Student Life/Work (San Jose, San Francisco, Oakland: rental car, appointed, for sale)
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Posted this in main CA forum but it may get more attention here as its more specific to San Jose
I am new to the forums here so I will give you a little background first. I am an Irish University student studying Mechanical Engineering. Having never been to the US before I decided this Summer I would try to find an Engineering related internship in California because, after all, it is the heart of design and manufacture of the US with the "Silicon Valley".
I have been lucky enough to secure a job at a medical device factory in Campbell, so my next task is to decide on a suitable place to live and organise accommodation for myself and my two colleagues (also Engineering students) who will be with me. I was hoping you could offer me some advice on areas to live that would be close enough to Campbell for my daily commute, but also a lively enough place to keep us interested at weekends and evenings with things to see and do.
We are students, and we do want to have some fun even though we will be working long hours. ie. malls, beach, nightlife, scenery, biking, etc. etc. We will want to live in an area where there are plenty of other young people (University age) and methods to meet them through clubs or pubs or sport or whatever.
I think we will probably be getting around by bike or bus, but I do have a driving licence - what would you recommend?
Posted this in main CA forum but it may get more attention here as its more specific to San Jose
I am new to the forums here so I will give you a little background first. I am an Irish University student studying Mechanical Engineering. Having never been to the US before I decided this Summer I would try to find an Engineering related internship in California because, after all, it is the heart of design and manufacture of the US with the "Silicon Valley".
I have been lucky enough to secure a job at a medical device factory in Campbell, so my next task is to decide on a suitable place to live and organise accommodation for myself and my two colleagues (also Engineering students) who will be with me. I was hoping you could offer me some advice on areas to live that would be close enough to Campbell for my daily commute, but also a lively enough place to keep us interested at weekends and evenings with things to see and do.
We are students, and we do want to have some fun even though we will be working long hours. ie. malls, beach, nightlife, scenery, biking, etc. etc. We will want to live in an area where there are plenty of other young people (University age) and methods to meet them through clubs or pubs or sport or whatever.
I think we will probably be getting around by bike or bus, but I do have a driving licence - what would you recommend?
San Jose/Silicon Valley (and most of the US for that matter) is a tough place to live without a car. However, since the job is in Campbell, you should also be able to find a place to live there as well, as Campbell does have a decent number of apartments to rent. The other possibility would be sharing a house/rening rooms in houses (it might come out cheaper sharing a house). Rents throughout the area are very high.
So....if you lived and worked in Campbell, you should be able to get by without a car ok, but it may still feel kinda limiting if you want to go outside Campbell, especially on nights and weekends as public transit can be especially slow/inconvenient/non-existent at those times.
Silicon Valley is generally not a place with lots of nightlife action...but Campbell actually has a cute little downtown and a young and popular mayor. It has a great farmer's market on weekends as well. There is more to do for young people than some of the other Silicon Valley towns, but it won't knock your socks off.
Many young folks make the trek to San Francisco for weekend nightlife. But downtown San Jose, Palo Alto, and Mountain View are also nightlife centers, with Palo Alto being the hippiest/trendiest/wealthiest crowd.
So living somewhere like Palo Alto / Menlo Park and commuting to Campbell wouldn't be a major task trying to navigate heavy traffic? I would be a bit closer to San Francisco too so going there weekends/evenings would be made easier.
Here in Ireland the general advice for looking for property (or ANYTHING for that matter) is check Craigslist. All I hear is check Craigslist. But, are there any other forums for landlords to advertise rental property? Local papers maybe?
Go with Campbell. There is a light rail (tram) that goes into downtown San Jose which has night life (rowdy at times I hear). In San Jose, you can connect with the commuter train which goes to San Francisco.
Craigslist really is the best (by far) resource.
When you find places that interest you, run them by people on the San Jose forum.
They'll have a good sense of whether the add is legitimate or not.
When you know a community, it is relatively easily to spot the scams.
When you don't, it's not.
It's more easy in some communities that others however.
I can usually spot them in an instant in Santa Cruz county for example.
However, identifying scams in the entire Silicon Valley is much more of a challenge i imagine.
So living somewhere like Palo Alto / Menlo Park and commuting to Campbell wouldn't be a major task trying to navigate heavy traffic? I would be a bit closer to San Francisco too so going there weekends/evenings would be made easier.
Here in Ireland the general advice for looking for property (or ANYTHING for that matter) is check Craigslist. All I hear is check Craigslist. But, are there any other forums for landlords to advertise rental property? Local papers maybe?
Well, you certainly wouldn't be able to ride your bike to Campbell from Palo Alto/Menlo Park. It is commutable if you have a car. I am not a commuter so I can't be objective about how bad that commute would be. To me, any commute is a bad commute.
Most people use Craigslist in this area for rentals as well. The other thing you can do is scope out the area you're looking for and look to see if there are any "for rent" signs. That's how I found my place. The rental market in this area is pretty tight night now (as is the case most of the time, unfortunately).
Go with Campbell. There is a light rail (tram) that goes into downtown San Jose which has night life (rowdy at times I hear). In San Jose, you can connect with the commuter train which goes to San Francisco.
I used to travel around the world a lot for work when I was young, adventurous, and honestly more than a little wild.
I would suggest living close by your work rather than close by "nightlife". You are going to have to go back and forth to work 10 times a week during your entire stay - are you really going to go out every night? Besides, one can not underestimate the advantage of being able to roll out of bed, shower, and get to work with a hangover in 30 minutes or less . Another reason to live close by work: Commute times (7-9, 4-7PM) are going to be the times when it takes the longest to get anywhere. Going out for the evening (and getting back) the traffic will be much easier. And of course, it's a lot harder to bicycle to work from 20 miles away (Mountain View, Palo Alto) than 2 miles away.
Coming from Ireland, there is one thing that will surprise and delight you : you will probably never experience a drop of rain, or even a mist, between June 1st and Oct 1st. It happens, rarely, but the norm is no rain from June through September. Great for bicycling. You will soon be tired of the fact that everything is brown and dusty, though.
There is a light rail (electric tram) line from Campbell directly to downtown San Jose (where all the crazy stuff happens at night). Depending on how far you want to go to get places (and how often) it might be best to take public transportation rather than drive. But if you want to go far (beach, Palo Alto, San Francisco) it would be best to do it by car. It is possible to go to Santa Cruz, San Francisco, Palo Alto via public transportation, but it will take a lot longer than driving (unless you live close by a CalTrain station - the service that runs from San Jose to San Francisco - in which case it will be a snap). CalTrain and the tram (light rail) and all the busses in San Jose (and surrounding cities) allow bicycles, so you can bike to the station/stop which has the LONG, straight shot of several miles, then bike the last 800 feet to your destination (instead of having to change busses/trams 3 times and wait for each connection). Using a bike makes public transportation a LOT quicker and flexible.
Campbell has a VERY small downtown area (4-5 blocks) with some nightlife, so you can go out and drink close to home some nights.
CalTrain is the train (BIG train) that runs from San Jose to San Francisco (and stops in between, including SF airport). Tickets are NOT sold on trains or at the stations anymore. You get a rechargeable "fare card" called "Clipper Card" and use it for travel on almost EVERY public transportation system in the Bay Area. That includes the municipal/county bus systems of San Jose, San Francisco and everything on the penisnsula between them, as well as Oakland/Berkeley and BART (the regional train system for the North and Eastern part of the Bay, not San Jose). A round-trip ticket to SF from SJ would cost $18 PER PERSON on the train.
There is a "rent by the hour" car service in the area called "zipcar". It's about $10/hr including all gas and insurance (I think). It's very convenient and useful if you need a car for 2-3 hours a week, but expensive if you want a car for the entire weekend. Car Sharing, an alternative to car rental and car ownership – Zipcar
If you want to rent a car for the weekend, I have found that one of the most inexpensive is enterprise. They will come and pick you up and bring you to the rental shop. There is an office in Campbell near the light rail station :
2470 S WINCHESTER BLVD SUITE C
CAMPBELL, CA 95008
The renter MUST be 21 or over, and they will require a credit card to guarantee the rental. Make sure to NOT accept any extra "services", decline all additional insurance, and return the car with a FULL tank of gas (they charge double the rate for petrol). You may have extra rental car insurance through your current car club or insurance, or even your credit card. Check before you get here, and bring the documentation!
Looking on their web site, the rate appears to be around $40/day (+ all kinds of taxes, I'm sure) during the week for the smallest car. Picking up for the entire weekend (Fri eve at 6, returning Mon morn at 7:30) the rate appears to be $20/day. I'm not sure if that's $40 or $60 for the weekend. But if you want to go to the beach or San Francisco for the weekend, renting a car is probably the best bet. It would be cheaper to rent a car for a weekend than for 3 people to take the train to SF and back for one day. (Assuming you don't get any parking tickets, and don't have to pay for parking.) And you would have the car for the entire weekend, so you could also go to the beach the next day.
In California, driving while intoxicated is a VERY serious offense. There's a good chance that you would be arrested and spend a while in jail. "Intoxicated" is measured very low these days, approx the equivalent of drinking just two beers (that's a little over a pint, here)! So if you got out for the evening, dance, drink 3-4 beers and drive home, you could be in serious trouble. Another reason to take public transportation when going out to party.
You may be able to get Student rates for some things (maybe car rental) if you look into it before leaving home. Ask at your student union/student club/ etc.
And I second the suggestion that as you find possible places to live, you can post here and ask people about the area(s). Using google maps and the vta.org bus map, you can see how easy it will be to get to/from work from a particular address.
I hope this helps you some. Send me your contact info - I live in Campbell and we can talk when you get here if you have any questions, or we can hoist a few pints.
Oh, I almost forget : DON'T order Guiness while you are here. You will be very, very disappointed. The more you enjoy Guiness, the more disappointed you will be drinking it here. There's ONE bar in downtown San Jose that has a decent pull of Guiness. Honestly, I've come to think that they keep the best stuff in Ireland, ship the next best stuff to the rest of Europe, and the worst stuff to the U.S. Or maybe it isn't shipped properly to California.
PS : A friend showed me some short clips of "Mrs. Brown's boys" on youtube.com recently. It is outrageously rude, crude and shockingly lewd ... and completely, totally, outstandingly funny. I almost fell out of my chair laughing. There is NO way that show will ever air in the U.S., unfortunately (damn puritan ethic). Any chance the first season or two is for sale in Eire, and you might bring a DVD?? (I have a "worldwide" DVD player that plays any DVD from any region.)
I used to travel around the ....... ....... ....... ....... ....... ....... ....... ....... ....... .......ng a DVD?? (I have a "worldwide" DVD player that plays any DVD from any region.)
Marcopolo666, thank you for the most helpful post I have EVER seen on online message boards, and I have been using boards.ie here for years!
I am printing that out for future reference and passing it on to my two buddies.
Mrs. Browns boys LOL, its great comedy. I will check if there are DVDs available, no problem. And definitely I would be up for a pint (not Guinness!) when I arrive to help get my bearings and that kind of thing.
The advice given by everybody so far is to live near to work in Campbell and I completely agree. My current plan is to have a look at craigslist and other rental sites closer to the end of May when I will be arriving, and make a list of properties I want to go and see. But for the first few days to use Vacation rentals, private rooms, sublets by the night - Accommodations on Airbnb for a place to stay until we find somewhere more permanent.
Contact he company (companies) where you (you three) are going to intern. Ask them if they have relocation people who can help you find short term housing. Many companies have such things (but the smaller companies don't, I know). You could also ask if the company could ask internally if any employees would be willing to rent a room for 2 weeks while you got settled. It's worth a shot.
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. Another reason to live close by work: Commute times (7-9, 4-7PM) are going to be the times when it takes the longest to get anywhere. Going out for the evening (and getting back) the traffic will be much easier. And of course, it's a lot harder to bicycle to work from 20 miles away (Mountain View, Palo Alto) than 2 miles away.
