Ups and Downs

Tuesday was a pretty tough day.  I started work in the Palo Alto office, and although everybody was really friendly, I spent a lot of time sitting at my desk with very little to do, and then went home to an empty flat to watch rubbish TV and eat unhealthy food.  But on Wednesday I had an epiphany (which, when spelled without a capital letter, has nothing to do with the Three Wise Men and means "a moment of clarity and revelation" - I know this thanks to Mr Gibb teaching me Dubliners by James Joyce for A-level.)

On Wednesday I realised it was time to stop moping and start getting a life.  Because nobody likes a moaner. Thanks to a tip from one of my new colleagues I went on a website called Meetup.  Apparently it also exists in the UK but I'd never heard of it.  It is just a catalogue of locally based interest groups that anybody can join.  I am now a member of two, one is an Italian Speakers group and the other is called "San Francisco Bay Area Outings" (but presumably not in a Peter Tatchell kind of way). 

On Wednesday night I met up with my Italian speakers in a café a few miles from my home.  It was good to meet people who are not lawyers or tax professionals, a mixture of ages and nationalities.  The coffee I bought was pretty poor, the barista could probably doing with some Italian speaker explaining what macchiato actually means, but all things considered it was a great evening and I am looking forward to going again.

Also on Wednesday night I went to the Apple Store to collect a new iPad.  The Apple Store in Silicon Valley is like every other Apple Store - full of perky young assistants who expect you to be grateful for even being allowed in, but here it almost feels like buying local produce (or would be if they weren't manufactured in China).  I'd never felt I wanted an iPad before, but I have since discovered the delight of combining iPad with strongvpn.com.  This wonderful website allows internet users in the USA to fool the BBC, Netflix and anybody else into thinking that they are in fact back in Blighty, enabling full use of the BBC i-Player.  I don't feel guilty about this deception, I've paid my licence fee so why should I be stuck with Mexican soap operas, or Jane Beaumont's favourite, The Real Housewives of Orange County? 

Since then things have started to look up.  I am gradually acquiring work things to do .  I have been lent a bicycle so I can drive less and keep fitter.  A trip to Texas has been arranged for next week to visit colleagues there, and further trips have been arranged/promised for Seattle and Los Angeles.

Tonight I am off to a client dinner, and then tomorrow I am going on my first outing, a walk in the foothills of the Santa Cruz mountains on what promises to be a glorious day.  I've got a water-bottle, sunscreen and some hiking socks, so I am all set.  Sunday's job will be to find a church, which could be interesting too.

So what have I learned?

(1)    The guy down the hall is a bit eccentric. Rather than a computer screen he brings his own widescreen TV in from home which fills the entire wall of his office, and he has a habit of frantically rubbing his hands like Lady Macbeth.

(2)    The office block and one hotel are located in a modern development near the freeway next to a deprived estate which several people have warned me not to visit. From my window I can see perfectly normal looking people living in pretty ordinary looking houses, but apparently they will attack a middle-class person without hesitation, so I am not taking any chances. Perhaps I should buy a gun from Walmart?

(3)    The hotel contains the only restaurant within walking distance of the office, and seems to exist primarily to serve lunch to the same people from the office block every day. Nobody wants to spend too long having lunch, so I suspect the desert menu is just for show and if I decided to have one it would cause a local scandal.

(4)    The toilets are a bit weird. Like other public loos I have seen in the USA, the office toilets have cubicles which start almost a foot above the floor and stop well short of the top of my head. So anybody passing my cubicle could stand on tiptoe and look over the top while I was doing a poo if he so desired. And although I don't expect anyone will, I feel very exposed. There is also a pair of urinals, one of which is set low down at small child height. I have no idea why it is there, but I hope there aren't any small children using that particular "restroom" because they might run under the partition and disturb me when I am taking a dump, and frankly I am stressed enough about the perils of tall people without worrying about an attack from below as well.