I finally made it to San Jose where I shall be living for the next few weeks while working at National Semiconductor.

It was a little hairy before I left, my visa application was delayed because of an issue with NSC having an incorrect e-mail address for me as well as a few other delays throughout the process. Eventually all of my paperwork was sorted out and my embassy appointment was booked leaving 5 working days before I was due to leave. According to the information that I found online it usually takes 3-5 days for the delivery so I wasn't too worried at this point but that wouldn't last long.

I had a J1 visa last year since I spent the summer as a camp counsellor in upstate New York so I knew that the DS 2019 online application was fairly long-winded and somewhat unreliable at times so I left myself an entire day to get it finished starting at around 10am.

I went through the application double checking everything but every time I confirmed all of my information I received an error on the final page informing me that I was applying for multiple visas and would be charged accordingly, obviously this wasn't right so the next few hours of my life were spent going back through the application over and over again, trying to figure out what I had done wrong as well as asking Claire, Katie and other interns whether they had come across the problem before.

Unfortunately nobody was able to help me and after a several infuriating hours of going over each part of the application, scrutinising each answer I decided to just submit it and deal with it at the embassy if it became a problem.

The next day I arrived at Grosvenor Square to be told that my application was perfectly fine and that the system had been displaying errors for no reason over the past few days . . . great.

Needless to say I was relieved, if a little annoyed that I had wasted so much time the previous day.

The lady at the courier desk confirmed that the usual 'turn around' time for people to receive their documents back as around 3-5 days so I was hopeful that by Monday (day 3), especially since I live fairly close to London, my visa/passport would be in my hand and I would be able to relax.

Monday came and went, as did Tuesday then on Wednesday morning I finally received word from the courier company that they would be delivering the documents on Thursday, the day I was due to fly. After calling the helpline and dealing with the automated system that really wasn't much help at all I managed to get through to a real human being which was nice (the trick is to keep pressing random keys, the system can't understand the input so it puts you through to a person). The lady was very helpful and informed me that I would be able to go to London to pick up the documents personally (for an extra fee of course).

The train ride home from London was almost therapeutic, I was so relieved to finally have everything sorted and the fact that, as of tomorrow, I would be living in California just started to sink in.

I had a fairly early start the next morning, I was up at 4 am to arrive at Heathrow for around 7am, generally I am most definitely not a morning person but on this occasion I made an exception . . . In a few hours time I would be in America.

The flight from Heathrow to JFK was interesting to say the least, I was sat next to an elderly gentleman who introduced himself as Matthew, he insisted that the cabin crew had some kind of vendetta against him, at one point he even through the pretzels he had been given back into the aisle at the flight the attendant. He was however, quite pleasant to me and chatted merrily away for almost the entire duration of the flight, only stopping to use the rest room every 15-20 minutes which, on an 8 hour flight meant that I had to get up out of my seat, since he was sat by the window, several thousand times. Quite what he was talking about I have no idea but the occasional smile and nod seemed to satisfy him enough for him to carry on talking.

After going through customs in JDK and going through security again (despite the fact that I had just got off of a plane) I had just enough time to grab a coffee and board my next flight to San Francisco.

I was due to arrive in San Jose from San Francisco at about 10pm local time (24 hours after I woke up) but unfortunately a pedestrian jumped in-front of the train I was on committing suicide, it was quite a shocking and sobering experience, we could hear and feel objects striking the underside of the train directly after the incident. The driver was incredibly calm considering what he had just witnessed, he informed us what had happened; that he had performed an emergency stop and that the police were on their way.

Since the train was now effectively a crime scene nobody was allowed to leave the train for several hours while the investigation began to take place. Eventually a 'rescue train' was sent to take all of the passengers to San Jose, it pulled alongside our train and we all disembarked from our train and boarded the new one. Since there was no platform we all had to climb down to the ground and back up to the second train.

While talking to another passenger going to San Jose it transpired that he lived right next to SJSU campus where I was to stay, he helped me find where I was going and briefly showed me around the downtown area on the way to my accommodation.

Once I had checked in and left my luggage we went to get something to eat, we went to a Mexican take-away called 'Iguanas Burritozilla'. The burrito I had was huge even though it was 'regular' size and it tasted awesome. In the same restaurant they sell an 18'' burrito that weighs 5lbs. I generally eat quite a lot but I really struggled to finish my 'regular' burrito, quite how anyone could eat one that weighs 5lbs (nearly 2.5kg) is beyond me.

We had finished our food we headed back downtown to a wine bar and had a drink but by this point I had been awake for about 30 hours so I was eager to get back. This kind of friendliness seems to be fairly normal around here, the people in the downtown area and the north side of town generally seem lovely.


SJSU (San Jose State University) is situated right on the border of the 'nice' side of town, literally across the road the houses are completely run down, some almost verging on being inhospitable, the difference between the South and the more affluent North side of town is stark. The campus itself is very nice, all of the buildings are very modern, the halls themselves are really nice and the view of the downtown area from the living room is really quite impressive from the 5^th floor (out of 15).

The security is quite intense, there are 5 or 6 doors to go through to get to the stairs/elevator from the main entrance and to open each door a card is required, presumably this is due to the close proximity to the the 'not so nice' areas of San Jose.

Since we are staying in student halls, when we arrived the apartment was completely empty, something which neither Kai (the other intern at NSC) nor I had envisaged. Kai had arrived a few days before me so had gone and bought a cup as well as some paper plates and plastic cutlery. It soon became apparent that this probably wasn't a great long term solution so we ventured to Walmart a few miles south, into the ghetto. We bought all of the cutlery and crockery that we needed as well as a kettle and a toaster.

All in all it has been quite an adventure so far and I haven’t even started working yet. I think that things are shaping up to make this a great summer; the weather is fantastic, there is a great buzz around town at night and a really chilled atmosphere during the day, I think I am going to like it here . . .