An Englishman’s Perspective of Silicon Valley

I’m back.

I’ve been away from blogging for a little while, mainly because my brother was visiting from the UK, and I just took time out to hang with him. I had mentioned him in a previous blog – he’s the cyclist.

However, his main goal while he was here was not finding a mini tour de Silicon Valley en bicyclette – he came equipped with ski boots ready for the snow. As you know if you read my blogs, we are frequent visitors to Bear Valley, so with the kids off school for the week, we took the opportunity to get Pete back onto his snow legs and he spent much of his visit bombing down mountains – speed is everything, as well as not falling down – that apparently is the mark of a great British skier!

We did spend a couple of days in the Bay Area and what was interesting from his visit was his perspective on all things Silicon Valley – a perspective I had 12 years ago when we moved here, but had forgotten – what he found unusual and different from his life in the UK.  So I made a list of his remarks, some interesting, some not so :

* Turning right at a red stop sign – a no no in the UK – took some getting used to.

* Foreign cars – lots of them, including Jags and Minis, but not too many American ones on the road

* A car is a perk in many jobs in the UK, not so here.

* He couldn’t believe how close we drive to each other on freeways, loved to quote the distance we should keep between cars in order to avoid fender benders; do they really drive that far apart in the UK?

* Impressed with the bike lanes, not too many over there but they’re working on it.

* Open-air swimming pools – where are the indoor ones?

* Three schools for our lovely kids to get through, instead of the two in the UK

* Our crazy property taxes!

* Loved my kitchen gadgets especially my strawberry/mushroom slicer - do we really have so many more gadgets than them?

* The sunshine…..a constant MOST of the year

* Proximity to sea AND mountains (mentioned in previous blog on (WHY we live here) 

* No pub – I’m with him there – wouldn’t it be great to wander down to the pub on a balmy summer evening and hang out with the locals?  Starbucks just doesn’t cut it.

I’m sure there’s more, but my memory fails me for the moment.  Any new arrivals in California still coming to terms with the way things work over here – what do YOU miss from your homeland?

10 reasons to relocate to Silicon Valley

Photo Credit : Logos

Yes, I know, we moan and groan about living in this area called Silicon Valley, how expensive the houses , how small the yards, how congested the traffic, how expensive the gas, how long the commute, etc etc so I thought it was high time to sit back with my cup of coffee and remind myself and my readers why we LOVE living here, how lucky we are to live here and why relocating to Silicon Valley may be the best idea you ever had.

1. The weather – how wonderful is it to wake up and see blue sky and sunshine every morning; OK, perhaps not every morning, but sure as hec more often than not.

2. The location – with a 45 minute drive to the beaches on the west and a 3 hour drive to the nearest ski resort to the east, you can spend a day in the sea or in the snow, forgetting, for a day or two, about the commute, the traffic, the workload etc etc

3. The restaurants – what an orgasmic selection of restaurants we have here – any type of fare you wish to try is within a few miles drive.

4. Getting around – how easy is it to get from A to B with all the freeways we have at our disposal.

5. The culture – with San Jose to the south and San Francisco to the north, we are spoilt with choices of theater : movies, operas, plays, musicals, all of incredibly high standards.

6. The people – living in an area populated with so many different cultures, people who have migrated here from all over the world – to live in the best place in the world – adding to our understanding of these cultures, their traditions, their lifestyles, reminding us that there is a world beyond the US.

7. Travel opportunities – if you do feel the need to fly domestically or internationally, you are less than an hour from three international airports, San Francisco, San Jose, and Oakland.

8. Stanford University – one of the greatest colleges is right on our doorstep, and if you’ll never have a reason to visit your kid there, at least give yourself a reason to hang out at this beautiful campus and mingle with those fortunate enough to study there. And then go on to check out University Ave in downtown Palo Alto, quaint and interesting shops, restaurants and coffee houses.

9. Hobbies and sports – whatever you enjoy you can do – or watch – here alongside other people who share your interest. Sailing, football, yoga, belly dancing, hiking, lacrosse, knitting, cycling, stamp collecting, snowboarding : anything goes!

10. No humidity, no mosquitoes – at least that’s what my hubbie tells me when I ask what’s wrong with moving somewhere cheaper, say, Texas?

11. OK, I lied, but I had to add this one in – one of my favorite reasons – there is a Starbucks or Peets Coffee on almost every street corner!

Am I missing anything? What is it YOU love about Silicon Valley?

Freeway phobia?

Does anyone else suffer from this phobia? I personally do not, but I now have two friends who can no longer drive on the freeways around here – that’s Silicon Valley, by the way. They are just darn scared about the other traffic around them. There seem to be so many, underpasses, overpasses, west, east, which friggin direction anyway? Is this a phobia just around here or is it spreading around the country?

And how do you get from A to B anymore without going on a freeway? I always pick the freeway to go somewhere if at all possible. I can’t imaging figuring out how to get anywhere round here without the three lane fast way.

Hard to believe I grew up on two lane country roads in the UK….