Touring Silicon Valley

What does one do with a couple free days in the Bay Area? Sure, there are all the fantastic tourist attractions of San Francisco, the wonderful seafood and international cuisine, or the beaches and parks...

Na. Not our priority. Instead, we headed straight for Google. After all, we were visiting friends in the Silicon Valley.

Google was not difficult to find. You simply drive to Google Street and there is the red "You are here" icon from Google Maps. Nice touch.

The Google campus is huge, so the company provides Google-colored bicycles for employees to get around on. My first picture was of Adolfo with a Google bike. He didn't want to promote himself to Google employee, so he simply stood beside the bike.

We walked around buildings 41, 42, and 43. All entrances required employee badges, but I was just sure there was a visitor center somewhere. Doesn't everything have a visitor center? Finally, I stopped an employee to ask. He stood looking at me as if I were from Neptune. Finally, he answered, "This isn't Disneyland." I guess I have been on vacation too long.

So, although we were not allowed to enter the buildings, I was impressed with the campus. Google provides electric cars for employees to use as well as the bikes. They have a pool, restaurants, and a community garden.

But there is more. They have weird stuff. This pleased me. They have an on-site hair salon in a truck, a huge flamingo-eating dinosaur, and an electric bicycle that seats eight people.

Clearly the workers here have no lives outside of their jobs.