California, Here We Come

Well, here we are. I’m writing this whilst sitting on my balcony, overlooking the pool at the hotel. This is my view:

Just out of frame are some students who are staying here, who are Skyping on their MacBooks. No, I’m not a stalker, but when someone starts waving at their laptop, its kinda easy to guess!

We got up at 7ish on Sunday, and were in a taxi by 8am. First stop was Bristol Temple Meads, where we got a train to Paddington, then another train over to Heathrow. We were flying from T5, the newest terminal, and it is shiny. I was surprised at the amount of “high end” stores it has, but was soon distracted by the Mulberry store. I was pulled there, it has a certain force on me!

The flight out was direct, so we were in the air for over 10 hours, my longest flight. The seats had screens in the backs with video on demand, so I watched a few movies (Get Him To The Greek (ace), Monsters Inc (tried to doze through but couldn’t!), Despicable Me (cute) and Killers (lame, couldn’t even finish it)). I should have tried to sleep, but with the person in front reclining his seat, and the person behind kneeing my back, it wasn’t the most comfortable thing. (Also I can’t sleep in the light, and I can’t sleep sitting up.)

We landed, went through immigration (so many questions! Also my photo and fingerprints were taken, a normal thing apparently), found our cases, hopped on the AirTrain (it’s like the monorail at Alton Towers, except instead of Nemesis, you get to go get a rental car) and got our car. Palo Alto is a short drive (20 miles?) from San Francisco, and we were soon at the hotel (no thanks to the sat nav)

Our room is amazing. The only reason I say this is the bed. It’s about 6 foot across, and is so fluffy and squishy and honestly, if I could, I’d take it home with me. Even stretched out, I couldn’t reach Alex. We need this bed.

We had a drink in the bar, and I left Alex and his colleague to have some food while I went and had a bath. Bathing – more important than food. Except the tub here is tiny – I sat down in it and my feet touched the other end. So shallow as well! America, sort your baths out, and your voltage – my hair straighteners can’t heat up enough! I watched Family Guy (weird to watch it on the tv with ads in!) – since it was 5.30am GMT, I thought I should sleep.

We’ve been telling everyone not to ring us this week, because we won’t answer – the best way to get hold of us is to email or text, but that didn’t stop our landlord calling at 2am our time. Of course, it was 10am GMT so my body clock wanted to get up. Stupid body clock, go to sleep!

We got up at 6am, had some breakfast then Alex went to work, while I went for a wander around downtown Palo Alto. It’s….not that exciting. Really. I’ve been out twice today and it’s still only 1pm!

Now, if someone could find me a decent cup of tea, I’d be happy.