Mountain View

I'm in California for work stuff. Life is great.

Whenever I get to the US, there's always this jolt of enthusiasm just as I arrive. The land of the free, the home of the brave? Oh well. But everything does feel so much larger, the weather is great, people seem more open. I met with a couple of friends who are doing a startup and they radiate energy and optimism. People seem young and fresh and adorable.

I also found that I love being infantilized. SpaceShipOne models? Dinosaurs? Bathing in colored plastic balls? Great food that will keep me from learning how to cook? Oh, get it ON.

In America, the consumer rules. There's apparently a TV ad in Switzerland where Migros, one of the local supermarket chains, shows off their wide selection of cheeses or some other thing. That's great, I think, but some of their smaller stores would snugly fit into the cereal section of a Safeway.

I wonder how long this jolt of enthusiasm will continue. After a few days, it's usually the tiny things that start annoying me: The fact that prices don't include sales tax or the weirdness of houses that are built of wood, not brick and concrete. And the huge distances. Mountain View really is too far from "the city". I'll let you know if the enthusiasm degrades.