California, here we come!

By Hand On The Hip - 8/10/2017

Hello everyone!

If you have read my earlier posts and know what I do for a living, you'd know that I recently visited the Tableau office in Palo Alto for a training. A lot of you have been requesting for this post ever since I set foot in the US of A and after a lot of procrastination, here I am, with my very first post about my very first trip to the United States of America. (Let me also warn you that this is going to be a very long post! :p)

The company that I work for sent me and a colleague of mine to Palo Alto for a Tableau training. Our joy knew no bounds when we found out we were flying to the States! The training lasted five days, but we insisted on going a couple of days early and extending our stay by a week. Although we burnt a big fat hole in our pockets, every penny spent was completely worth it! By now, you'd already know how crazy I am about travelling. I usually spend a day or two in a city and move on to the next one. My boyfriend doesn't really like my style of travelling, but I am crazy like that! :D

So on the 23rd of April, we boarded Dragon Air to Hong Kong and flew to San Francisco on Cathay Pacific from there. The airlines cost us around 80K return and the journey wasn't all that pleasant. We reached on Friday afternoon, took a cab to our hotel in Mountain View and chilled for a bit.



We then went to a nearest Mexican restaurant and had some delicious Mexican food for dinner with some beer. Now being a vegetarian, food is always one of my biggest concerns when it comes to travelling abroad. But this time I went well prepared. I took like 20 MTR Ready To Eat food packets with me and although I did not make much use of it, it was still a saving grace sometimes!



The following morning, we woke up early and boarded CalTrain to go to San Francisco. We were heavily jet-lagged, but how often does one get to see the USA, right? It took us about 2 hours or so to reach San Francisco.

 


 We spent a whole lot of time walking around Union Square and also witnessed the Science Protest as it was Earth Day. The best part of my trip to SF was heading to the Golden Gate Bridge. As a kid, I was big fan of Full House and always wondered what it would be like to see the Golden Gate Bridge. I had never imagined the bridge was that massive! Around 2000 m in length and 200 m in height, this bridge is a true beauty. We loitered around the Golden Gate park, took some pictures there. From there we headed to Land's End, froze a bit in the cold wind at the sea and ended the night at a nearby bar. I wore a tank top and a denim skirt I picked up from People with a really thin sweater, which I later realized was a HUGE mistake. Never underestimate the weather in SF! It's always cold!










The following morning I visited my aunt in Sunnyvale and had a chill time walking around, eating frozen yogurt and chilling. The greenery of the trees and the blue skies kept me amazed!







We spent the rest of the week in training. Not only was the training a life changing experience, but the amount of fun I had in Palo Alto was tremendous! Before I get into the details of what I did the next 5 days, let me show you what I wore on all 5 days of the training.

My jacket, jeans/leggings and white shoes were constants! :D

Day 1: Denim top from Lee Cooper


Day 2: Multi-colored print top from a store in BTM, Bangalore


Day 3: A sweater top from Shoppers Stop


Day 4: A tie and dye tee from Ralph Lauren


Day 5: A boho top from Koovs


The Tableau office was super chill. The pantry had lots of cool stuff to eat :D If you guys get a chance to visit any of the Tableau offices, do not let go of an opportunity like that!






We would finish training by 5-6 pm and not waste a single minute after. On the first day, we spent some time at this wine place called Calave. The food was spectacular and the wine was a delight.


 I also wanted to visit a local pub and drink what the locals drink. A friend of mine took me to Antonio's Nut House for a beer or two.




In between, I decided to pay H&M, Target and Walmart a visit and pick up a thing or two. You would have already seen that in my USA Shopping Haul post. But I'm still going to put up some pictures here.





On another day, Tableau took us to a Burmese restaurant called Burma Ruby. I was super excited to eat some Indian food after almost a week! I literally stuffed my face with samosas!




Since the Stanford campus was close by, we also drove to that place on one of the days and wished that we could study there at some point in our lives! Sigh!




And finally, on the last day we just had to go to the Facebook campus! Although, there was nothing much to see around the campus since we weren't permitted to enter the building, we got pictures taken in front of the "Like" banner outside.



The same evening we got back to our rooms and had to rush to the Oakland Airport for the next leg of our journey. Stay tuned! :)

Love,
Hand On The Hip 

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