Cupertino diary, day 3

Monday 18 June, 2018. 22:13

Today was the first day of the ISO meeting. I got up a bit before 07:00 and went down to the breakfast room to have some fruit and a bagel. I met Urabe-san there again and we sat at a table together with his new associate, who is here as a stand in for Shimodaira-san, who has suffered a cerebral aneurysm and has been in hospital for the past three weeks, although Urabe-san says he is recovering. They were catching a taxi to Apple for the meeting and offered me a ride with them, but I said I would walk.

One Infinite Loop
Apple Campus, One Infinite Loop

I left about 07:30 and walked south then west, crossing the freeway and walking through a residential area, finally arriving at De Anza Three, the building where our meeting was, in the original Apple Campus just across an access street from the old One Infinite Loop office. We were in the Beatles meeting room. Next door was the Crosby, Stills, Nash, & Young room, and also nearby were The Beach Boys, Pink Floyd, The Doors, Jefferson Airplane, The Who, and Journey rooms.

Beatles Conference Room
Monkey at the Beatles Conference Room, Apple Campus

Apple supplied some bagels and pastries first thing as we started, then snacks throughout the day, as well as lunch. Lunch was boxed sandwiches or salads, with bags of chips, a cookie, and an apple. There was quite a choice, with about ten different options. I chose the vegetarian sandwich, which came with a sour cream and dill sauce, which I resisted at first, but after trying a small taste I liked it so much that I used the rest on the remainder of the sandwich. I didn’t eat the chips though. The cookie was choc chip with crunchy rice crisps, and was very nice.

Box lunch
Lunch at the ISO meeting

After the various administrative and technical discussions of the day, we headed to the Caffè Macs Alves, which is an Apple cafeteria that was built as a prototype of the eateries in the new Apple Park campus. It’s a large open dining space with a very high ceiling. I commented on this to Paul and he said the one at Apple Park has a ceiling more than twice as high, making it the largest restaurant in the world by volume.

Dinner at Caffè Macs, Alves
Dinner at Caffè Macs

There was sparkling wine, white, and red, as well as three types of craft beer. The food was a buffet with a salad with parmesan, grilled flank steak sliced into small portions, grilled salmon with a caper sauce and pistachios, vegetable lasagne, spicy green beans, and roast potatoes with rosemary. It was all really good. I tried the summer ale on offer, with the other choices being a pilsner and an Indian pale ale. It was very nice, but noticeably strong and when I checked the alcohol content saw that it was 6.5%. And for dessert there were white chocolate profiteroles, raspberry friands, and blueberry custard tarts, also all good.

Dessert at Caffè Macs
Desserts at Caffè Macs

After eating and chatting with the various attendees, I walked home to the hotel. This was a further walk than in the morning because the cafe was in the other direction from the meeting room. Back at the hotel I relaxed a bit, talked with M. on FaceTime, had a shower, and wrote this diary before bed.

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