Anyway, I think I'm pretty much sorted for Christmas now, apart from a few things I need to sort out back in England. The stuff for kids over here is amazing. I could have got SO much! For starters, there's an entire Hello Kitty store! Got myself a couple of bits and pieces too. It was rude not to!
The weather was really hot again. In daylight the Christmas tree in Union Square just looked a bit weird!
Even Santa looked wrong....
Spent pretty much the whole day shopping. Had a big burrito from Chipotle for lunch, but it didn't really help my stomach problems much. As the day progressed, the shopping area got busier and busier and the queues got longer and longer. Worst offender of the day was Old Navy, where I had to wait over half an hour, as there were problems with the tills on top of the piles of Xmas shoppers. The woman tried to tell me that the internet was down, which is why they couldn't authorise cards. I didn't like to argue, but I don't think that was the case.
Just to prove I was in San Fran, here's a photo of a couple of trams
Headed out to get a taxi, only there weren't any. It was Saturday night and all the Xmas shoppers wanted to go home. The queues at the ranks were ridiculous, and there were no cabs. Balls. Finally found one dropping someone off, but he didn't know where the venue I wanted to go to was. Even though I had the address. Can't even begin to tell you how pissed off he made me! Eventually found another one, who knew exactly where I was going - here -
It was some ridiculous Design Centre - off the scale swanky! And, it turns out, there was a whole theme to the evening. As I'd not been working when the invites had gone out, I had no idea about any of this. All I had been told, when my boss gave me a wristband on Friday, was that it was the works Xmas party. Turns out it was a masquerade. So, it was all a bit "Eyes Wide Shut" with loads of people in masks and really smart dresses. And not wearing Converse. In retrospect, it's probably for the best that I didn't know it was fancy dress, as it would have just led to yet another spectacular fail on the costume front.
Anyway, Google certainly know how to throw a party. The place was amazing. There were acrobats hanging from the ceiling, stiltwalkers, carnival girls and drummers, a jazz band, and 80's cover band, photo booths, make your flicker book, and all spread over 4 floors, each with a different theme, and with different foods from around the world.
Here's what greeted me when i walked in
And here are some nerds dancing to the covers band
Who knew there were so many people working in the Android and Sys Ad teams. Especially as I only knew about 20 people there. And I thought I knew most of the Android team now. Mental. Despite the free bar I'm still not drinking. Probably for the best, as I'd have only done something I'd regret. As it was, I still managed to offend my boss's boss's wife. Oops. She had heard I came from Guernsey and wanted to talk to me about this fuck awful book "The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society". Basically it's set on Guernsey during the occupation, but it was written by an American woman who spent two hours fogbound at Guernsey airport, and then went on to write this book about people whose lives she didn't have a fucking clue about, set in a place she really hadn't visited. As such, it's an utter pile of shit. None of the people in it even have Guernsey names. And it makes Islanders look like either extras from To The Manor Born, or straw chewing retards (take your pick which category I fall into). Anyway, it's shit. Obviously she absolutely LOVED it. I should have just pathetically agreed with her, but I couldn't. I think she was expecting me to tell here that was exactly how it was during the war. Oh well. Luckily my boss witnessed it all, thought it was hilarious, and backed me up to the hilt for my reasoned argument. So I live to Google another day. Phew.
After that I bonded with my team by licking the ice scuplture. Sadly none of us could get our tongues to stick to it -
And then we tried to see how many of us we could fit into the photo booth at once to take a team photo. We managed to unplug the photo booth in so doing. Oops. Anyway, when the covers band decided to try and murder Salt n Pepa's "Push It", I decided it was time to leave. Headed back to my hotel happy after a fun night out. Good times.
Got up again this morning for a final hour of shopping. Sorted everything out before my car arrived to bring me back to Mountain View - decided it was easier than taking the train, as I had an unmanageable number of shopping bags! The cab turned out to be a stretch limo. Brilliant! I'd just gone for the cheapest quote I could get on-line. Turns out using your Google email address has its perks in this town! I have a photo of the inside of it, as well as the dog butler at the hotel (always a sign of a quality establishment), but for some reason the image uploader on here has suddenly stopped working. So you'll just have to imagine me with my piles of shopping sat in a massive limo, complete with bar down one side, and blue LED light flecked ceiling, cruising out of San Fran and back to Mountain View. I did feel a bit of a twat.
Anyway, back in my apartment now. Have spent my time since I got back eating pizza, detagging presents, and tidying about half of them away into my case. Will do the rest over the week, then work out if I'm going to need a third bag on the way back. Got a load of tech from work to bring back as well, plus a big cuddly Android doll and all manner of Noogler stuff. Too much!
Right, I need to get some sleep, as it's back to work tomorrow, so I shall love and leave you. You'll have to wait for the photo of the dog butler!
Noogler out xxx
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