Travelogue: San Jose, CA

I now understand why anyone would choose to pay ridiculous amounts of money to live in California. As the plane was landing, the pilot announced that the temperature in San Jose was "a balmy 72 degrees, winds at 10 mph out of the northwest," and my reaction was, "72? What does that mean? Celsius?" It hasn't been 72 in Houston since January, and that was the low! I stepped outside and could breathe, it wasn't like walking into a used sweat sock at all, it was glorious! I ate lunch outside on a patio surrounded by flowers!


Mmm delicious almond apple tart thing with vanilla bean ice cream.


Walking through downtown Mountain View, where I stayed, I was surrounded by flowers, there were mountains in the background (the name of the town isn't sarcasm!) and I found a bookstore with more books than I have! Even counting the 30 boxes still in my parents' basement!

Also, while driving around getting myself throughly lost (it's my hobby, that's why I'm so good at it) I passed a Yahoo building, an AMD building, a Microsoft building, and a Google building! I was hungry at the time I passed the Google building, so I considered sneaking in to try their food, but unfortunately I think it was after lunchtime.

My company put me up at what may be the best hotel I've ever stayed in. The bed was soft and cushy, the bathroom arched and with glass shower doors, and the wireless internet perfect for playing World of Warcraft on for far too many hours.

My favorite part was driving around with the windows down the entire time, with the fresh air in my hair and on my skin. Luckily I'm going back on vacation! And this time I will get to hike and eat in more places and see old friends and meet their families and see the coast, and best of all, Boyfriend will be there to see it with me.

Travelogue: Florida

I got to go to Florida on a business trip! It was my first work-related travel, and I enjoyed it very much. The strangest part about it was staying in a hotel room by myself, I've never done that before.

The hotel I stayed in was very nice, very family-oriented actually (the hotel where the conference was held was all booked up by the time I went to make my reservation) but the first room they gave me was on the second floor, which was accessed by an exterior elevator next to a hallway with a lot of bends and nooks, and was the last room down a fairly long, shadowed hallway. When I got to the door I discovered the hallway did not actually end at my door, it made a sharp right immediately afterwards and connected to other side of the hotel. It seemed like there were entirely too many places for people to hide (rapist nooks, as I call them) on my approach to my room, and I knew I would be coming back to it after dark each night, so just to save myself the worry I went back and requested a room change. The front desk was very nice, they hadn't really thought about where the room was, so they moved me to a room on the first floor in the middle of the hallway, where I could park 5 feet from my door and see all around me. The hotel was very nice and all, they had a security guard at the entrance to the hotel, but just for peace of mind and paranoia it was well worth the move.

The other major benefit to business travel in Florida is that I got to see my Uncle and Aunt! I went to school in Daytona, and I used to visit them at least a few times a semester, and I haven't been back and spent time with them since the year after I graduated, so I enjoyed catching up with them. Perhaps because they live so far away from where I grew up that they weren't as used to me being a child, and that I saw them more as I was growing independent and getting used to this whole being-a-grown-up thing, they were the first adults in my family whom I felt like an adult around. It was really nice to see them, we played dress-up (I'm all grown-up, yup yup) with the clothes they wear to the Scottish/Irish festivals they go to frequently. This is my Uncle and I preparing to defend our lands:
And my Aunt and Uncle being silly:
My Uncle has that social gene that my sisters have and that I seem to have misplaced, the one that allows him to have a conversation with anyone, anywhere. He's genuinely interested in everyone he meets, what their background is, where they've lived, what they've done in their lives. He has also rather inexplicably turned into a redneck despite growing up 3 blocks from where I did!

Driving back from their house in the dark along the same highway I used to drive back to school on brought back lots of college memories. I lived as a child in Jersey and as an adult in Texas, but I did a lot of my growing-up in Florida.