I spent a total of 2 and a bit days in San Jose, but I sure did do a lot and met a lot of interesting people. Here is a round up of my time in San Jose.
CouchSurfing – I spent my time in San Jose staying with Richard, whom I contacted through CouchSurfing.com – he had a nice apartment and a comfy couch for me to stay on, as well as some cool friends.
My first night in San Jose, I left Richards apartment to meet him downtown after he’d finished work and whilst I was wandering the streets I noticed a carnival and checked it out. It was pretty small, but I started chatting to some Carnival Guy…ack I can’t remember his name. Either way, he was typical of the kind of person I would imagine worked and traveled around on (in?) a carnival. He’d been doing it since he was 16 (I think 16…) and said he’d been doing it for 4 years (do the math).
After talking to the Carnival Guy, I continued on further into town and came across “Christmas in the Park” which is a tradition the city of San Jose puts on every year. It was there that I met the “Turn or Burn” Christian guys.
I met up with Richard soon after he finished work and we got some Mexican Food. I ended up eating a lot of Mexican food while I was in San Jose as well as San Francisco. After the Mexican we headed off to a bar to have a few drinks with Richards work friends. (Side note: San Jose was described to me as an alcoholic city, as the only thing really that there is to do in the city is to drink…that is it) It was at the bar that I “Broke the 2 Rules of Silicon Valley“. Richards friend were really cool, I had a great conversation with one about all kinds of things ranging from Australia politics and sport to American civil history. I also tried a Pumpkin Pie Martini it was…interesting, and surprisingly enough actually tasted like pumpkin!
The next day I headed off to discover more of SJ and headed to the University of San Jose. I was flipping through the university newspaper and found out that that very day they had this thing called “Bright Ideas”, which was an annual event where people showcased “Bright Ideas”. I headed off to the Student Union building to check it out.
On the way though I was ambushed by the Obama Guy that was asking everyone as they walked by “Do you support Obama”. I tried to have a conversation with him, but didn’t get very far because he kept asking people “Do you support Obama” as they walked past.
I walked away from him and entered the student union building, climbed the stairs and lined up to enter the room. I was giving a bunch of papers and some instructions about what I had to do with the red stickers. I was also complemented on my accent by some lady trying to get people to do MBAs at her college. Most of the ideas were pretty useless and not innovative at all.
I did however I start talking to one guy whose idea was to have like a little palm top computer thingy which had recipes and it would go in your kitchen. I asked him a million questions about his product most of which he couldn’t answer but he thanked me a lot and said that I’d helped him think things through a whole lot more. We started talking off topic and it turned out he was an immigrant from Yugoslavia and his wife was Persian. We talked about all kinds of things and he was one of very few Americans that I’d met at this point that picked up I was Australia from my accent (most others thought I was from England). He also knew that it was Kevin Rudd who’d won the election – yes we talked politics.
From the university I headed back to Richard’s place to get ready for the Relient K and Switchfoot concert. It was AWESOME!
After the concert I headed over to one of Richard’s work colleagues apartment where they were all hanging out and spent a couple of hours there. They were busy working so I watched TV with one of them.
On my last day I got lost trying to find the CalTrain station, but eventually found it and returned to San Francisco.
All in all my time in San Jose was heaps of fun and I really enjoyed hanging out with Richard and his friends. Relient K was the highlight of the concert, but Switchfoot also rocked hard!
Did you tell the Yugoslavian guy that your flatmate was his wife’s royalty?! I would have…
Surprisingly enough that slipped my mind…he did however give me his business card so I could shoot him an email if you like