Silicon Valley (Google and Apple) and Stanford University

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On this day we toured the brains of California rather than the bold and the beautiful. First stop was Stanford University, one of the most prestigious and expensive universities in America. It costs $60,000 for a year's tuition but you can be sure of a top job on graduation. We went on a tour of the campus and got to see the students going to their last exams before the Christmas break. The university grounds were massive and very impressive: there was a art gallery with sculptures of Rodin and many famous artworks by the pop artists like Warhol and Lichtenstein and even a Rothko. The athletic grounds were enormous and as you can imagine, Stanford takes it's competition seriously. There were many libraries and even a church which the guide said was cross-denominational but judging by the huge mural of Jesus out the front and inside I'm guessing she meant it was cross-Christian denominations. After this we saw where the Stanford graduates go to work: Silicon Valley. First we checked out Google and rode around on the bikes (not sure if we were allowed but everyone had fun anyway). It looked like a kids playground but most of the people walking around just looked like they were normal city workers, deep in thought. The Google complex was blocks and blocks, a real little community.

Infinity Drive was next to see the Apple building which was a big round building but not much for us to really explore. Just cool to see it.

UC Berkely was another stop which is not as grand as Stanford but has a lot more students so seems more lively and less elitist. It also offers 1500 scholarships per year which is a pretty impressive statistic.

Of course most of the action happens up in San Fransisco these days. It is a bustling, lively and friendly city but more on that later.

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Photos

The Burghers of Calais_ Rodin
Stanford University

Googleplex
Tine on the Google bike