Stanford With Family
A couple of weeks ago the whole big family (my parent, siblings, Mikaela and Frida’s boyfriend Simon) visited me here in the Bay Area. We had an amazing ten days with lots of different activities. We did everything (well maybe not everything, but a lot) from wine tasting at the vineyards in Napa Valley in the north to watching San José Sharks in the south.
The whole gang arrived late one Friday and picked me up in Menlo Park. It felt so good to finally meet with Mikaela (and the rest of the family as well of course) in person again. Then we took the rental car to Ulf, Xialin and Henry, a couple of super nice friends of my father with a quite spectacular house in San José. I was already grateful for the ride from the airport and the dinner my first day in California and for them lending me a bike. Thanks for that, and even more thanks for letting us stay with you guys for over a week. That was great.
Anyway, on Saturday we decided to visit Stanford. I showed the family my office, which was out of electricity and therefore also out of light due to some kind of maintenance. But at least now they have seen where I spend most of my time here, even if it was kind of dark and we all felt like burglars (not that we stole anything). We also walked around the campus and just enjoyed the sun. We visited Jamba Juice, my supervisor from Sweden’s favorite place in the world, the Stanford bookstore where you can get all kinds of Stanford merch and finished of by visiting Hoover Tower, a famous tourist attraction at campus where you get a nice view over Stanford and also over the Bay Area. Before returning to San José we visited a cool Indian fast food Restaurant and had lunch. I was impressed with the food (thank you google maps and yelp).
At the evening Ulf, Xialin and Henry wanted to treat the big family (this time including Vidar as well) for an Easter dinner. Ulf is a passionate cook (with an equal fascination for different kitchen machines) and therefore he served us lamb cooked in two different ways. My favorite was the lamb sous vide, but the pressure cooked lamb was really good too. While not being so traditional, this will definitely be an Easter I’ll remember vividly for a while to come.
