I have to wait a week until the computers get updated and try again.

I then went to the bank as Scott had said that I could open an account with my passport and then tell them when I had the SSN. Their poliy had undergone some 'slight' changes and I was unable to open an account without my SSN. :(

Going to lunch tomorrow with the rest of company to celebrate me getting here, didn't do it today as they got confused with the time zones and booked in another lunch.