The city of Davis is in Yolo County, California, that's where the title comes from.
So, after chilling in NYC for some 1.5 days and meeting and excessively partying with awesome people (yes, I mean you Annie, Brie and Phil) through an ex-colleague of mine, I finally boarded my flight to San Francisco on Sunday morning. Ticket was not too expensive and I never heard about the airline so I didn't know what to expect. I guess they just gained one loyal customer and probably a lifelong fan at the same time. I went for a ticket on the economy class and guess what, they have leather seats on economy class. Each seat has its own built-in in-flight entertainment system where I could listen to music, watch videos or TV, and if I bothered I probably could have surfed the net as well on my laptop. They actually had electric outlets and ethernet connections to plug these stuff in. Even their in-flight safety video was cool, which normally is a resentful presentation by flight attendants (i.e. stewardesses). See for yourself.
So after flying on such a cool and laid back airline, because the whole atmosphere was like that, for like a fraction of the price per mile as MALÉV, I didn't know if things are about to change for the better or worse. I got off at San Francisco International Airport, where my pre-arrange airport minivan was waiting for me (and some other people as I learned later on) to drop me off in Davis, CA. I took us about 2 hrs to get there, so I again got to appreciate the size of this country. Having arrived to Davis, I went throught the registration for the Orientation in USA Law program and finaly got my key to the room.
I wasn't expecting a five-star hotel, but they could have done better. Anyway, I'm set to live in a dorm in Texas as well, so I might as well get used to it. It later turned out that originally we were supposed to be in a neighboring complete with its own swimming pool and jacuzzi in the middle. That evening there was a small informal reception so that the participants could meet slightly before the classes started. A lot of interesting and fun people are here. Probably it wouldn't be that much interesting to go into details about each of those I got to know but there are a truck load of people from Central and South America (mostly Brazil), there is a guy from the Ukraine, a couple of people from Switzerland, Germany, there's a guy from Amsterdam amongst others. This Dutch guy happens to work for Baker&McKenzie along with four other participants and I just got to know that Baker sponsors a program for some of their associates to come here. Also, there is a practicing judge from Japan. And there is this guy from El Salvador who cannot accept that my first name is not "Otello". So much for diversity.
We have a whole host of lectures, which occupy just about every minute we have of the 24-hour day. Most days we have classes running from 9am to 8pm. All in English, you can imagine who exhausting it is. Yesterday when we finally finished around 8.30pm, I asked the French girl if you would go for having the wine with rest of the gang as we planned earlier. Normally, asking this questions would not be a problem. But inadvertently I asked her in Hungarian. It took me 20 seconds to realize that she looks at me with a surprised face because I wasn't using the right language.
I just got back from a jacuzzi we were not supposed to use. But the Dutch guy got us into a neighboring building complex through some girl he just met. It was awesome. Not only because of the jacuzzi but also because there was a wine tasting party going on around the pool. :) Not surprisingly we soon made friends with two girls marketing wines in the US. Even though we brought some beer to the pool not knowing that this party was taking place there.
Oh, and another thing. The whole campus is riding bicycles so I guess my fitness problem is solved. We go everywhere by bicycle. Even the off-campus parts of the town are made bicycle friendly with desinated lanes and lots of bicycle roads. They say that there are more bicycles in Davis than people.
Hopefully I'll have some time this weekend to roll around campus and take some pictures. When I do, you'll all get to see the essence.
I finally got around to get a US SIM card for my cellphone. I was amazed that the guy in the AT&T store could almost get me a Texas number even from California. Some jam, however, did not allow the transaction to go through, so I got a California (Davis) number for now. Probably will change it when I get to Texas.
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