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Santa Clara?


Mrs_JWM
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My husband asked me the other day whether I would want to live in Santa Clara for a month. His company needs someone to go there for a month, so my daughter and I woukd come, too. He thiks it would be in about six months. Won't you tell me about it, please?!!

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I stay in Santa Clara city which is in Santa Clara county. It has Great America and Levi's Stadium (49ers). It also has the Intel Museum.
You'll likely be provided with a furnished rental and car rental. California booster car seat law is until age 8.
ETA:
Great America would be probably off season. Disneyland is about an 8hr drive south going by Big Sur, Lake Tahoe for winter sports is about 5hrs north. The Jelly Belly factory is an easy drive north. Monterey Bay Aquarium and California Academy of the Sciences are easy drives.

The view from UC Berkeley is lovely from Lawrence Hall of Science. Stanford U has a lovely Cantor Arts Center that is free to visit.

ETA:
The libraries are well stocked in foreign langauge books and some foreign language newspapers. Plenty of ethnic supermarkets to visit.

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If they provide housing, it could be a lot of fun for you. Weather is usually pretty good and there are lots of things to do- museums, parks, missions. You'd also be pretty close to San Francisco, and you could easily do Disneyland too.

 

Well, it's about a six-hour drive to Disneyland, so I guess you could say it's easy. :-) And it would be fun to drive down Hwy. 101 (instead of I-5), through San Luis Obispo and Santa Barbara and all that.

 

We lived in San Jose for 16 years and loved it (San Jose and Santa Clara are pretty much just one big city, with Cupertino and Palo Alto and Fremont and Campbell and the rest).

 

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My husband asked me the other day whether I would want to live in Santa Clara for a month. His company needs someone to go there for a month, so my daughter and I woukd come, too. He thiks it would be in about six months. Won't you tell me about it, please?!!

SUPER fun place to go, although I haven't lived there in decades.  You will find more responses (and/or get more responses) by searching the boards (or posting) under "San Jose" or San Francisco Bay Area.  There was a recent thread at the end of summer, but I've never successfully worked the search under these new boards.

 

There's the Rosicrucian Museum in downtown SJ, one of the best mummy museums you'll ever see.  There's a wonderful aquarium down in Monterey, the beach in Santa Cruz, a few Missions (as in where the Catholic priests settled 200 years ago) that are nearby, and a few hours away is "Gold Country."  San Francisco is ~40 mins. away and has endless possibilities for you--Alcatraz, Golden Gate Bridge, Pier 39, trolley or cable cars, Golden Gate Park with its museum and Japanese Tea Garden, the Children's (science/discovery?) museum . . . it really depends on what would be new and different for you!

 

If it's for a month, I'd totally go.  They'll be paying for your husband's lodging, and if there are just two more of you, it's not like you'd need a bigger place.  ::shrug::

 

(As for me, I've achieved my personal parenting goal of avoiding both Disneyland and Disney World during my kids' time at home.  I wouldn't waste the car time for that trip.  :) )

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Dh had an internship there when we were in college and it was so. much. fun. Yes it's expensive. Rent for our little 1br apartment was more than our mortgage payment is now.

Every time he got 4 hours of vacation, we'd take off for a long weekend. We took the train to SanFrancisco a few times, drove down to Monterrey Bay and Carmel, visited the Redwood forest... There is a lot of ethnic diversity too. We had a lot of Indian families around (like from India, not Native Americans). We went out for lunch in ChinaTown one day, where none of the servers spoke English, and the best meal I've ever had was at a little Afghani restaurant near our apartment.

 

There's so much to do there, and it's close to lots of beautiful places.

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I vote yes, of course, because then we would be neighbors for a little bit.  It is the housing that is killer expensive so if that is covered come on over for a look see.  There the redwoods, some beautiful beaches, missions, and San Francisco's Legion of Honor museum (my favorite museum ever) all within an hour's drive.  In fact if you are going to be here in January or February, you might want to cruise over to the Monterey Bay Aquarium website.  There are four Homeschool days in those two months and if you can snag reservations starting on October 8th you can save some money.  San Jose also has the Tech Museum of Innovation which has a great Star Wars exhibit through February and in San Francisco is the California Academy of Sciences in Golden Gate Park.

 

Come to California!

 

Amber in SJ

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The climate is very mild here, and pleasant. 

Santa Clara is a great town!  It has an excellent children's library and a pretty well-regarded aquatic center, and good parks. 

If you decide to take an interest in CA history while you are here, a walk called the Los Trancos Earthquake Walk about 1/2 hour up the road is a nice intro to plate tectonics.  Next, the Sanborn Museum in the next town has good exhibits about local native American customs.  Then visit the Peralta Adobe in San Jose (10 minutes from Santa Clara) and then the mission complex in San Juan Bautista (1 hour south) to learn about the early settlers.  After that it's on to the Gold Rush, in Colombia (2 hours away), and Sutter's Fort ( 2 1/2 hours away).  Follow this with a trip to Carson City, Nevada (about 4 hours) to see the state museum and learn more about mining and minerals--maybe a side trip to Virginia City would be in order.  Definitely hike or at least walk in the Lake Tahoe area on the way back.  Tour San Francisco for a few days.

 

Then back to the Tech Museum in downtown San Jose.  Awesome stuff!

 

You will love it here if you don't have to pay your own rent.  Everything else is reasonably priced, the climate can't be beat, and there is lots to see and do.

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Thank you for all your wonderful replies! I've never spent any time out west, so I think this will be really fun! Amber, I'll be in touch! :)

 

We're not Disney people, so I don't anticipate a visit up there. :)

 

Disneyland is *down* from Santa Clara, but yeah, if I were going to be in the Bay Area for only a month, even I might not want to make a six-hour trip down there. :-)

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