The other day… actually a few weeks ago now.. I went to Phoenix in Arizona for a meeting. Don’t think I’ve ever flown anywhere and back in a day before. Anyway it’s sort of in the middle of the desert and even hotter than San Jose. There didn’t really seem to be much to see or do though.
I took some pictures of the town out of the plane window… There was another plane flying sortof next to us - you can see if you look closely.
OK so I’ve been proper shit at updating this so far. But I’ve been busy. I’ll try to put a load up in the next few days to catch up from my last post… at least what I can remember anyway. This one is about moving in!
I had been staying in a hotel since I got here because the apartment I wanted wasn’t immediately available. I had put a deposit down and booked the day off work when I would be moving in so I’d have a chance to sort the lease and move all my stuff etc.
The first good news was that I managed to pack all my things and fit my 3 cases and guitar into my car. So I checked out of the hotel and went to the apartment place to sign the lease, pay them and get my keys etc. My first mistake is that I hadn’t signed up for gas and electricity which apparently I was meant to have done beforehand.. so I did this over the phone while they waited. So then I signed all the lease stuff and they were like ok all done just give us the check (cheque) and you can have your keys. What I didn’t realise is that they wouldn’t take one of my ‘personal’ cheques that I got from the US bank I opened an account with.. it needed to be a casheirs check which you could only obtain by giving the amount in cash to your bank.
Seeing as what I had to pay was like 2 months rent I thought hmm how the hell am I gonna get that much cash today. I went to the nearest cashpoint I could find and withdrew the max I could from various cards I have… this only came to about half of what I needed though. I rang the apartment place and they were like theres no way you get the keys without the full amount. So I started to look at my car and work out how far the seat would go back with all the stuff in there and where the safest place might be to park it for the night…
In the end I managed to get hold of someone I work with who also had the day off, and they said they would try and withdraw the cash. Luckily they could and so I could go and get my cashiers cheque and keys to my new place. Unfortunately all this had ended up taking most of the day and my new apartment was completely bare - I had been planning to use the rest of the day to get hold of some furniture.
I was also very tired as I hadn’t slept much the last few nights mainly due to work. But anyway I really wanted to get things sorted so I started making some calls and found a place I could hire a truck.. I could then drive this to IKEA (about 30 miles away) which was open late.. and get some cheap stuff like a bed, desk, chair, sheets etc. I was shitting myself when I got in this truck it was huge like driving a bus or something. You have to do U-turns here quite alot but with this thing you had to do a 5 point turn in the middle of a load of traffic.
Anyway after about 3 hours in IKEA I got most of the stuff I wanted and got it back to my apartment, unloaded it all.. and drove the truck back (which I had to refill with petrol) to get my car. By this time it was about midnight and I was fucking knackered.
The apartment is really cool though - I’ll put pictures up etc. in another post. For now here are some pictures of the hotel room I was staying in for about a month, and also some I took on a later trip to IKEA…
Work has been crazy this week.. must have done more than 80 hours.. not sure how many of them I’d consider ‘productive’ hours though! I do think you can get used to sleeping less.. and it sort of makes your life longer if you think about it. The weather has picked up aswell.. I thought it was getting cooler but the last few days have been scorching.
On Friday we had a ‘department outing’ which was pretty nice. It was at a winery up in the mountains. One of the cool things about California is that there’s so many different things within a few hours drive… beaches, skiing, mountains, forest, desert… (yes come and visit) Anyway this winery was only about half an hour drive away but was up all these steep windey roads and it was wicked driving them in the Mustang in the sun with the top down… great views.
I got there late because some work stuff came up in the morning but was in time for free bbq lunch. And then I won 2 cinema tickets in the raffle - haven’t been to the cinema in ages and never in US.. will save these for the Borat movie I think.. can’t wait for it! On the way back I look in my rear view mirror and see this big cop car with lights flashing right behind me… I was about to step on the gas.. I was thinking I could definately outrun him with the horsepower I had… then I thought wait a minute I can’t have done that much wrong.. so I pulled over. It felt just like in the movies.. espec as im in this flash car.. anyway this fat cop gets out and walks up to my car. So i put on the accent.. ”what appears to be the problem officer?”.. he asks for my licence and insurance docs etc. I explain that I’m from the UK and don’t have a California licence yet whilst I start to look for my UK licence.. “and what do stop signs look like in the UK” he says. Hmm I didn’t even realise id gone through one.. Anyway I got away without getting shot.. I had to drive at the speed limit most of the way back because he was right behind me.
On saturday I took back the Mustang 
I swapped it for a new Audi A4… its not a convertible but it’s pretty nippy and has leather seats and quite alot of gadgets. It’ll have to do I guess!!! Have included a picture.
It’s now after 3am my time so I’m gonna go to sleep. Saved by the bell has just come on TV though.. so weird must have been like 10 or something when I last watched that. Actually that screech guy from it was in the news the other week because some sex tape of him and two girls got out on the internet.. pretty funny.
I’ve been here over 3 weeks now. Seeing as I’ve only just set this thing up I’m going to write about some things I’ve already done.
One of the first things I did when I had some spare time at the weekend was buy a new guitar… I sold the one I bought a few months ago to John before I left to come here. If I don’t make any friends this means I’ll have something to do in the evenings - I’ve already been playing it a bit in my hotel room. The other night I was playing and I think the person in the room next door must have been some sort of drummer. They started banging on the wall along to the tune I was playing. We had a proper late night jam session.
Changing the subject… every so often you come across a website that you can’t believe you never knew about before.
One of the things I still can’t get over is how big all of the cars are here. The average family car would be the equivalent of some sort of monster lorry truck thing in England or most of Europe I suppose. The roads are also bigger in proportion so that all the car/truck things will fit on them.
But what I find strange is that whilst they have these big vehicles with big engines and massive roads with 4 lanes as standard, everyone drives really slowly. The speed limit on the motorways is 65 and most people actually stick to this or even drive slower. It might be something to do with the police being alot stricter on it than they are in England.. they actually hide to try and catch people with radar guns rather than putting up big signs warning people to slow down temporarily because there is a speed camera coming up.
So it’s even more suprising that all Americans seem to drink and drive. And they find it funny that I’m suprised and think it’s bad. It’s like the equivalent of speeding for us - it’s not actually legal but everyone does it and if you get caught it’s not usually a big deal. People say that there isn’t any other option because theres very little public transport and everything is so spread out.. cabs would cost too much. So I guess the only option is to take it in turns to be the driver.. I’ve actually met a lot of foreign placement students at IBM (which they call ‘co-ops’.. like the supermarkets.. pretty dumb) from places like Germany and New Zeland.. and at least they don’t drink and drive.
Anyway seeing as the summer has pretty much finished now and there isn’t gonna be much more hot sun even here, I thought I’d make the most of it and the big roads and pay to upgrade my hire car to a convertible for a month. I’m driving a big black 2006 Mustang with a 4 litre engine(see pic) and it kicks ass… especially in the sun with all the mountains around, music on loud, with 3 hot chicks in the back. Ok I made up the chicks but still a week til I have it back so will try and fit them in at some point…
Oh last night I found out something I didn’t know before.. the word ‘whilst’ isn’t part of the American vocabulary. None of them have heard of it or actually know what it means. Thats almost as stupid as saying math instead of maths..
I’m not really sure about this whole blogging thing. Most of them I read seem to be written with this sort of sense of superiority.. like ooh look I did this or I know all about this and I’m going to tell you why it’s so great. Or I’d like to show you I’m really clever and have this really insightful view of something or other.
Not that there’s anything wrong with that, it’s just the self-publicity aspect personally puts me off them a bit. So why the hell am I doing one then? I’m a hypocrite thats why.
Well actually there are some other reasons too:
Saying that, I probably won’t be arsed to post any more
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