Wednesday 20 June, 2018. 16:46
My meetings have finished a bit early today, so I am relaxing at the hotel before Rohan drops by to pick me up and go for dinner.
I got up with the alarm today at 07:00, fast asleep at the time. After another simple breakfast of fruit and yoghurt, I headed off to walk to Apple again. Unfortunately I lost my sunglasses on the way; they must have fallen out of my jacket pocket at some point after I took it off when I got warm from walking.
At Apple, the breakfast snacks this morning were big boxes of Noah’s bagels and a tray of yoghurt cups with fruit and muesli. I had a poppy seed bagel with cream cheese and then a yoghurt cup, and later on I tried another bagel which had raisins in it and cinnamon.
 Noah’s Bagels at Apple |
The technical discussions went quickly and one session was cancelled because of Prof. Shimodaira’s illness. So we got into the wrap up stuff early and then broke for a long lunch while Katoh-san ate quickly and then edited the minutes and action items. Paul led us outside to a courtyard beside the De Anza Three building for an al fresco lunch today. Thankfully there were shade umbrellas for many of the tables. There was a green salad with lots of yellow chillis in it, a caesar salad, and hot food including green beans, broccoli with chilli, pasta with a bolognese sauce, and pasta with chicken and a white sauce with peas. And there were also small cannolis and choc chip cookies for dessert. Nicolas joined us for lunch, and so did Jackson, both ex members of the TC42 committee and now working for Apple on display technology.
 Lunch at Apple |
After lunch we reconvened for the final administrative part of the meeting. This didn’t take long. Then it was farewells until the next meeting in Cologne, Germany, later this year. Following that, I walked back to my hotel.
I kept my eyes peeled in case I passed my sunglasses along the way, but there was no sign of them. I reached a small set of shops, and one was an optometrist. So I stopped and bought a new pair of sunglasses. They’re a bit more expensive than I was hoping to find, but they’re quite nice, with metal frames.
 Intersection of North Blaney Avenue and North Blaney Avenue! |
Back at the hotel I had a shower to clean up after the long walk, and relaxed until dinner time. Jurassic World was on TV, so I put that on.
21:55
I’m back at the hotel after dinner, and Jurassic World is on again, picking up almost from the spot I got to before Rohan arrived to pick me up. He arrived here about 18:45 and drove us over to Mountain View, where we stopped at La Fiesta, a Mexican place that is supposed to be pretty authentic and has good reviews.
 Margarita at La Fiesta |
We had an Arturito’s margarita each, choosing it randomly from the selection of different tequila options mostly because it was labelled as “our famous”. Rohan chose a spicy jalapeño chicken dish, while I had to try the mole poblano, chicken with a cocoa sauce. These came with rice and beans and some tortillas, which I used to mop up the rich sauce. It was pretty good. The restaurant was full when we arrived, but by the time we finished it had almost emptied out. I was surprised that more diners hadn’t arrived, as back home a place like this would be bustling until well into the evening. Rohan said that here there were definite waves of diners with particular busy times. In American restaurants the busy times was from 17:45 to about 19:00. Chinese restaurants had peak busy time about an hour later, and Indian restaurants didn’t really get busy at all until after 20:00.
 Mole poblano at La Fiesta |
After the dinner we walked a few short blocks into the main street of Mountain View and to Gelato Classico, a genuine Italian gelato place. There was a short queue to be served and we joined on the end. There was only a lone old man serving, and he was shuffling around behind the counter very slowly, taking several minutes to serve each person, especially when they asked for taster spoons of various flavours. Some people in front of us gave up and left the queue, but we waited patiently and perused the flavours. I was going to try pumpkin, but the container in the freezer display was empty. Then I spotted cinnamon, and decided to pair that with burgundy cherry.
 Gelato Classico |
We ate our gelato on seats at tables outside, although for some reason they were chained together with cables, so we had to sit awkwardly rotated on the chairs, but it was okay. By the time we were served the queue had grown to about 30 people. This gelato place has been here since the 1980s and seems to have won numerous regional “best ice cream” awards every year. It was indeed very good.
 Gelato Classico selection |
Dessert done, we walked back to Rohan’s car and he drove me back to my hotel. This is my last night and I check out in the morning to head up to San Francisco for my final day of the trip.