San Francisco (3) – Stanford

Friday 06/07

We wake up at 8am.

We have a very important “appointment” today: Belgium – Brazil at 11am. Isabelle organized, long time ago, an interesting visit of the d-school of Stanford… at noon. I won’t be able to attend this visit because of my other, more important, appointment. Jules and Florence decide to watch the whole game with me while Ludivine will go with Isabelle to the visit, after the first half of the match.

We leave our hotel around 9:15am, after packing our luggage (we go and sleep near Stanford University for the next 3 nights).

I found a (rather unlikely) place to watch the game: a library on the campus of Stanford University, where they show all the matches of the World Cup on a big tv screen. We go there, pass the registration and go into the room. There’s not much atmosphere but we are happy to be able to watch the game.

There’s soon very much atmosphere from our side; we are clapping, cheering and shouting after Belgium makes it 2-0. Isabelle and Ludivine go to their visit after the first half. Hhow did they manage to leave such a game? It’s a real mystery for me, something I will probably never understand….

I stay with Jules and Florence to live a very intense, nerve-breaking second half. I think that Jules is even more nervous than me; I don’t have any more nails to bite. We suffer a lot but at the end, we win! We beat the mighty Brazilian team! We are in semi-final for the second time of our history only! Wow! We celebrate!

We join Isabelle and Ludivine who finished their tour of the d-school. It’s a design thinking institute, a hub for innovation, collaboration and creativity at Stanford, whose mission is to help people become everyday innovators, everywhere.

We go and eat in the very chic Stanford Shopping Center, at Go Fish Poke Bar. Excellent poke bowls. The selection is limited but makes a lot of sense. We eat outside. We then eat an excellent ice cream at Lottie Creamery to celebrate the Belgium win.

We drive to the nearby Airbnb, which Isabelle booked for 3 nights (unfortunately the 4th night was not available). It’s a very nice Airbnb, probably one of the best ones of our trip. It’s so nice to be in a house, with plenty of space. And with a large table on which we can work comfortably. We have a garden and a swimming pool (which unfortunately turned green a few days ago apparently). There’s also a piano. Jules and Florence play thanks to an app showing where to put the fingers.

I go with the girls to do grocery shopping at WholeFoods. Very nice organic supermarket. Maybe too organic since the girls can’t find much to fill their goodie bags and I don’t find any Coke! We thus go also to a Safeway.

We eat a nice dinner, at 9pm: pork chops.

We go to bed quite early today: 11pm.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *