Stanford

Well after my massive bout of driving on Friday, I was left with a very short 19 mile drive from San Jose to Stanford. This concluded my 3973.9 miles of driving across the country. For those who are wondering, I averaged 39.42 miles per gallon, which considering the fact that my car was fully loaded and I drove over two mountain ranges, I think is pretty good.

When I arrived back it Stanford it was almost surreal driving through a place that I had been thinking about for the past few months. I checked in and received the keys to my apartment. My apartment is on the fifth floor of one of the couple of graduate student high rise buildings. While this made it a little bit difficult unloading the car, it also makes for a very nice view.

You can see the Hoover tower there and when the sun isn't quite so bright you can also see the ridge that runs on the far western edge of Stanford's campus. Despite the fact that room is smaller than my last apartment, the fact that I have such a nice view it makes it feel much more spacious.

When I arrived my roomate had already moved in, but wasn't in the apartment. He eventually came back and I learned that his name is Vincent. He's french and attended the University de Polytechnique in Paris. He couldn't bring much stuff on the plan and today we spent some time in Walmart and Radio Shack getting him some stuff including a new cell phone. He seems very nice and plans on being here for about two years doing a master's degree in materials science.

In the meantime in the little bit of time that I have been here. I've already driven up to San Francisco and run 10 miles with Kamil in Golden Gate park and along the ocean front trail. We also had breakfast in a small cafe near Kamil's apartment. I've also been out to have dinner with Andrew (from Berkeley), Kshipra (from Stanford), and Albert at a small Italian place in Mountain View. Apparently the Duke network is still alive and well. Although I'm also looking forward to building a Stanford one as well.

As for the apartment, her e a couple of shots of my desk and my bed. It's not much, but its comfortable and I can't wait to get working on stuff.

Well I hope you have all enjoyed reading about my trip. It's been awesome and I can only hope that the adventure that I have here at Stanford will be able to match it. I know at times I have been prone to rambling, but I think that most of the trains of thought have been at least a little coherent. I think I'll try and post something to this blog whenever I do something fun or experience something cool at Stanford so check back every now and then. Thanks for reading and I hope you all enjoyed the journey. California, here I am.