Hey, good to hear from you :) California is no place to drive unless you were born and raised there like me. And it even scares me now. It used to be, turn on your blinker and change lanes - the guy behind knew you were coming over and generally slowed down rather than risk a dent. Nowdays, there are way too many people for whom english is a second language and driving becomes a destruction derby. Hope you have a great time there :)
I’m right smack dab in the middle of silicon valley, right off of a part of El Camino Real. Every day when I drive the Fellow to work, I pass by places like Ebay and Yahoo, and SanDisk. It’s crazy. I’ve gotten used to driving around here, as long as I’m very careful about changing lanes, and try to plan ahead while picking them. I have a GPS with me, and that is immensely helpful. In many ways, the roads here make more sense than out in MA, and are definitely more clearly marked. However, often the right lane will suddenly end in a ramp, even on the main roads, and I’ve gotten sucked into god knows where many times already. And the ramps are banked too. That’s interesting. The highways are different out her because in MA, you can use the right lane to both get on and off the highway and to travel in... and I think that CA is the only place that I’ve been where the right lane is used only to get on and off the highway more often than not.