Rough Draft

From California

Now that I've been out here in Cupertino for 10 days it's about time I update this thing. I arrived at the San Jose Airport at 9:45 on July 8th with my mom and grandmother. They stayed out here for a week to help me get some stuff done and so we could do some sightseeing. The first few days here were pretty long since most of the time was spent driving around and making appointments for such things as getting a bank account, looking at cars, getting car insurance, etc.

As far as sightseeing stuff, we went to the Winchester Mystery House on Sunday. The estate is absolutely huge, we walked approximately a mile inside the house without visiting the same room twice. As huge as the place is, you feel incredibly cramped inside. Mrs. Winchester was only 4' 10", so most of the ceilings are really low and the staircases are really narrow.

On Tuesday we went up to San Francisco and spent a majority of the time at Pier 39. We also took a boat cruise that went by Alcatraz, and under the Golden Gate Bridge. We were also going to take a trolley tour of the city, but the last tour apparently leaves at 4, so we ended up missing that. So I definitely want to do that at some point and I want to take the tour inside Alcatraz.

After they left on Thursday I went to the DMV and got my CA driver's license. It wasn't too busy when I went, so I was there a little under an hour, but I still had to wait in no less than 4 lines. I was also really surprised when I found out their written test is done with paper and pencil and corrected manually. Pennsylvania has had computer exams since at least 1996 when I took my test.

So far I've really enjoyed being out here. The weather is perfect, as expected. Hopefully my furniture and stuff from PA will be delivered later today or tomorrow evening and then I'll be pretty well setup out here.