My Winter Trip 2017:

Tourist in Silicon Valley & around

Kristi Rohtsalu © February 2017

“You are on holiday… in Mountain View? Why?”

The guy who had just agitated me to join a local movement,

seemed astonished. As if nobody came to Silicon Valley for

holidays…

“Because I like here and nearby – and because I

find the place inspirational.”

For me, travelling has two complementary dimensions:

a) External journey: changing environments physically

b) Internal journey: withdrawing from daily hassles to look at

things from perspective

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Landing in San Francisco International Airport

(Ok, my plane landed late in the night and I stayed there in the airport over night.)

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San Francisco for a “normal” tourist on a cloudy dayThis view inspires songs like

"San Francisco (Be Sure to Wear Flowers in Your Hair)"

Pier 39 Famous California sea lions on Pier 39

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San Francisco for a “normal” tourist on a sunny dayIn Golden Gate Park

University of San Fransisco Market, the end of Market Street

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AT&T Park

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San Francisco for a FinTech tourist

SF Big Analytics Meetup (11 Jan 2017) SF FinTech Meetup (17 Jan 2017)

Lunch in Eatsa, an automatic restaurantOffices of Lending Club, the U.S. largest online credit marketplace

San Francisco: Pics of local lifeLifestyle of choice? Hard to believe but may be… Life and work in Startup Basecamp – getting a not-so-representative

idea during a Friday Happy Hour meet-up

Protests against big companies like BlackRock and New Balance Pete’s Tavern: Just charging my laptop downstairs

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Passing by and sleeping overMegabus from San Francisco to Los Angeles Hotel North Beach

Caltrain from San Francisco down to the Valley Tour bus to Yosemite

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Two days in Los Angeles

Walking through the LA Financial District

Chris Burden, Urban Light (2008) at the Wilshire Boulevard entrance to the Los Angeles County Museum of Art

The Grove

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“Home” in Emerald Hills near Redwood CityClimbing Emerald Hills: the last ascent

A view to the Redwood City in the night time

I found this place via Airbnb.com for very reasonable price.

Enjoyed walking in the neighborhoods

Going to Sand Hill Rd Starbucks

My name in US English – or so they wrote it in StarbucksNormal picture on a Sunday afternoon

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On the way Here it is!

Looking around in Stanford University

The study room seemed well equipped.Students in action?

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A sidewalkStanford as-you-know-it from the pics

Residential areas for wealthy peopleAtherton Station: only during weekends Just a residence on Atherton Ave, Atherton (between Redwood City

and Menlo Park)

Just a residence on Sand Hill Rd, Menlo Park Just a residence on Middlefield Rd, Mountain View

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Sniffing around in Google’s placesFrom a Google bike on the road, one can “smell” closeness of

GoogleplexMany white cars in the parking lot, means many ambitious people

working there

Not-so-often pictured Executive Briefing Center

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One of the buildings in Googleplex: there is The Garage, a community of hackers, makers and designers

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Santa Clara

Driving thru Silicon Valley 2017 Hiring Event to see what it looks like Costco Wholesale

A street view; I think it was Monroe St near Lawrence Station In Intel museum: Golden words from the founder of Intel

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Meeting up: SVE Demo Night on January 25th

Introduction to Silicon Valley Entrepreneurs (SVE), one of the largest grass root movements of founders and developers in the Bay Area

Panelists (VCs) introduce themselves

8 company demos; here is one of them Audience

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In front of one of those famous garages, the HP garage

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Side trip to Yosemite National ParkGoing with the Extranomical Tours

The bus and our driver-philosopher-babysitterA job in Yosemite: watch for “stupid tourists” trying to enter temporarily

closed trails

Famous El Capitan Another beautiful view

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Side trip to Yosemite National Park: The Inspiration Point

My new “home” in Mountain View“The key is hanging on the wall”: I liked full self-service

Living room

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I found this shared accommodation also from Airbnb.com for a fairly reasonable price

Neighborhoods

Trying out: Google’s self-driving car Waymo and TeslaWaymo: Sitting in a car without the wheel feels a bit… unusual Waymo: A number of those were driving on the streets

Tesla, Model X; According to the description: the safest, fastest and most capable sport utility vehicle in historyI’m in no position to comment on this, but it felt great. Elegant car in any case!

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4h in Computer History Museum. Geek appeal: *****Tried to understand how slider, Napier’s bones and abacus work(ed)

Browsed through 20 collections from calculators to computers to supercomputers and robots

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Visiting NASA's Ames Visitor CenterThis seemed the only building accessible for visitors

Inside a spaceship: A staff member encouraging an interested student to apply for an internship at NASA Ames

For someone from the street… looks like a strange thing

Some food for astronauts

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Sunday coffee. Appeal for workaholics: *****

That’s now a big Starbucks in Redwood City, inviting everyone to join Coffee Workshops

Inside Red Rock Coffee, second floorA typical picture, no matter the day

Inside Red Rock CoffeeRed Rock Coffee, arguably one of the best places to spot VCs

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Modern day “pilgrim walk”: Apple’s placesOriginal Apple Garage, now just like any other garage in front of which is a red warning: “NO TRESSPASSING. Security Cameras Are Filming.”

Apple Headquarters, 1 Infinite Loop

Apple Campus II: In construction Apple Store in Palo Alto: very active salesmen there

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Sunnyvale & some old memories

My memories: In this hotel we stopped during the Enterprise Estonia Field Trip in October 2012

Pieces of local history

I had been here before…

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Silicon Valley NewTech Meet-up on February 7th

Four company demos, incl:“Hi, Mycroft! Who made you?” – Cool!

The judges, that is audience: hungry for pizza and for new information

The evening started out with pizza and beer. A quick intro to the meet-up and the format of the evening

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Books, books, books…Mountain View Public Library

I messed up with the busses and arrived to the Write To Influence!Meet-up just when it was about to end.

What’s on display?“Data Science”, “The Agile Consultant”, “Leading Creative Teams”, …

DigitalGuru Technical Bookshop; arguably, they have a wider technical selection than any bookstore chain

Inside DigitalGuru

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Pics from the street: Last but not least

An armchair to give away Some are working out after work

I wondered why this window in the wall… That’s what a local dinosaur thinks of walls…

End of holidays.

Welcome (back) to ESTONIA, the Silicon Valley of Europe!