3 July 2017. Natalie’s home is basically a stone’s throw away from Silicon Valley, the southern part of the Bay Area. It was the second day she was going to spoil me because she had rescheduled the nail appointment she had on the Saturday so that we could go together. I had no idea where the nail appointment was until we left home.
Palo Alto is about a 30 minute drive south of Natalie’s house and we cruised through the towns of Millbrae and Burlingame, the latter being where Natalie takes her pilates classes. Burlingame is a very well established area with an abundance of mansions. It’s like one of those classic residential areas you see in movies with colonial-style houses surrounded by giant, lush trees that provide shade for the entire width of the road. There’s only one particular area of Burlingame I remember vividly, but maybe it was because the sunshine filtering through the leaves made it that much more beautiful.
We had a midday appointment so there was still some time to kill. We made a quick stop at Starbucks to get a turkey bacon and egg muffin and coffee which Natalie had ordered from the Starbucks app. As far as I know, we don’t get turkey bacon in SA, so it was great.
Warm breakfast in hand, we headed to Palo Alto. Natalie was pretty peeved that her car was so filthy after some sticky brown goo had been dropped on it (and every other surface in the neighbourhood) the night before I had arrived, so we went straight to the car wash in Palo Alto – Lozano’s if I’m not mistaken. Apparently it was one of the best car washes in the area. We must have been there for about an hour, slowly sipping our coffee.
We finished just in time for the nail appointment, and when we got there we were the only customers besides two other women who appeared to be nearing the end of their treatments. The parlour itself reminded me of Legally Blonde for some reason, though it looked nothing like it. Natalie had both a manicure and pedicure done while sitting in one of those big brown leather recliners, while I opted for getting my eyebrows fixed in place of a pedicure, after getting a gel manicure. I was scared to ask how much it cost, because this was Silicon Valley after all. I didn’t realise it was only the start of being spoiled by Natalie.
We had nothing but free time after our appointment, so we headed to 1 Hacker Way, Facebook’s headquarters. We planned on having lunch there one of the days, but since it hadn’t been confirmed yet, we just went to see the big Like button – there was actually a queue for it which we couldn’t get over. Luckily it was moving fast, and we asked the girl who had just had her photo taken to take ours.
That evening we had plans to meet Alfredo’s friend Kris, someone who Natalie wanted to introduce me to for potential job opportunities. I wasn’t sure what to expect, but it was exciting nonetheless. We went to Dirty Habit, a bar situated in downtown San Francisco inside Hotel Zelos. Dirty Habit had a very mellow ambiance: dim lighting, slow lounge music, and not that many people which I found surprising. The menu wasn’t that extensive and we quickly realised that not only was it too expensive to eat there, but it was also unnecessarily fancy. After all, we weren’t that hungry.
It wasn’t long before Kris showed up and we all just got drinks (which was anywhere between $10-20 depending on whether you wanted half or full glass of wine) while chatting and figuring out what to do from there. Kris suggested The View, which was literally across the road from where we were. Since I had only seen a small part of the city the previous day, he thought The View would be the perfect way to see a whole lot at once, since it was on the 39th floor of the Marriot Hotel and had a 360° view of the city.
Too bad as we got there, the fog rolled in and covered almost the entire city.
The View wasn’t really the place to get something to eat either, so we just enjoyed the general vibe which was pretty electric. It was definitely the sort of place I could see myself going to with friends after work or on a Saturday night. It was jam packed with people doing just that, and it reminded me of some places back home, though this was 1000 times cooler.
Now, normally I wouldn’t mention taking a bathroom break, but the one I had to take at The View was one I won’t forget. Why? Because my dear, insane friend Natalie was in the stall next to me. I knew she was crazy, but until she reached under the gap dividing our stalls to undo my shoelace and threw toilet paper at me, I didn’t realise just how crazy. It was the first (and hopefully the last) time I had to slap the hand of the person in the stall next to mine. Shouting “What the f*** are you doing?!” only made her roar with laughter. Mad woman!
We decided to call it a night after that cos we started to get hungry (it was around 10pm) and weren’t sure what would be open at that hour. After at least 30 minutes of going through the options, we ended up at the In-N-Out Burger drive-through. I had never been before so I relied on Natalie’s recommendation: the Animal Style burger, which was off the secret menu. Ah the joys of travelling with a local.
It was close to 11pm by the time we got home (8am South African time) and I was still jet lagged, so having a cheeseburger and fries at that hour was strange but oddly satisfying. The burger was really good – it basically has extra thousand island sauce and the patties are grilled with mustard, and there’s extra “pickles”, or as we prefer to call them in SA: gherkins. Natalie, being Natalie, had to take something like 30 photos of me taking my first bite (which I will not share here simply because it’s not a particularly flattering thing to post).
On the eve of Independence Day, I had nothing but more good things to look forward to.