It is difficult. I haven't up my mind about this city up to now.
So here are a few random thoughts about it:
- The streets, all streets, are very wide. This was expected, but a nice surprise are all the bike lanes (StreetView). It is ok to get around by bike in the city. I use the bike directions service of Google Maps to come around. The service is in beta, but I think it is probably well-vetted in the area around Palo Alto.
- The houses are nearly always, single or at max two-story houses and a lot of bungalow buildings. Mainly wood buildings. My room is in such a single-story bungalow. I haven't seen any multi-family houses like they are so common in Germany.
- Palo Alto is rich and broken. It is strange. The houses and cars are here so huge and big, and S-class Mercedes looks like a small car. On the other hand, there are regular power blackouts. For days. It is in general more dirty than at home. There are so many small things were I think "Ohh, I know this from the 80's" like bank checks and trains only with manual sign about the train number and train direction. I also now really get what they meant with buffer bloat. I never noticed it in Germany, here, the ping times often, too often, go up into the seconds range.
- Food is ridiculous expensive. I understand now why the people in the TV series always order food. I feel that everything at Safeway doubles the REWE/Real prices. I like the Trader Joe market near the Campus. I don't know if it is cheaper than Safeway, but much nicer interior. Fun fact: Trader Joes is partially owned by the Aldi brothers.
- With regards to "as seen on TV": I know this country mainly through TV/Movie coverage. So I so many situations are I think like "X is like it is shown in movie Y". E.g. the caltrain uses the strange two-story trains like in "Source Code".
- I was not out of dinner, but there are so many, nice looking restaurants in the City, e.g. at University Avenue: Burger, steak, far-east, middle-east. And of course -- we are talking about California -- a lot of vegan and organic stuff.
- The temperature differences within a few miles are huge. On sunday we went to Santa Cruz because it were 24 degrees (Celsius), but Santa Cruz only a few miles away over the coastal mountains it were 14 degrees, cloudy, and windy. After a short stop, we drove back. The weather was not good, but the beach 1/4 filled anyway and the highways to/from Santa Cruz were jammed. I simply don't want to know how full it is there on sunny summer days. One of my goals for the time here is still surfing. So I will have to find it out when it is a bit warmer like end of May or so.
- On Tuesday I was there a second time. The weather was much better. I really like the beach area and downtown. Santa Cruz is a nice mixture of a beach town, old mexican/spanish influence, and a collage town. I was back in the Santa Cruz bookstore. Got a biography about John Adams and a book about the Lewis/Clark journey. Besides, this one little bookshop in London, it is my favorite book shop. Lots of old books, small notes with comments about the books by customers and staff of the store. Nerdy stuff, history stuff, reading sessions, ….
- Everything in the city is about the University. Sooo many people with Stanford shirts, bags, and pants. It is not possible that all these people study or work there or have studied there. There are so many. I am -- of course -- wear my UPB shirt with pride. Well, and also my Slug shirt, even if that is cheating.
- My English (pronunciation) is probably not getting better. The shared house is shared with mainly people from Germany and the Netherlands (all Stanford visiting scholars).
My current impression is: I think it is ok to live here, but it is not so impressive that I have to convince my whole family and friends that there can nothing better then living here. Actually, from the living situation and quality of living situation I like Germany more. It is all about the jobs that are here and not there.
On the other hand, I know that I really need time to adjust to a new city.
The news of the week for me is that the University of Mainz allows me only to start when I sign the employment documents in person in Mainz. This is so great. They knew before that I am not there, that I am in the internship. So great. In the worst case, I start late, and loss time for the PhD and a ton of money. I love Mainz.
On Tuesday, will be the first day in the internship. I was there for a first visit on Wednesday. The offices look really nice, but everything is a bit smaller then expected. The office room of the team is a large cubicle room -- as expected -- but extremely quite. There is a shuttle service from and to the Caltrain station, but I am not yet sure how good it works out. On Wednesday, the shuttle bus arrived 1/2h before the next train left into my direction.
