Picture-view

As promised, some pictures from my recent trip to Mountain View (MtV), California.
First off, a picture of what most of MtV looks like - I went for a long walk the second weekend I was there, and for about 2 or 3 hours, the entire trip looked like this:


Why would I walk for 3 hours, you say? Well, I needed the exercise (you don't get much in California, and with the food they serve, I feel I must have gained some weight...), but also guitars are much cheaper over there, I managed to pick up this! (A seven-string Ibanez 7321, have meant to get one for such a long time, finally I have one, and a coffin-shaped case to keep it in, which was fun getting through customs...)

Next up, what better to do with a group of programmers in the hub of Silicon Valley than visit all the geeky tech places, starting with NASA Ames:
As well as Apple headquarters:
and nVidia (plus yahoo, Xerox, facebook and a few others not pictured):
Nearby to work is also a tech museum, with a bunch things important in the history of computers (e.g. early Google machines, a Babbage difference engine, a Cray supercomputer,..) as well as an Enigma machine:
and the famous deep blue! (and before you asked, no, I did not play it...)
And finally, the non-tech part of San Fransicso; the drive to & from was fun (scenic, but also I ended up driving about 120kmph on the 'wrong' (=right) side of the road in an automatic Mazda 6), and in the city itself we managed to find this famous bridge:
And in case you were curious at the view up one of those really large spire pylon things: (for those playing at home, we ended up going exactly half way, then back again, so effectively walked accross it...)

But wait, there's more! Well...not on the trip-related subject, but I also recently found out that I won a University Medal for graduated students (I think maybe for honours students). 18 were given out this year, so it seems I might be able to be back in SA for one or two days to collect it, even if that means wearing academic dress again...

Next update will hopefully be soon, and about this house, after our house-warming this upcoming friday. Adios!

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