Lobelia the adverbially eclectic

I like both the words riparian and estuarine. I'm one up on you! I lived in California for 10 months 1990-91!

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azewewish.livejournal.com

Well, I'd love to have you out this way, but that's personal prejudice talking. *g*

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I asked for personal prejudice so I'm not complainin' when I get personal prejudice.... :-)

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P.S. Aze, what was it like moving to California? Because you lived further out East before, didn't you? What were the new things you had to adapt to? What do you miss? What do you not miss?

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azewewish.livejournal.com

Mostly, I miss my family. I love California & my life out here, but there ARE cultural differences, and that you do have to get used to. And my family is now 3500 miles away.

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3,500 miles... Gosh, America is big.

My family all live abroad but in the case of my parents it's a one-hour flight, and in the case of my sister, a flight that just cost me 70 pence per person...!!

Yes, the family thing is the biggest obstacle. That and the children. *sigh*

What are the cultural differences for you, an intra-American as it were? What would you call these -- cross-state cultural differences? federal differences? *has no idea*

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azewewish.livejournal.com

Regional differences. *g* And it's like the difference between the way they do things in England vs. Germany or even Wales. Things like food or places to hang out or drinks or phrases, ways of doing business, that sort of thing.

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blythely.livejournal.com

One of my best friends is at Stanford & has been for a few years. What do you want to know? As this is a public post I could point her to it & she can answer.

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Thanks! Is your friend American or foreign? Because it would be helpful to have a foreigner's perspective. I really just want to know someone's perspective on living on the West Coast: how they manage the distance from home (if they're foreign), what the schools are like, how expensive the houses are, how depressing or happy-making living among Americans is -- anything, really.

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mfacane.livejournal.com

Am said friend. Am southern hemisphere foreign, married to a yank, and happy to answer any questions you have. Generally, I like it here. The distance (read: expense) from home is difficult for me, but manageable. The schools around Stanford are really pretty good, although I have trouble with the American high school education system in general. The housing is v. expensive (you probably want $40-50k to put down so you can get a good interest rate on a mortgage). There are houses next to campus that faculty can "buy" - you own the house, but not the land it's on, and can only sell on to other faculty or very senior administrators. Despite having lived in the US for 7 yrs and being married to an American I still find the place quite foreign. Not bad necessarily, but I am not completely at ease here. That said, Stanford is a pretty good place to work. It's competitive - junior faculty chasing tenure tend to be on the amped-up, hyper side, which makes for some degree of aggression/self-absorbedness etc - but has wonderful resources.

NB: re: comparison with Berkeley. I lived in Berkeley and commuted to Stanford for several years (1.5 hrs each way - don't recommend it), and they may as well be different countries. With kids you definitely want a car in the South Bay.

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Thank you, said friend! *g* This is very helpful. although I have no idea what you mean by 'southern hemisphere foreign', heh (Brazilian? Chilean? and omg, this only occurred to me as I typed: New Zealand, Australian? and, considering your icon: South African??). Anyway. ;-)

It's interesting that you find 40-50 k a lot of money to put down on a house. It makes me realise how terribly expensive the UK is and that anywhere we move is going to seem cheap to us. Because here you'd have to put down 100 thousand pounds at least on anything half-way decent. So 50 k seems very reasonable to me!

I'm glad you alerted me to the faculty housing thing because that doesn't look like the sort of thing we'd want. I've had a look at Stanford on google satellite maps and it looks very suburban, the kind of suburban that doesn't exist anywhere in Europe but that t'h grew up with in Sydney, actually. (Sydney, southern hemisphere, that is, *g*).

Interesting how you still feel foreign. I guess I've stopped feeling foreign in England but I've lived here for 18 years (how did this happen?!). It's a special existence, though, the existence of the expat. I find it has its pluses and its minuses.

When you say 'not at ease', what exactly do you mean? Aren't there lots of other foreigners in Stanford, too? I don't like the idea of competitive academics; that's just what depressed me to begin with, and I'm not at all that way. But then, I'm not un-used to this type of person from CB; this place is crawling with half-crazed ambitious neurotics.

1.5 hours commute! Would living in San Francisco make a difference? Is the commute faster?

Thank you so much for posting. It all helps!

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P.S. I just looked at some realtors' sites in Palo Alto (although I couldn't find any that made 100 per cent sense) and it seems that houses can be around 4 million dollars! Can this be right? *tears hair* So what sort of house do you live in??

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mfacane.livejournal.com

You can live in San Francisco and take the train down, which I think takes about 45 min. Housing is super expensive in San Francisco too. Its very suburban around Stanford - if you want country, there are some nice, more rural places about 30 min away (the Los Altos hills are lovely, but pricey) and if you want urban, SF is your best bet.

And yup, you're about right on the housing. You can find cheap stuff in East Palo Alto, but its a very rough neighbourhood - I wouldn't feel safe living there. You can get a v. small 2 bedroom in Palo Alto for between 0.75 and 1 million. I live in San Jose and commute (~30min) to Stanford because it's vastly cheaper. We rent a two bedroom semi-detached house with no garden for $1300 a month. We're nowhere near having enough saved to get us a mortgage we could afford.

There are quite a few foreigners around, but very few from my neck of the woods (NZ). The times when I'm most uncomfortable are when self-promotion is required. I'm uncomfortable watching other people toot their horn and even more uncomfortable having to do it for myself.

Good luck!

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here in the bay area, we have:

+ redwood forests
+ good sushi
+ Golden Gate Park
+ tidepools
+ ocean beaches
+ bayside beaches
+ the Asian Art Museum
+ the de Young
+ the Rosicrucian Museum
+ the California Academy of Sciences (or we will, again, soon)
+ the Monterey Bay Aquarium (not actually in the bay area technically, but close)
+ local farms and lots of farmers' markets
+ cultural events almost every weekend, if you know where to look
+ some of the most beautiful everyday vistas you could ever see
+ two seasons: wet and sunny

- crazy traffic
- ridiculous cost of living (would housing etc. be covered by Stanford?)
- little public transportation, almost none of it actually useful
- wildly uneven public schools
- occasional earthquakes
- drought (it looks like not this year, but it is always a possibility)
- smog

...um. It would take a lot to get me to leave here ever again, but I'm a native, or close enough as makes no never mind.

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Phenomenally helpful! Thank you!!

I lived in Berkeley for 10 months and I do remember taking the BART which was doable but sort of a pain, and once I took the bus but that was a 'whoa' experience. In Berkeley, you could get to a lot of places by walking. I'm thinking of t'sons really; they have a lot of freedom here, being able to go everywhere on foot. And we already pay for one private school so as long as the Californian private schools aren't more expensive than the absurdly expensive English one, we could continue with that.

It's a tough decision, though!! T'sons don't want to go!! I'm easy. Just wondering, though, if I could get work.

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I have absolutely no idea what the job market/visa requirements would be, so I am no help there.

I can tell you that, in and around Stanford/Palo Alto the public transit available includes: the very southernmost buses from the Samtrans (San Mateo County) system, the northernmost buses from the VTA (Santa Clara County) system, some Stanford-specific buses that I don't know much about but see fairly often, and a Caltrains stop. BART is accessible via Caltrains, and possibly a bus or two -- I'm not as familiar with any of the buses as I'd like to be. I used to take the buses all over on my own, though, even as a 12-13 year-old. Depending on where, specifically, you would be living, getting around the immediate area might not be so hard -- and bicycles are relatively common and safe, so long as they obey the rules of the road and keep their helmets on (that's actually a law for the under-18).

Depending on which schools (all-boy -- mostly Catholic and generally partnered with one or more all-girl schools -- or co-ed) you're looking at, your boys could well become the hot commodity with the girls, if that appeals. ;-)

Like I said, I'm attached, but I could see that it would be a pretty drastic change for the boys in particular. Do you have a chance to come out and visit first (or is there something like an opt-out clause, if it turns out to be a bad fit right away)?

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This is all fascinating. Interesting that there's no unified transport service and that buses get patched together from different counties. Did you find this area good to live in for a teenager? T'son, now, has a great life, going into town on his own with his mates every weekend, everything done on foot. I would be sorry for him to lose that without anything just as good taking its place.

So there are all-boy schools? Google is difficult; when I type in schools, universities come up, and I could find only a list of 'top 100 high schools' for state schools, not for private schools. We'd have to ask people on the ground, I think. Schools seem very different from the UK system; I'm not even sure what the exams are called or what the cut-offs are (middle school? high school? for what ages are these?).

We have a chance to stay in Stanford for a month this May. omg, that is so soon!!!

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In the three counties I've dealt with, the bus lines always converge somewhere near the county line, so catching the next bus and continuing on is relatively easy. I... thought I was discontent, as a teen, and in fact wound up as far away as I could get for college, but I was better off here than a lot of people. There were kids in my high school who drank at parties, but unlike my sorority sister from central Connecticut, there were never Saturday keggers in the woods that the entire school attended. Getting to things on foot is possible, but depends on where you wind up living. Bikes or a bus pass, though, open up a lot more.

It's true that what's around Stanford looks kind of like an undifferentiated sprawling suburban mass, but most of the town centers (Redwood City in particular, Palo Alto, Menlo Park, and further north, San Mateo and Burlingame) were founded independently and have some history and (relatively) thriving downtown areas, with shopping, dining, that sort of thing. The new movie theaters in Redwood City and San Mateo are right near the Caltrain stations, unlike the old ones which are pretty inaccessible. I have to say up front that I am largely unfamiliar with the city parks & such in Palo Alto, but I know Redwood City possibly better now than the first time I lived here. The main park, Red Morton, has a teen center -- I don't know how it's viewed by actual teens, though -- a pool in summer, tennis courts, baseball diamonds, and lots of field space.

Catholic schools you can get an idea of by looking at the Diocese of San Jose and Archdiocese of San Francisco, the private ones, um. They're a bit harder to find. Elementary is generally Kindergarten through Fifth grade, or roughly ages 5-11; middle school is grades 6-8, or 11-14, and high school is grades 9-12, or 14-18. (Exceedingly rarely, these days, you may run across a junior high which is grades 7-8 or even 7-9, but I believe all the schools around here have switched to the middle school system.) Frequently the private schools will run K-8 in the same school, rather than have a separate middle school. At the public schools, there's standardized testing every spring and the state-wide high school exit exam to get a diploma, but private schools don't have that, and set their own exam system instead. ...in short, the American education system is effed up. :/

I would take that, definitely -- a month is actually long enough for the touristy "new-place" feeling to wear off a bit and let you get a better idea of how you'll manage, or not. Plus, you know, give a holler, there's a lot of us slashy internet nerds around to say hey to!

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>>give a holler
Thank you! This is actually one really nice thing: the internets is so portable! Whether I'm in the UK or in Stanford or in Sydney: my LJ and my Flist is exactly the familiar same! It is so comforting.

I don't have the month of May, unfortunately. The children have school so even for 2 weeks will have to be taken out, and I'm teaching until mid-May so we'll get about a fortnight over there. Alas.

This is all really, really fascinating. Thank you! Especially the bits about the traditional city centres.

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P.S. What is a farmer's market?

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a farmer's market is an outdoor, temporary market, usually scheduled in the morning on a specific day of the week, where a lot of the local farmers and others come together and sell their goods without any intervening supermarket or greengrocer markup. It's a good way to get good local, sometimes organic produce for pretty cheap, and (at my local, at least) there tend to be a lot of asian vegetables (like chinese long beans and baby bok choy) that I can't get in my weekly organic box. There's also a guy at my local who sells organic baby field greens with edible flowers, which I just think are fun. *G* You can also find baked goods, sausages, jams and jellies, local honey, and sometimes jewelry and clothing or home decor handicrafts at the farmer's markets around here. They're good times.

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isiscolo.livejournal.com

I'm not a Californian, but I lived near Stanford for a summer (doing grad research at NASA Ames Research Center) and it was nice.

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Ah, i wish we could have a summer's trying it out and then make up our minds.

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giglet.livejournal.com

Congratulations on having the choice! That's wonderful!

Most of California is a lovely place to visit, but I would only want to live there in very specific circumstances, for two reasons.

First, because of transit issues for me and my kid. I grew up in a suburb that had no sidewalks, and where I couldn't get to a store on my own until I had a bicycle because it was too far away to walk to after school and be back home by dinnertime. The nearest public phone and public bus were only slightly closer. Now I live in an area where within three blocks there's my bank, hardware store, five-and-dime, seven restaurants, corner store, a cobbler, a pub, and assorted other stores. The trolley line into town is about 50 feet from my front door, and in either direction it takes me past pharmacies and big grocery stores. My son walks to school five blocks away. It takes half an hour to walk to the big town library and the post office and the town center, where there are more businesses and a railway station and busses. And I don't live in a city. It would take a lot for me to give up this location and move someplace where lack of a car was a major inconvenience. California has a lot of suburbs where that's true.

Second, I need seasons. California does have seasons (unlike, say, parts of the tropics where I've spent some time), but they are relatively muted compared to New England.

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I know, it's wonderful to be able to ponder it even and have the option. I lived there for 10 months and loved some aspects of it and hated others. I absolutely see the point about things being accessible. At the moment, t'son goes into town every weekend with is mates, hangs out, visits his friends, and all on foot. It would be a real pity to give this up without anything as good to replace it. (Although I have no idea what a 'trolley line' is or a 'five-and'dime', *g*) I looked at Palo Alto on google sateliite, and it is just one big urban sprawl.

I don't mind about the seasons. I grew up in Indonesia and Australia, and I never quite got the hang of the European four-season trip, *g*. Give me summer all year round. :-) Thanks so much for commenting; it's all really helpful.

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digdigil.livejournal.com

My in-laws live in San Francisco and so did my paternal grandmother for a time. Ummmm....I somehow don't think you'd like it. It's so very different from England, and if you like England, then only if you are extremely adaptable will you be able to get used to California and the USA in general.

Cons: The US Govt, the lack of health care, the crime, the odd weather (too hot, too many floods, earthquakes, fires), weird snakes and bugs, price of real estate, no metric system.

Pros: The dry (usually) weather, fewer taxes, friendly people, lots to see and do.

Personally, I wouldn't live there, but there are parts that are very nice. I have visited both Los Angeles area and San Francisco and San Fran wins by a mile.

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I like England. It's grown on me over the years. I got married here, gave birth here -- it roots a person, *g*. I like the public sphere and the political culture and the literary culture. What I will not miss is the weather and the landscape and the northern light.

Thanks for all of this. It's all helpful!

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jennis-footie.livejournal.com

You are very welcome. And I think you'd miss England terribly based on what you've written. ♥

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cathexys.livejournal.com

check out my latest post...some really smart thoughts on all sides...

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You are too sweet! That is amazing! 48 comments! I haven't read it yet just wanted to say, thanks, and smooches. *goes over to your journal*

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I'm British, I lived in that area in 2000, and I have to say first of all, look VERY HARD at the money. We thought we would be well-off until we found out how much housing cost, and everything else was relatively expensive too because in the Bay Area rents are so high you just don't get the same budget shops that you get elsewhere in the States. Transport can be difficult because the traffic is so dense that commutes take ages (I used to have to plan trips from Half Moon Bay to Palo Alto within a two-hour window or I couldn't make it back before the kids finished school), and you might find yourself having to go to lots of different areas to find the things you need because there aren't town centres as such.
On the plus side, San Franciso is the most European-feeling American city I have experienced, the coast and other natural environments are wonderful, Californian food is the best in the country (sourdough bread, great seafood, fresh fruit and veg galore) and there is Peets Coffee and Trader Joes. On the minus side, I was in the US for five years and never got used to no universal health care, a totally different way of socialising, an education system I found rigid and unchallenging, and the lack of public facilities like swimming pools. The time difference does make it harder to keep in touch with people that you don't email and the flights are long to the west coast.
Do talk to me more if you are still considering this. I can advise on the package t'h is being offered and whether it will be enough for you to keep your standard of living or improve on it.

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Thanks. It's all very helpful, especially the European perspective. We're just not used to this< level of commute nor to no swimming pools (!!). Presumably, we'll have university amenities but still. Two things I found especially intriguing:

>> a totally different way of socialising
>>an education system I found rigid and unchallenging,

You couldn't perhaps elaborate a tiny bit...??

Hey, I didn't know you used to live down there!

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Gosh, you're going to make me think now, aren't you?

Social life. OK, well, people don't sit in pubs and chat over drinks for a start. They don't go out to eat late in the evening and linger over meals (even in the Bay Area where lots of people work very long hours, you can't get a meal after 9pm). I found it took a long while to get invited to anyone's house for a meal or anything, and when they did, you were expected to offer to take a dish of food. Lots of people have strange (to a European) attitudes to alcohol, and I found myself really stared at for drinking a glass of red wine at a communal meal. Children go to lots of paid-for organised activities rather than just 'hanging out' and in my experience had very little independence until they could drive, since facilities, and friends' houses, tend to be too far away to walk or bike to.

Education. The American system (and sorry if I annoy any Americans here, but I am a trained teacher in the UK and sent two children to school in both CA and MA so I do have some reason behind my prejudices) is based on the idea of one-size-fits-all. The grade system means that any child who works reasonably hard and does the tasks set has to pass, regardless of ability, and there is no differentiation until the latter years of high school. There are no standardised tests on the actual work done in the curriculum, only very general ones in some states, so schools vary widely and there is no way to find out how well they are doing except by word of mouth. Teachers are less well-trained than in the UK and in my experience did not see it as their job at all to adapt to students' needs - for example when a leading child psychologist said that it was practically abusive to make my ADHD son do homework after a day of struggling to cope with lessons, his teacher (PhD in Education!) was totally unable to co-operate because "I have to check the boxes in my mark book for every student, there can't be any exceptions". Creative subjects are seen as optional extras in state (public) schools - at my sons' school in Massachusetts, when there was a budget crunch they simply abolished all art and music, and in the whole of primary school they only wrote about 3 stories. The content of the curriculum seemed quite arbitrary and there was more emphasis on quantity than quality, e.g. 'write 3 pages on X', 'talk for 10 minutes on Y'.
Having said all that, there are of course good teachers and good schools, if you can find them, and it would certainly give your kids a different perspective on the world.

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This is extremely interesting, and rather sobering as well. We're so used to whining about the UK school system that we maybe forget what's good about it. Someone else in other comments

cathexys also mentioned the different approaches to education, the 'no kid gets left behind' policy and the emphasis on facts over critical thinking. All rather sobering. Shocking remark by that teacher about checking the boxes!

I thought California was maybe more tolerant towards wine because they grow it...? I don't drink wine or beer any more but I do love cocktails and I remember some lovely cocktail bars in the Bay Area. I also remember, though, the running home at 9 pm business, the always having work. On the other hand, i don't these days do anything that's late, I tend to nod off at ten pm!!

Thanks loads for all these thoughts. They are so helpful.

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P.S. So your children, once having been through the American school system, what did they do? Did they go onto higher education in the USA? Did they fit back into the English system?

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The younger one is back here and doing very well in the English system. The older one couldn't adjust at all (though a lot of that was for non-educational reasons) and is now back in an American school. I harbour a secret hope that he will come back here for university at least, since it will cost so much less here and will give him a chance to recover some sense of Britishness.

And yes, the Brits need to stop whining, stop trying to change things every five minutes and appreciate that at its best we have a very enlightened, flexible educational system that produces creative young people with alert flexible minds. The places where our system isn't doing well are generally those where social problems are so overwhelming that no school could get good results. One thing we could all use over here is some American positivity and enthusiasm so we can all believe in ourselves a bit more!

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I like the American positivity thing. The English do whine, and after 18 years here, I'm whining, too. In fact, my counsellor expressly forbade me to have any 'negativity' at my workplace; she said as soon as colleagues start whining / gossiping / saying bad things, i was to go, 'and hey, did you see that movie at the weekend?'

Strangely, it worked.

:-)

So is your child at boarding school over there? We have friends who have just sent their son to a boarding school in New York State; they live in NYC.

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