Roadtrippin'
On Friday we had to leave Ben and Berkeley as Flo had to meet his boss in San Luis Obispo. As we were about to drive through the Silicon Valley, Ben arranged a lunch for us at Google with his former colleagues. What can I say? That is the best company I have ever seen in all its possible particular facets.
Inside Googleplex Why is that, you might ask. I think basically, it is because they treat their employees very, very good. And that is something they can actually do, as they only hire the best people on earth. And that again is possible because these "best people on earth" would only work for companies that treated them well. A vicious circle.
I think that is something that Google did very well, upscaling the company within just a few years and still keeping that great Startup spirit and still hiring only great people.
After we were shown around through the offices, we grabbed lunch at one of the many canteens on Googleplex. Let me tell you, that food you get there is not comparable to any other staff canteen. Fresh food, every day dozens of different dishes, international cuisines (Sushi, Italian, Chinese, Indian, Burgers, ...) and it really tastes just great. Whereever possible, they use organic food, they even have the It's It icecream company producing an organic version just for Google. Apart from the cafeterias, there are almost everywhere fridges where you get sodas, water, organic juices plus a lot of coffee bars where you can get yourself a coffee or espresso.
My guest badge Another impressive thing at Google is that the actual offices in total seem to be smaller than the "public" space like these coffee bars with the billards tables aside. That is to keep the people talking to each other, one of the things I personally think is a lacks greatly in some companies that I know very well.
Sadly, we couldn't stay forever and had to get back on track in order for Flo to be in time for his meeting. So we hit the road, took the 101 and drove to San Luis Obispo. As we were in kind of a hurry, we couldn't take the California States Route 1 that I enjoyed a lot last year when Lukas and I went to Santa Cruz. Still, it's really relaxing driving on US Highways/Freeways as everybody is almost at the same speed, you are allowed to pass others on the right lane and pretty much all cars have cruise control. The longest time I was not using one of the pedals was about 50 minutes.
So we arrived in SLO just in time and Flo just dropped me at his appartment and went to his meeting. At 5pm I took Flo's Mountain Bike and thought about getting to the beach, which is about 15 miles away from where Flo lives. Though the route looked quite hilly in Google maps, I thought 3 hours would be enough. But there is one thing I wasn't aware of: Darkness.
Morro Rock It was really sunny outside when I left and it was quite tough to climb that hills. I really enjoyed it although my clothes were wet from the sweat but the view on the top was worth all the efforts. I could see the Pacific and Morro Rock... ahh perfect.
I went downhill the other side, in order to get to the coast. While driving downhill, after just two turnings around a smaller hill the temperature dropped about 10 degrees Celsius. That was within about 10 seconds. Unbelivable. I was really glad I took a sweater and as it got darker, I decided to drive back. Good thing was, it got warmer again behind these hills. But the bad things were that it got darker and darker and at the point I flipped, I was almost at sea level again, so I had to go uphill about 1,700 ft (500 m) which took me again about 30-40 minutes.
Thanks for not shooting me Though that was my intention in the first place I wasn't aware of the darkness. Though it feels like summer here, it still is fall and the sun will go down a lot earlier than in summer. Anyway, I had a bad trip back, especially the downhill section back to SLO was really annoying as I could not see anything. I finally arrived unhurt back at Flo's appartment, took a shower and we went out to some bars downtown.
As you can imagine, we were drinking a lot and for quite a long time, nothing spectacular happend (or I would not write about it here) so I skip that part :-)