Stanford U

It's been a while since the last post, but fear not, I'm still here! It's been a hectic few of weeks with job interviews and holiday shopping, and soon Ryan and I will be taking off for Florida and then Connecticut to celebrate Christmas with our families.  On Wednesday this week I took a  leisurely bike ride around the Stanford University campus in Palo Alto, just to enjoy the sunny day and relax a bit before going to the mall next door for some shopping.

Here are some pictures from the Main Quad area.  Something about this place brings back nostalgia from Spain...

 

Memorial church

 Went a little crazy with the filter here - looks like a drawing but i promise it's a real picture!

 An orange tree!

 Hoover tower

And here's one of the engineering buildings, with a much more modern look and feel.

Across from the engineering buildings (with names like "Hewelett" and "Packard") is the William Gates computer science building.  

I went inside to explore a little bit and see what these geniuses are up to...

 what's in the fishbowl room?

 I love this.  In the announcements area there's a sign indicating "B" is for Basement (so people know what button to press on the elevators).  It appears some students added their own insights here, such as "A is for Algorithm"  and "C is for Cookie".... :)

 Oh, and you know, the 2012 Nobel Prize winner in economics will be the guest lunch speaker, before the "Designing Life" lecture.

Some artifacts in the historical exhibit.

After leaving the computer science building I biked around campus a bit more, and came across a totem pole:

And last but not least, I stopped by the Rodin sculpture garden on my way out.

 So all in all, I give this campus a 10 out of 10.  I suppose getting to enjoy campus without the stresses of studying for finals adds to the overall positive vibes.  But seriously, WOW.

On another note, Ryan and I have been enjoying some of the finer things in life, like Silicon Valley "Ones and Zeroes" wine...

Oh, and last night we had a pretty funny experience.  We took an Uber home from the company holiday dinner party at Ryan's boss's house, and the driver asked us where we were from.  Upon learning we'd just moved from the Netherlands, the driver explained how he knew the Dutch language himself after living in South Africa and learning Afrikaans for several years.  Turns out he himself founded a startup in the healthcare industry in New York several years back, and he and Ryan talked startup talk for the duration of the ride.  Funny thing is, within five minutes of dropping us off at our apartment and saying goodbye, Ryan and I both had LinkedIn invitations from our Uber driver.  Only in Silicon Valley...
 
Before signing off, I just want to give a shout out to some of my all-time favorite American conveniences which I don't know how I survived without over the past five years.  Ladies and gentleman, may I present to you the laundry DRYER!!!  This machine is magnificent!  No more three hour dry cycles in a semi-functional washer/dryer "combo" machine.

 And for the other all-time favorite, especially for Ryan,  we have the jumbo American refrigerator with an automatic ICE MACHINE!!!    No more drippy ice trays or buying bags of ice from the local quickie-mart.  This thing just keeps on pumping out ice cubes like there's no tomorrow.

It's an ice machine miracle!!!!! :)