Today I had my California drivers test. We have been driving around so far (quite legally) on our UK licences, but a driving licence is a really handy form of ID apart from anything else.

The California drivers test seems to be somewhat simpler than a UK test, not including any manoeuvres other than a reverse in a straight line. It does include a few specialities of California, such as the requirement to turn your tires towards the curb when parking on a hill.

The test itself took about 20 minutes. Once the instructor had checked that I could locate things like the lights and windscreen wipers, and that I could do the hand signals (when was the last time you saw someone use those?), we started the actual driving. We drove around a few streets, did the aforementioned reverse, and then pretty much drove back.

Well, to put you out of your suspense, I PASSED, with (ahem) not quite flying colours. I got 12 minor errors out of a possible maximum of 15! But a pass is a pass 🙂

Sometimes California is a great place to be. San Francisco has a bit of a reputation for being foggy and cold, but that’s certainly not been my experience. Like on Wednesday, when I went into the city to do some Christmas shopping (oh, the life of leisure!). How many places are there where you can shop the week before Christmas, and have lunch outside, in the sunshine, and have it warm enough to take your coat off (at least in the Northern Hemisphere)?

Of course, San Francisco is perhaps not as tropical as the palm trees in Union Square suggest. And apparently we are at the start of the ‘wet season’ – which seems to mean that it rains once every two weeks. Anyway, I’m thankful for the nice weather, and hoping that it holds for my driving test on Monday.

Although there are only about 3 weeks until Christmas, the Palo Alto climate means that it feels much more like late September. There are still beautiful red and gold leaves on a lot of the trees, the weather is still pretty mild, at least during the day (about 17C today, and probably warmer in the sun) and there are still squirrels everywhere.

The preponderance of squirrels is partly because Palo Alto is such a wooded town. Just about every street around us has trees every few yards (metres?) down both sides, as well as some really mature trees in people’s yards. There is even a local charity dedicated to planting more trees in the town, which you can support with donations at the local grocery store (see, I even talk native now :). The surprising thing is that there are two varieties of squirrel here – not grey and red, but grey and black. As I have discovered using the magic of the interweb, black squirrels occur in lots of places. They seem to be a genetic sub-division of the grey (gray?) squirrel, like black cats or white mice. (By the way, there are some very odd people out there – just type squirrels into Google and find out!).

So let’s get the grovelling out of the way first – sorry for neglecting this blog for so long; there really are no excuses. The intention of this post, then, is to fill you in on some of the things that have happened recently.

Firstly, we now have a car. After some very complex negotiations (which apparently are mandatory) we bargained them down to an appropriate price and were able to return the expensive rental car. We have bought a 1 year old Honda Accord, because they have a reputation for reliability and being the most popular model in America, have a massive market for parts. It is also a 2-door coupe with a 3 litre V6 engine, because N needs a car which won’t bore him to tears (my taste in cars is not that sophisticated, and extends to “Will it go?” and “Will it turn corners?” – the rental car we had failed the last test).

I have also started volunteering at the Children’s Library up the road. It’s quite therapeutic work – mostly shelving and sorting out the returns. It’s also fun when you come across books you recognise – anyone remember Mr Gumpy’s Outing? You’ll be pleased to hear that I haven’t yet succumbed to reading them!

I am also starting at the Tech museum on Friday. My first shift begins at (eek!) 8:30am. Americans do have a tendency to do things early – not something I expected at all. For instance, the Friday after Thanksgiving is the biggest shopping day of the year in the US – the equivalent of the Boxing Day sales in the UK. However, here you really do have to get up early to get a bargain – some sales start at 5:30am and only last until 11am, after which point the specials finish and it becomes a regular sale.

That’s all for now – will try and be a bit more assiduous from now on.