California

Last weekend, on about 24 hours notice, M and I went to Mountain View, California for my interview with Microsoft.

On Thursday, I drove to Oakville to get M from work but ran into a huge traffic accident near the Guelph Line. I ended up sitting in traffic with the car off for over 2 hours! When I finally got to GE, we drove to Pearson Airport and got there only 45 minutes before our flight was due to depart.

In Pearson, M kept setting off the metal detector. After she emptied her pockets and took off her shoes, they finally used the wand and found that her hair band was setting off the detector. My suitcase was searched and my nail clipper were confiscated. I can't believe I forgot to take them out of my traveling case. I'm glad I remembered to leave my Swiss Army knife at home.

When we sat down at the gate, we noticed other people there as well, so we figured we were fine. Then they called our names over the PA so we realized that those people were there for the next flight.

We made it to San Jose Airport, via Chicago, with no other major incidents. M took tons of pictures from the plane (she managed to get a window seat on both planes). We grabbed pizza in Chicago when we found out that American Airlines no longer serves meals on their flights. They will, however, sell you a box of crackers, cheese, and cookies for $3USD.

On Friday we woke up early due to the time difference. Looking outside, the first thing we noticed were palm trees. We couldn't get over palm trees in February! The next thing we noticed was the hilly area in the distance, which was our first taste of CA mountains. It was also quite warm - around 15 degrees Celsius.

My interview had been rescheduled for 10:45am and one of the Holiday Inn staff drove me short distance to the Microsoft campus. Since I didn't know the interview length when I left, we planned to leave messages for each other at the hotel. M spent the morning to early afternoon walking around the Palo Alto shopping district. Palo Alto is another small city in the area between San Jose and San Francisco.

The interview ended earlier than I was told when I first arrived - around 3:00pm - and so we met back at the hotel room in Mountain View. We then asked for some advice from the friendly desk staff at the Holiday Inn and walked to the train station. We took the train to San Francisco, about a one-hour trip.

To keep this brief, we walked all over the San Francisco downtown for about 7 hours. We saw Fisherman's Wharf, the Golden Gate bridge, Alcatraz Island, the trolleys, and Lombard Street (the windiest street in the world). The entire city is made of hills, and they are steep! You are virtually never walking on flat ground. There are these strange (to us tourists) intersections that are four-way stops for the cars, but the trolleys go right through them, sometimes stopping right in the middle of a lane to let off passengers.

We caught the last train back to Mountain View at midnight, so by the time we ended up back at the hotel it was nearly 2:00am. With an 11:56am flight the next morning, we called it a night. The next morning, we once again raced the airport with 45 minutes to go, but again we made it. We ended up flying over both the Rockies and the Grand Canyon on the way back, and of course M took tons of pictures.

We stayed in Mississauga on Saturday night and then went to Woodstock on Sunday. I read a chapter in a textbook for school while M read Atlas Shrugged. My "reading two-days" were over. The next morning we drove to Waterloo since I had school. Then we drove to Mississauga after my night class and again stayed there. After driving M to work in the morning, I came back to Waterloo. And to think, on Wednesday morning, I had no idea any of this was going to happen...

Pictures: http://www.ofoto.com/I.jsp?c=sudslpr.9opr31n&x=0&y=-hddk2m