The adventure before the adventure.
Hi, and welcome to our travel blog! Maybe you have heard about Ticketbird’s trip to Silicon Valley before. Or maybe not. We have been selected as one of twelve Nordic startups to be a part of the TINC program (read more about TINC here). The TINC program starts tomorrow, October 16, and we will, of course, share our TINC experiences and impressions on the blog too.
But we will also share what we experience in this travel blog. So, let’s get to it! Our first week in California!
Getting settled
We are really grateful that we decided to go here one week before TINC starts because it takes time, and resourcefulness to get settled. There’s the jetlag, which is cured by now, but it takes some time, and now we are rested and stoked to dig into work! And we have had time to prepare for ourselves for TINC.
There’s also stuff we needed to fix around the house we rented on Airbnb. Groceries, extra furniture, lamps, office supplies, local telephone number, business cards, etc. We have been to IKEA and Staples five or six times the first week!
We also had to get used to getting emails, messages, phone calls from people at home, in the middle of the night, always being nine hours behind them. We have clients that need help, family, and friends that we want to keep in touch with. The tip is, of course, to fully use the few hours that overlap with office hours and before your family is going to sleep, or having breakfast!
Roger in front of our new birdnest.
Getting around and DOING stuff!
This extra week has given us a lot of opportunities to experience more than TINC. Here’s a short list:
1. Running/jogging around the neighbourhood and the Stanford campus. It’s such a great way to get to know your surroundings, especially since it’s so beautiful here.
Running around the Stanford Dish Area.
2. Welcoming one of our developers from Serbia. Igor is staying with us for three weeks, working and riding the bike he bought on craigslist.com
Igor and the bridge.
Igor and the bike.
3. Catching up with smart and interesting people attending the Nordic Impact Week 2017. Thanks for that Lars Ling. The guided tour of Stanford University together with James Ehrlich was really cool. What a great place!
The Nordic Impact Week crew in the Fort Mason area.
The Blue Angels show. Incredible!
Stanford tour.
Stanford tour.
Stanford tour, at d.school.
Stanford tour, at d.school.
Stanford tour. James Ehrlich, a perfect guide
4. Getting to know San Francisco, thanks to friends and relatives. What a great city!
View over San Francisco from Twin Peaks.
View over San Francisco from Twin Peaks.
Sunset at Twin Peaks.
Mural Alley in the Mission district.
Mural Alley in the Mission district.
5. Grabbing the opportunity to attend events that don’t exist in Sweden. Last Thursday we experienced NHL hockey in San Jose, seeing the Sharks beat Buffalo Sabres, 3-2.
Seats right behind the penalty box. A really fun and intense game!
6. Going to LA and back in less than 22 hours. Yes, you read that right. Why would someone do that? Well, our reason was that we finally had the chance to watch Major League Baseball live. An amazing, magical experience to see Los Angeles Dodgers win the first game against Chicago Cubs in the National League Championship Series, 5-2. A dream come true!
Roadtrip!
Santa Monica Pier.
Dodger Stadium.
Dodger Stadium.
Dodger Stadium.
Thank you, Dodger Stadium. It was magical!
7. And lastly, we got the chance to kickstart the TINC program with two mentor meetings last Friday. A perfect way to get a head start. Now we are more than ready for the program to officially start!
Takeaways
If you consider going to Silicon Valley for work or meetings, I strongly suggest that you come here early. Get settled, grind through the first few days of jetlag, prepare and get focused, and take the opportunity to experience things that will make your life richer!
//Roger