I should really get going on this blog stuff, because I’m way behind right now… I suppose this post will start where the last one left off and go until Sunday night.

Friday night after we arrived at Lee and Liz’s house, Dad and I were both pretty tired. Not only had we barely slept over the last two days, but we’d also gone through three time zones, so it felt like it was three hours later than everyone else thought it was. So, pretty much the first thing we did was sit down on the couch. There wasn’t much room, though, because their floors are being redone, so all the furniture was in one room. This didn’t stop their dogs from coming over to jump on us, though. Molly is a one year old basset hound, Dusty is an old chiuaua, Peanut is a six month old chiuaua, and we didn’t see much of the two cats (Sam and Brollie) .

For dinner, we ate some reheated fried chicken from Popeye’s. They offered to go out to eat with us, but no one was really that hungry. After we visited and ate, Dad and I got showers (it felt really good to be clean again), then fell asleep. I had to sleep on an air mattress in the extra room, but believe me, I slept well that night..

When I woke up, it was about 5:30 or 6:00. Dad and Liz were already up. I understood Dad being up, but I felt bad for Liz, because she said she was just up to make us breakfast. Still, I was grateful when I smelled the food. Liz was cooking “Breakfast Fried Rice,” which is basically fried rice with every breakfast you can think of in it. Sausage, bacon, onions, garlic, hot dogs, eggs, and more. I can’t even remember everything. It smelled really good, and tasted even better. Matt and Lee woke up in time for everyone to eat together, which was nice.

After breakfast, though, Dad and I were pretty much ready to go. I was anxious to move in and see how the apartment turned out (it’s kind of nerve-racking trying to find an apartment without being able to look at any of them…). We packed up what little we had gotten out for the night, said goodbye, and headed off. I was a little surprised at how far my apartment ended up being from Vallejo. I didn’t realize that it would be close to an hour and a half trip - not that it was long comparatively, it was just surprising.

We arrived in Cupertino about 9:00 on Saturday morning. Matt agreed to move his car out of the one reserved parking spot so that we wouldn’t have to carry the luggage very far. The apartment is just off the on ramp to 280 East, so we didn’t end up driving through much of the city before we saw the apartment.

Matt and I definitely made a good choice with this place - I was very happy to discover that everything about the apartment has met or exceeded my expectations. The parking spot is covered (not that it ever rains here) and immediately behind the apartment. From there, we walk around the building into a grassy area with some sidewalks and rows of apartments on either side. Every building is two stories high, and all the apartment entrances are from the outside. This makes it a lot more inviting than if we had to go inside and walk down a hallway to the apartment. Our apartment is on the first floor.

On the inside, we have a fairly small kitchen, a living room, a space off the living room for the kitchen table, a shared bathroom, two bedrooms, and a balcony. One bedroom is about 30-40% larger than the other. By the time Dad and I arrived, all the furniture that we rented for the summer had been moved in. Again, this turned out as good as I could have hoped. Out of three furniture rental places, we chose the one that was half the price of either of the other two, so I was afraid we’d have something horrendous, but the couches and beds are really nice (especially the queen-sized beds; how I wish we had these at MIT), and the dressers and tables aren’t bad at all. The only thing I can complain about with regards to the apartment is the shower. It’s incredibly short. The shower head is only halfway up my arm, which means I practically have to bend over double to wash my hair. Yesterday morning I hit my head pretty hard getting out of the shower. Not a good way to start the day.

Anyway, Matt’s mom was going to stay here until Wednesday to help us move in and get settled, which was really nice. She’s very talkative, but in a good way (like Matt). They can tell stories all day, trying to outdo each other. After five days with the two of them, I feel like I know the whole family - Becky, Andy, and Mick included.

Most of the day Saturday was spent arranging stuff in the apartment, shopping for things that I couldn’t bring with me, and getting to know the area. Dad and I probably put another 30 miles on the car just in the Cupertino/Sunnyvale area driving in circles. However, I was really looking forward to Saturday night.

Chen lives in Seaside, CA (near Monterey), and she was at home the first week after school, but she had to fly back to Boston on Saturday night around 10:00. Luckily for me, Cupertino is on the way from her house to the airport, so we were able to get together for dinner on Saturday night. Chen recommended a good Chinese restaurant called House of Sichuan. Ordering there was pretty easy - we just got a family style meal for three people. I actually liked the food a lot. I was a little worried, because I know that Sichuan food is typically pretty spicy, but they also ended up having Hong Kong/Cantonese food which is more sweet. I enjoyed seeing Chen again, especially back in California. She seemed very relaxed and happy.

When we’d eaten all that we could eat, Dad got up to use the bathroom. Chen sneakily took this opportunity to snag the bill and pay it before I knew what was happening. I tried pretty hard to get her not to pay, but she insisted. The best I could do was make her promise to visit Ohio sometime, and I’d buy her dinner (Chen, if you’re reading this, I’m not going to forget!) . After dinner, Chen’s parents came to pick her up (they visited friends in the area while we ate). I only had a chance to shake their hands, but they seem like very nice people. Soon, Chen was back on her way, and Dad and I headed back to the apartment.

We both tried to get to sleep pretty soon, since we were still getting used to the time (and I think Dad was trying not to get used to the time). This meant that we were up at 5:30 again on Sunday morning, which is a perfect time to go out driving if you want to avoid the Sunday traffic… The streets were empty, so Dad and I drove down to San Jose on Steven’s Creek, then we went north to see Mission Santa Clara and drive West on El Camino Real. By now, we were both getting a little hungry, so we tried to find a restaurant that was open for breakfast. It’s tougher than it sounds, so we ended up at an “All-American” restaurant and bar with $8 breakfasts. They were good, though… I had a pecan waffle with bacon and eggs. The waffle was incredibly delicious and was so large that I could barely finish the eggs.

After breakfast, we drove around some more, up to Palo Alto and Stanford University, then back again. Our last stop before coming back was at a grocery store to finish getting stuff for the apartment. We were back by 10:00 and had already had a full day. From this time, we pretty much just sat around and talked with Matt and his mom, who were going into San Francisco for the day. At 1:00, we made sure Dad had everything in his suitcase, and I drove him to the San Jose airport. The San Jose airport is a lot closer to my apartment than San Francisco airport (10 vs. 40 minutes), plus it’s on the way to my next stop - Nicola’s house.

Nicola is spending this summer in Houston, but her home is in Milpitas, so I thought it would be fun to stop by her place and see her before she left. She invited me over for a cookout that her family was hosting Sunday afternoon. Since I just drove over after dropping Dad off, though, I was a little early. Nicola’s house is really nice, and it’s just about the last house in Milpitas before the hills/mountains start that surround Silicon Valley. In fact, we were able to walk about halfway up one of them and see the incredible view. You can see all the way to the mountains on the other side of the valley, which is probably 40-50 miles away. In between, you can see downtown San Jose, the highways, the bay, etc. It’s really great. I took a few pictures, but they aren’t online yet. Nicola is probably used to this, though, and must think I’m nuts.

Before her relatives came over, we decided to drive around a bit. She first took me to Fry’s, a giant electronics store/general hangout. I haven’t ever really seen anything like it before. It’s not like a Best Buy or CompUSA because it actually looks really nice on the inside. The shelves are wood, like an old-fashioned university library. The sales staff seems pretty knowledgeable, and they have just about everything you could ever want. I needed to buy a router anyway, so I just picked one up when we visited. Next, we drove to downtown San Jose to check it out; I saw the Tech Museum, the art museum, Nicola’s high school. It looks pretty good, but I guess they just built a new building. We also stopped to get some egg rolls and wontons at a little fast-food Asian place. I wish I could remember where it was or what it was called, because it was pretty tasty.

We saved the food for when we got back to her house, though. When we got there, we went into the back to eat. First thing I do is spill some sweet and sour sauce on my pants and a bit on her tablecloth. I felt really bad about this, but since it wasn’t too much, Nicola said it would be ok and after we wiped it up, we went back to eating. A few minutes later, the wind picked up, flipped my plate over, and dumped the whole container of sauce all over the tablecloth. What a klutz… Needless to say, after that we gave up and went back inside to play pool and ping-pong until the relatives came over.

Everyone in Nicola’s family is very friendly, but I didn’t talk to most of them that much. I did feel a little bad about this, because I thought maybe I was keeping Nicola from visiting with her relatives before she had to leave for Houston.

Finally, I went back to the apartment about 6:00 (I think). Matt and his mom were still out, so I had the place to myself for a while to relax. When they got back, his mom made broccoli-cheese soup and chicken. I only had a little because I was still full from eating with Nicola. By this time, I was getting pretty tired again, so I decided it wouldn’t be worth it to stay up, and I just went to bed, figuring that at least I wouldn’t be late to work…