The Bay Area was something I had to get used to. Coming from the bipolar climates of the MidWest and the East Coast, I am accustomed to heavy heat and humidity as part of the summer, with thunderstorms and rainy days.
Compare that to the first day walking to the bus stop – the sky was a cloudless, perfect blue, and there were palm trees and gentle sunlight and a nice breeze. It was the perfect temperature, and it was dry. None of my clothes were sticking to me yet.
Take that day and duplicate it about 80 times, and you have the weather I experienced over the summer. It was pretty disconcerting – I felt like I was living in some kind of simulated world, because all the days looked alike with very little variation. Being in the Valley felt like being in a faraway island – the outside world seemed like a dream half the time. The only thing that felt real was the drought. (As they say, brown is the new green.)
In terms of tourist attractions, over the course of the summer I visited the SF Exploratorium, Union Square, First Amendment (graffiti place in SF), Santa Clara (paintballing) SF Chinatown, a beach in Santa Cruz, Berkeley, Sausalito, Oakland (intern event), downtown Mountain View (food), Mountain View (kayaking), the Dish Trail near Stanford, Milpitas (karoke), Menlo Park (Facebook intern event), Los Altos (Box visit), Yosemite, Sacramento (skydiving), Anaheim (Disneyland), and LA (Siggraph). I also went to In-N-Out Burger for the first time, and to a local mall for the Inside-Out premiere. I also might have gone to about 5 different bubble tea places.
It was definitely a lot of stuff that I ended up doing, and a lot of good experiences. I met a lot of interns from Box, LinkedIn, Facebook, Google, and Apple, many of whom were awesome, and a good chunk that also hailed from Cornell.
I’m unsure about whether or not I could live in the Bay Area for a longer period of time, but I gotta say, it makes for a fantastic place to intern.
Adventures 