San Francisco Dairies - Day 2

In retrospection. Day 2.

Woke up and wondered where the jet-lag was. Had been up until 3:00 am, sneaking onto some random wi-fi. Monday. We actually missed the Google Bus to campus and had to take a cab. $40 the very first day. And a Russian cab driver who tried his best to point out the fancy Valley headquarter buildings of Yahoo!, Adobe, Microsoft, and others that we'd already seen twice and could read the names of anyway. Although, it was already unusual to have someone talk so continually and ask so many questions.

Got to Googleplex and rushed off into meetings. Mostly pointless meetings, but what the hell. Had lunch at the famous and absolutely overwhelming Charlie's Cafe. I was honestly relieved to not be alone there. Great food though, stuffed myself with the most-non Indian food I could manage. I was surpised to see some of my colleagues hitting the Indian Cuisine section. Why? Curiosity, maybe... but not on your first day at Mountain View.

We sat on grassy grasses and watched funky, hot, Googlers strutting about, wearing everything from formals to spikey hair and shorts. And of course, pretty girls walking their doggies. Sweet California air. (Those three words, I'm going to repeat a dozen times in this series.)

More meetings and finally a bus back to San Jose. We had no guide today, so we took a cab to the Great Mall, at San Jose, and spent an hour in frantic shopping. That was the part I really hated. I had 45 minutes before the mall shut, and I can't even put a number to the showrooms glittering at me. Shopped a bit and then exited the mall.

Now, the unusual thing is that there's still evening light around at 8:00pm. Which is like a 6:00pm in India. That much light. Which in India means, the night is just beginning, and get ready for traffic, noise and crowds of people.

When I exited the mall at 9:00pm, it was dark, and deserted. No cabs, hardly any people, and cops driving around looking at things suspiciously. Had to call for a cab and wait, and wait, and wait, and realize that all the restaurants in San Jose are likely to be shut already. Walked around, in near panic, and finally found a pita place and ate those enormous servings that they serve in the US.

The girl behind the counter had a dozen piercings on her face, but was friendly enough to help us pick our pitas. A man on the table next to ours was crazy drunk, red in the face, and gulping down his pita. He got up, pushed his chair straight into my colleague - Tasneem's - and stumbled off to the rest room. I was fairly alarmed by his size and obvious state of drunkardness.

After pita, we returned to the hotel, it was really too cold to wander around outside. I was slightly disappointed with the day - didn't see much, not even much of Googleplex, couldnt shop, and everything being shut so early was depressing.

Waiting for the camera, and well, Google conference.