I’m all packed and ready – this should be good.

Reflecting on the month it has been very worthwhile and enjoyable and I’ve gained a massive amount from the whole experience. I look forward to what another month brings (especially as I have a whole load of British stuff supposed to be arriving this month, number one on the list being Pimms – justified as being a necessity on a hot sunny day). However much I like to complain about things I wouldn’t change a thing that I’ve done, something that seems an advantage of doing new things and exploring new places.

Anyway, putting summaries aside, I’ve had another good Sunday. I returned to the same church where I have received such a hospitable welcome, it seems a shame I will be in Vegas next Sunday and so this was my last visit for some time. Yet again I was very generously invited to go out for lunch afterwards, getting to know even more people.

The knowledge of people who have been in San Francisco for far longer than me has allowed me to see the city far more effectively than I would have managed of my own accord (which is probably as effective as randomly picking what to do), today I was shown Japantown and the many shops located there. I’ve acquired more reading material (I’ll post more about what I’ve been reading at the moment someday) and generally saw an array of shops different from what I’ve seen before. While Britain is undoubtedly home to all sorts of cultures I’ve never seen a tiny pocket of a city so dedicated to one particular culture (and before somebody points out, yes, I’ve been to Chinatown in London. That had a far more commercial and Anglicised feel to it). It felt far less intimidating than the rest of San Francisco does, which is truly enormous.

On the way to Japantown I was shown the Roman Catholic cathedral, a stunning modern building built half way up a very steep hill. While very different to cathedrals I am familiar with it had its own charm and I could see how the building appeals to people, it clearly attracted a very large number of people. Looking round and seeing the art I realise I’ve neglected any (boring, as I’m sure Gabriel would say) cultural experience for the last month, something I should really change – I’m sure it is not just Oxford that has plenty of opportunities for doing so.

Anyway, for now I am preparing for my trip to Las Vegas this coming week. It will, without a doubt, be exciting. Also, I have been neglecting the comments people have been leaving somewhat – if you check back to previous posts I’ve now responded to some of them. I’ll try to be more attentive and do more than simply prevent spam from making it into the comments.

The route I selected went through Stanford and then went in a big loop (about 15 miles, not too far) through the hills around Palo Alto. I deliberately picked a route with a fairly gentle climb and then turned left instead of right (again…) and so did it backwards. This meant quite a climb and made my planned route far more ambitious, I realised my mistake far too late and so kept on going.

I’ve only been out in the sun for more than half an hour in Palo Alto once, for the Nerf battle, and that was in the shade. It really is very hot here, I hadn’t fully appreciated just how hot. Fortunately I had plenty of water with me and there was a water fountain at the half way point where I could fill up my bottles.

Overall the trip was successful, I have now seen far more of Palo Alto, albeit from a distance. My route also took my past the Stanford Linear Accelerator Centre, including a glimpse of the beam line. The roads I was on were very bike friendly, they would have been dual carriageways if one lane in both directions was not dedicated for bike traffic. Unfortunately there was next to nowhere to stop, the sides of the road were quite steep most of the way. I took a few photos (uploaded below) at the places I did manage to stop and have a breather.

Furthermore, before I was allowed to go anywhere near a trampoline I had to sign a waiver, but not the standard sort where you simply accept there are risks associated with the activity. If you have read a letter of complaint I have written in one of my less serious moments the waiver bared many similarities, despite being (I believe) a proper document.

It covered entirely irrelevant issues in extreme detail, including my travel to and from the location (organised by me but they thought it necessary to point out that there could possibly be a traffic accident and in this situation they would have no responsibility). It then, in comic detail, described the different sorts of ways the staff could be incompetent and/or negligent and that this was not their problem. Just when it seemed all too much it then described the different ways the equipment could break, assuming some sort of bizarre sequence of events – of course they were not liable for this.

My colleagues (all American, I was the only British person who played due to fear of injury and large hospital bills) did not seem to find the waiver at all unusual. Apparently it is usual to sign documents describing in great detail the potential incompetency of the staff working for a company, how this could lead to severe disablement and yet the company is not responsible at all for ensuring their staff are not incompetent and their equipment is in good working order.

I can report that, contrary to the suggestions in the waiver, the staff were competent, the equipment was well maintained and I did not sustain any serious injuries or die. I am, however, not very good at dodgeball. Attempting to trampoline just made things worse and the team that I was on ended up getting knocked out straight away. So, like any sport-like activity I try to play then.

Fortunately as well as a set of trampolines set up for dodgeball there was a much larger set just of bouncing on. I am marginally better at this and so after being knocked out of the dodgeball I entertained myself by bouncing around. There was also a foam pit you could bounce off several trampolines into, much like a long jump. This was very difficult to get out of, although I am now thinking a bed consisting of a large amount of foam would be very comfortable.

Pictures are below, sorry for the low quality – they were taken with my BlackBerry as I didn’t have my camera.

On Wednesday I finished trying all the different sorts of exotic ice cream that I could find. This was mainly ice cream sandwiches, but the range of ice creams stretched as far as ice cream tacos. My conclusion is that ice cream in the US is very similar to ice cream in the UK, although my sample size is still quite small and I plan on improving upon this research. I might even branch out to frozen yoghurt.

On Thursday I went to a pub quiz, although as Americans are lacking pubs and quiz has connotations of school it was actually entitled a “trivia night” at a “brewery restaurant.” Unfortunately the pond difference did not end there, most of the history round involved knowledge of US presidents. I can probably name about five US presidents and that doesn’t really count as two of them have the same name, so I was fairly useless at history.

The geography round was mainly about US states and you don’t have to read much of this blog to encounter my difficulties with US geography. The sports round covered all sorts of exotic sports I know nothing about, such as Nascar and the world series (I still don’t understand what qualifies it as a world series).

At this point I will stop listing all the things I had no clue about, I think in total I was able to answer about two questions. None-the-less it was an enjoyable evening and the party afterwards was great fun (saying any more than that about the party would be inappropriate, I will leave it to your imagination).

Friday was spent working and having a very quiet night recovering from Thursday. I now think I am fully adjusted to the time difference, mainly due to going to bed early on Friday and waking up quite late on Saturday. The biggest advantage of this is that I no longer wake up at about 5am, a habit which I was not used to at all and is a very bad time to wake up as breakfast is not served until much later.

On Saturday I went with my house-mates to a large shopping centre in the south of the Valley. Americans are very good at doing large, you needed a car if you wanted to get around from one part of the shopping centre to another. The discounts available were also unbelievable, you could pick up brand name items for Primark prices! Other than pricing it was much as you would find in the UK with almost exactly the same shops, and the individual shops were actually a bit smaller than if you go somewhere like Oxford street. This was more than made up with by quantity, another thing the Americans seem to be good at.

After shopping we returned home for a barbeque, something which can happen at any time in Palo Alto as it is barbeque weather all day every day. I must locate some Pimms for this sort of thing, I know where to get the spirit from but not any English-style lemonade. This may be because English-style lemonade is actually horrible, cheap, artificially flavoured fizzy water but that is what a proper Pimms requires. To my horror nobody around me has ever had Pimms or even had any idea of what it is so I must do something to fix this.

Today saw my usual excursion into San Francisco, after church this time I had lunch at a kebab shop. Unlike my usual experience of kebabs this place not only looked hygienic but was very upmarket and was very pleasant. After lunch I used my new-found mastery of the San Francisco public transport (a.k.a. advice from people from church) to take a bus up to the Presidio national park in order to amble towards the Golden Gate Bridge, which is at one end of the park.

On arrival the park seemed very pleasant, although I expected more open space than what I found. Instead there were a load of buildings, left over from when this was a military base, now housing various fairly random seeming organisations. Plus a Disney museum (the boring kind, about the Walt Disney family and not Disney films).

As the national park was not quite what I was expecting I decided to head straight towards the Golden Gate Bridge, my main purpose for the afternoon. What, then, do I discover right in the middle of the national park? A great big road. It seems that not only is this national park (I hope America has some real national parks somewhere) lacking in the park aspect but it was also seen as the best place to send all the traffic wanting to get in and out of San Francisco. Also, continuing on the theme of large and in great quantity this is another fine example.

I cannot fathom who thought this was a sensible place for a road. The biggest problem is that as it cuts the national park in half you can’t really walk across it, to reach the Golden Gate Bridge I had to backtrack and go round the big road where it was possible to get underneath it. This, finally, provided something resembling a park.

I finally made it to the bridge, although it is quite a long way. In photos the bridge looks, to me at least, quite calm and quiet. In reality it is very different. Firstly there are the winds, today was better than the first time I was in San Francisco but it was still very strong and it was quite chilly especially when the clouds came out. Secondly there are a lot of cars going over the bridge combined with a lot of tourists trying to see it. This makes it incredibly busy. Anyway, after seeing the bridge I hopped onto a bus and headed home.

That’s all for today, I should really find something to do other than complain about unimportant differences between the US and the UK.

The phone itself takes forever to turn on, I don’t know quite what it is doing but it is close to five minutes before it is ready to use. The battery also drains very quickly whenever the phone is used, I am used to getting a week and a half out of a full charge but I think I will be lucky to manage two days. The interface is also very odd, having used an iPhone and an Android phone even briefly I desire a touchscreen to use. Instead of simple buttons there is a sort of trackball except it is a capacitive button, much like a laptop touchpad, this is so small that I am finding it nearly impossible to use. I think I have probably made my views on this device clear so I won’t continue with the list of other things wrong with it, I also don’t wish to be ungrateful for being given it (I am not, I just like to complain about technology that could be much better).

The one big advantage, if you desired it, is the synchronisation that occurs with Exchange and Outlook. I would not miss this feature one bit but I’m sure companies the world over love it. At least the paranoid part of me can be happy that the phone is encrypted and if I were to lose it then all could be remotely wiped from it.

I have also installed the Skype application so if anybody wants to call me (but please remember the time difference) you can, my Skype username is my first name and surname separated by a full stop. I also have a traditional phone number, but this is US based so less useful.