Swing Bridge

And since I totally fell in love with this urban exploration thing, here's a deactivated railroad and swing bridge explored last summer. Not as spectacular as the abandoned monastery or the ruined beer factory we photographed last month, but it's still quite beautiful nonetheless.

Pianos in the Park

Piano #1 makes its surprise appearance during a bike ride

Piano #2 with a family of curious deer as an audience

Piano #3 and the sunset concert overlooking the bay

Last but not least, piano #4 plus some hang gliders in the background

Keep on the grass, the boating incident and other dillycious adventures

In case you don't remember, Dilly and I have a tendency to find ourselves in weird situations and adventures, some of which involve water and boats. So it is not surprising that during her last visit to California we decided to do a bit of boating... you know, for old times sake!

Anyway, a row boat in a man-made, 50 acre, salt water lake seems a pretty safe choice. Unless, of course you end up adrift in the middle of said lake, with only one working paddle and the aquatic centre staff conveniently ignores your S.O.S. signaling. After a lot of struggle, we did manage to strand the boat and climb onto to the shore, only to find ourselves in the middle of a golf course and having to walk all the way back to the docks.

But hey, at least we got a refund for the boat rental so we got to have some fun - while we still had two paddles - AND exercise. For *FREE*! Which was very useful to burn all the calories of those delicious desserts we had just before the boating incident. It was a win win situation.

As for the rest of the week, we spent it visiting some high-tech companies/universities and keeping updated on the latest technologies available here in Silicon Valley.

iPhones 4, 5, 6 and 6 plus comparison...

...and testing out the iPhone 7 prototype (still think it could be bigger)

Messing around with Victoria at Stanford

Lunch at Facebook

Having some work done at Instagram

Fun with Google's androids and bikes

Meanwhile, in case the previous dessert photo left room for any doubt, the entire week was a succession of tantalizing meals and booze: Korean, Italian, Mexican, Portuguese, Japanese, American... you name it.

Katana sushi and sake

Chocolate overdose at the Ghiraldelli factory

that bottle of Malbec won at the EBBN raffle

Chicago style pizza

Whiskey and peppers

And as for all the sightseeing and other touristic activities we managed to fit into our busy busy schedule... well, lets leave that for another post :)

Alum Rock

Dumb Tourists - the androids

A collection of photos from our trips to Google.

eating the Cupcake (and an arm)

peeking through the Doughnut hole

climbing Mt Eclair

inappropriately touching the Gingerbread man's button

the Honeycomb attack

imitating the Ice Cream Sandwich

stealing a Jelly Bean

befriending a giant Kitkat (with the Froyo on the left)

Impressions from Canada

The thing you immediately notice when you arrive in Canada is the strange Canadian accent in words like "out" and "about". It's super funny and kind of hard not to smile every time you hear it, which is constantly... Fortunately Canadians are the nicest people I've encountered so far and don't mind it :)

The second thing you notice is that Canada is a lot different from the US. Sure it looks the same, with its traffic signs and steaks still being cooked from rare to well done... But if you are able to forget that for a second it's not hard to imagine you are in Europe: old buildings actually look old, cities have caracter, people have a real sense of humor and there's a special way of enjoying life... un certain je-ne-sais-quoi... un "Le Joie de Vivre"... You really have to love Canada for that!

Bilingual Ottawa

Busy downtown Toronto

Quiet and laid-back Montréal...

...full of vibrant and exciting nightlife.

margaritas!!