Moving to silicon valley, California in June with a nearly 3yo...

[FSB]

Grateful for any advice/tips/dos and donts!!

We'll be based in San Carlos, 40 mons south of San Francisco

Thanks :)

We did this only San Diego 13 years ago.

The best piece of advice for me was from a friend, there is a lot of really useful information in the front of the phone book :)

Also, expect that the language will be more different than you think and that people will expect you to not have any problems with it. One of my biggest issues was that I didn't know what brand names were good or what things were called. Frinstance, I didn't know what the DVLC was called here (DMV) and so it was hard to look up a phone number for it.

Expect it to be frustrating, stressful and bloody annoying (yet fun as well) for at least 6 months. Expect to still feel 'on holiday' (fantastic and somewhat surreal after a few months) or not really quite at home or fully settled for at least two years. Someone told me this before we went and I found it to be very true.

Expect it to be hard to have friends that you have no common history with and not to know anyone well enough to start with that you trust your kid with. That is hard and isolating. Finding a preschool was really important for me because of that.

Expect to want to pound your head into the nearest wall sometimes because some things are so inefficient and stupid compared to 'home' (but BTW it goes both ways)

Expect to have issues with the stupid medical system.

Expect that if you give California and its people and yourself a real chance to adapt that it could be the best experience ever, but expect it to be a while before you think that. Try not to hang around too much with ex-pats (makes it harder to assimilate), but if you can find one good one to be friendly with it will help with the frustration factor.

I'm the whole other end of the state, but if you have any specific questions you want help with feel free to PM me :)

If I had it all to do again I absolutely 100% would.

Haha, thanks hop... Some great tips. A lot of what u mentioned rings true from when I lived in Italy in the 90's, add to that the frustration of really not speaking the language plus the Italian obsession about bureaucracy !!!!

You're right though, I think the differences in language will be annoying, I'm already having anxiety dreams about people not understanding me!!! At least I don't have a regional accent to complicate things!

Childcare is defo top of the list, not only for my sanity but also to enable me to find an interesting new job.

Exciting!!

ahh well if you have lived abroad before then it should be a bit easier :)

There are so many fun things to do in that area. When your child is a little older make sure you spend plenty of time at the Berkeley adventure playground.

That was 12 years ago and pre-parenthood!!! It's what u would call the blind confidence of a teenager!

I'm remaining super excited about the move to try and stop myself freaking out about it!!!

Oh well, at least I'll have DD to talk to/help to meet people

I guess the best advice is to try and go with the flow and not expect it to be sunshine and roses -- it actually is quite shitty at times, but works out in the end :)

No sunshine..!! It's off!!!

yeah it can be pretty foggy and cold on that side. I think you should scupper those plans and reckon on moving to San Diego instead. Cheaper, you can swim at the beaches and we have better weather.

Interesting..! DH is a surfer from Queensland originally... I think he thinks it's going to be wall to walk sunshine! Might suggest that we don't buy somewhere straight away!!

California can be wonderful and it can be crap also, I've been here a long time. We are planning our move home.
You can find out a lot from www.city-data.com/ if you know exactly where you'll be. Also www.britishexpats.com Has a lot of people in the bay area/silicon valley. I'm in the foothills away from the madness but living in the back of beyond.

My best friend lives in Los Gatos. I love, love, love it over there. You're very lucky!!

brrr surfing up there is coooolllllldddd! It can be quite grey and overcast on the west side of the bay. Our friends used to live in Burlingame and decided based on the weather to move to the East Bay.

Catinthe, we have been to Los Gatos for water polo tournaments a number of times, it is really nice there!

Hi FSB I'm south of San Jose as I think I mentioned on the Living in America thread.

We moved in December and love it here. My top tip for meeting people is meetup.com. I've joined a moms group and made friends before Dd even arrived. I can't wait to get out and see them all again now she's here.

If you have any specific questions on things like shipping, social security, banks etc let me know.

It's very very expensive. Even by California standards. And I say that as a San Diego native. We looked at moving to Bay Area/Santa Clara valley about 2 years ago quite seriously. DH company decided not to move, anyway, but the cost of living was a huge concern for us.
There is an area online resource, LasMadres. They come highly recommended.

Wow thanks for all the links sitting bull, I'll look them up... Im in the restaurant business and looking to get an interesting job for a small independent company (my current company has 35 restaurants, so smaller than that!).

Our DD will be 3 in July. How about yours? How long have u been out there?

Ragged, we live in a fairly pricey bit of London, not chelsea or anything, but more waitrose than Asda..! So I'm hoping it won't be too much of a shock. Looking on the Internet at what great houses we could buy for the same price that our piddly little flat is worth in London is quite eye opening!!

... How's the baby nancy?

Also, I'm a bit confused about electrical appliances... Will ours work there with travel adaptors, or can we get the plugs changed, or do we have to buy all new appliances?... Thanks

depends if your appliances are 110/240 or just 240. If they are just 240 you need a transformer and they are big, ugly and wasteful. On the most part we just got new appliances. The ones with rechargeable batteries (like an almost new expensive bosch drill) we kept. You end up spending an insane amount to start with replacing things you already had. In our second month here we needed to buy a fridge ($1K) a washer and dryer, a vacuum, a hairdryer, an iron etc etc.

Yep we bought all new electrical too except my sewing machine, MacBook and printer. I think we've got US cables for them all now to save using adapters.

Oh and baby E is lovely and snuggly :).