Day 14 - Silicon Valley (1)

Since the disaster hostel is located south of San Francisco, I decide to first go to Silicon Valley for two days and then stay overnight in SF directly. (Silicon Valley is located between San Francisco and San Jose, much closer to San Jose).

So it's about a 30-minute drive on the highway to the Googleplex (that's what the campus you can visit is called.)

The drive feels a bit like the drive to work, you drive on the highway through rural and industrial areas.

Arriving at the Google campus, you can buy t-shirts and coffee mugs at a shop.

Grab one of the bikes and explore the grounds, go inside and ask. You're allowed to walk around, but not go inside the buildings, unless you know someone who works there.

Elsewhere, the original campus can be visited, there is a volleyball court, dinosaurs, and the colors of Lego are proudly represented (to save money, the first google servers were disguised with Lego).

I watch the people and believe I can assess their work mode based on their movements: a combination of relaxation, creativity, but also efficiency and hard goal orientation. The volleyball court is empty.

Finally, I dare to approach two employees there and learn the name of a role that would suit me - let's see, maybe it will work out ;)

Then I have to digest the excitement first and eat what feels like the 10th hamburger, but they're really delicious here. Only real with cola, otherwise you can't digest the calorie bomb. I easily burn off the amount of food here by walking long distances and the "adventure stress".

Next stop: Apple. Don't be disappointed, at the Infinity Loop there is an Apple Store, nothing more, nothing less. You can buy special apple shirts for $40, I'll pass. Another Apple Store is about 10 minutes away by car. Apple encourages its customers to buy its products and how to use them.

Last stop: Intel museum. More interesting than it seems at first glance. In addition to historical items (I feel like a little kid and know all the stuff), Intel is also involved in IoT.

All in all: the journey was interesting and what you see next to it: many tech companies. Other big tech companies are also in the neighborhood, but cannot be visited (ebay, netflix, yahoo)

The name Silicon Valley is not without reason: a huge industrial suburb conglomerate. It consists of office buildings, houses, streets, and highways. (The areas take up a lot of space due to maximum 2-4 storey construction and no underground parking). You can also imagine it as the Ruhr area of its time, but instead of coal and steel, it has been high-tech and IT of all kinds there for 20-40 years.