California Internship – Week 1

So its been a while. Hi! I’ve got lots of little documentation of my first week here in Mountain View, California.

The intro: I’m doing an internship with Mozilla this summer and will be living in Mountain View for 4 months – until Aug 29. So hopefully I will not only work hard and have an amazing summer of development but I will also get to see and experience a bunch of what California has to offer.

First experience: the Pacific Ocean.

Joey picked me up in a PT Cruiser convertible and took me down Route 1 to Santa Cruz. On the way we saw surfers and we stopped in at Swanton’s Berry Farm for a strawberry shortcake that was amazing.

Once we arrived in Santa Cruz we wandered around downtown with Maryasha. These caught my eye since I’m always a fan of fancy carving of fruits and vegetables.

We also tried to go to the “secret cookie” place which was sadly closed. It’s apparently really good, cheap cookies that only the locals know about. Don’t worry secret cookie place, I’ll come back!

Afterwards, we went to the Boardwalk and rode the Giant Dipper – a super old wooden roller coaster. The Boardwalk is featured in one of my favourite childhood movies – The Lost Boys.

I love the palm trees in California, it’s so L Word!

This first week was all about setting up my computer, and getting up to speed on what kind of work I’ll be doing this summer. Here’s a nice shot of my office (with my welcome gift) and my office mate – fellow intern Armen.

A funny aside – I’ve been referring to this summer as “My Own Private Gattaca (such an under-appreciated film) and this is what’s on a fellow co-worker’s cubicle…

And then, as I’ve been going on about – there’s the snacks. We are well provided for, there is often lunch brought in and the other night we had a Cinco de Mayo party with margueritas, beer, and of course we are also playing lots of Mario Kart on the Wii (not pictured). I’m going to be pretty good at MK by the time I come home. I love that it’s very similar to the Super Nintendo version that we used to play oh, about 15 years ago! Crazy.

Finally, saving the best for last – if you’ve gotten this far you are in for a little treat. There is a couple staying at the Oakwood Apartments where we live and they are moving here from Spain to work for Stanford. It just so happens that my pal Armen is from Spain and he befriended them and introduced me. They’re very nice folks and in their apartment they have the cutest cat I have ever seen. This cat is a little shy and wasn’t too good at posing for pictures so his owner broke out the catsnacks – watch the video:

Click to play

I want a smooshy faced cat!

/Dispatch