Silicon Valley (South Bay Area)

lafors

Just wondering if anyone been out this direction before (anywhere between san francisco and santa clara/san jose). I've been here for 5 weeks and 5 more to go, and basically I'm bored out of my head. I can't find anything decent to do. Anyone been before who can recommend anthing to do? Any help appreciated

Tuesday_Girl

I feel for you, being out there for 10 weeks..... I go to San Jose about every 6 weeks, have been doing so for years, and at this point I have luckily made enough friends to spend most evenings hanging out with them. Then at the weekends I usually head to San Fran and do some shopping and partying, cos San Jose is not the place to be stuck over a weekend.

Are you there for work, do you have a car?

lafors

Yeah out here on training. I have a car alright. Have gone everywhere I had been told about. Now running out of ideas. And going out drinking is a pain cos of the lask of transport. I'll never complain about dublin again, even if you can't get a taxi I could walk home. If I do that here I arrive home 2 days later

Tuesday_Girl

Yeah, I hardly ever go out drinking there either. Even if you have a designated driver, the nightlife is pretty depressing so we normally have a few at dinner or at the hotel bar instead.

If you've been there for 5 weeks and have a car, you've probably done everything I would suggest....Alcatraz is cool to visit at night if you haven't been, Yosemite is good too but a fair old drive, Santa Cruz, Carmel and Monterey are not too far, you could catch a baseball game or check out any upcoming concerts in SF or in the Pavilion in San Jose.

In the evenings, I usually have dinner with the other out-of-towners, go to the cinema, shop, or go to the gym. That's about it really...... :rolleyes:

If I'm going to be out there in the next 5 weeks I'll let you know!

davros

Tons of stuff happens on the Stanford campus. No matter what your interests, there are free lectures by the top people in their field. Some examples:

The famous ee380 seminar:
http://www.stanford.edu/class/ee380/

The international technology management seminar was always a particularly good one because it was a great networking event, being attended by business people from around the valley:
http://asia.stanford.edu/events/fall05/index.htm
There used to be coffee and snacks afterwards, I presume that's still the case.

Inerested in business? Try the Entrepeneurial Thought Leaders seminar:
http://etl.stanford.edu/

There are also concerts:
http://livelyarts.stanford.edu/

If you are in any way a techie, then you know of Xerox Parc. Now just Parc, it has a free weekly forum:
http://www.parc.com/events/default.php

There are also local meetings of the IEEE, Audio Engineering Society, etc. It's not easy to find out what's going on but the San Jose Mercury News might give a few clues. Read the noticeboards in Stanford. Trawl the internet.

Silicon Valley is not a very nice place to live, IMHO, but there is nowhere better for intellectual stimulation. And if technology is your thing, you are in heaven.

soph

hi, i visit Palo Alto every few years since ive been little, have you been to the adventure park Great America?? it is fantastic place to go on the weekends, its more or less 6flags, brilliant, also take a trip down to santa cruaz, it has a fabulous board walk, and amusements. great beaches, and hot surfers !! (it was where the once ranked no.1 surfer seed first started out !!)
where else.... Raging waters is another top spot for during the day, think thats up north though! but fantastic spot.. its a water park.