Colin in California

The idea of this blog is to talk about my time in California. So, I’ll start with moving in. Now, you might say that I have been here for a month, so that this post is overdue. And you would be right. But, well, I’ve had a lot to do…

I have a house. This was one of the first things I found. Here it is…

I’m very happy with this place. There is a strong argument that it is the nicest place I have lived. And it has a garden, my very own back garden!!!! This is not a common thing in Mountain View, where there are a lot of apartment blocks. And it isn’t in an an apartment block (its at the bottom of my landlord’s garden), so there is no-one else’s music, alarm clock, screaming children, other screaming etc.

Now, the standard thing in the US is for rentals to come unfurnished, so I had to find some things to put in it. For the whole house hunting process, I had a hire car, the cheapest car that I could get (obviously). This would have not been a problem, was it not for the heinously impractical shape of the car.
 

Nonetheless, with a weekend of driving around charity shops, yardsales and ikea, I almost filled the house for less than $400 (more than half of that was a mattress from ikea). Almost means I don’t have a table or dining chairs yet, details though. Anyway, it was a challenge. 

I also brought a car (no photo yet -its a 2001 Saturn SW2 if you are that interested). That required some work dealing with used car salesmen, garages etc. But I think it is okay! And a California driving licence, which required four trips to the Dept. of Motor Vehicles, hours standing in line, a written test, and a driving test (yesterday). 

And my second major achievement yesterday: getting internet working at home. Mountain View has free public wireless provided by Google. Unfortunately, my house seemed to be in a bit of a blackspot; even outside in the back yard I couldn’t pick it up. But then I found that with a newer laptop (my work macbook) I could get a weak signal in the back yard… so now I have a wifi modem, designed for indoor use, which I stand on a fence post behind the house, plug in to an outdoor socket, and a long ethernet cable and have workable internet access. I’m proud of this.