First day of a real job, this is something to mark with a white stone 
I am so happy I made the choice of joining this company: all the new employee orientation was about belief in people’s honesty, ambition of changing the world when you come at work everyday, personal development, innovation, intrapreneurship… instead of the traditional review of benefits that you would have in any other company. It was… inspirational, and so American! My team is great, my mission is great, but I won’t detail that here, sorry
At lunch (where of course I had a French salad!), I ran into another expat I got to know in the French office, and whose blog has helped so much when I got to go through all the expatriation stuff! For a minute I got this great impression “I know someone here, a friendly face!!!”: Seb, I’m sure you didn’t realize how happy you made me!
I have asked my team about my dilemma with apartments… they all say that I should live in SF… if only I could find a decent apartment there! I think I’m going to stick to my first idea of staying in San Jose, except that I’ll have to find something close to work, with easy access to Caltrain (the only way to go to SF without a car!), and with shops around… because even if the apartment I live in currently is amazingly nice, I miss civilization when I look through the window and only see fields! It reminds me of Jouy-en-Josas; those who lived there will understand my misery 
I’ll keep you posted on my apartment hunting guys!
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My pleasure! I was happy to see you too… finally
I hesitated to respond to you in French .. but do it in English finally
Close to San Jose, there is a place where I live with my wife named North Park (north of 1st street). It is a very quiet and nice place to live (plenty of commodities and activities), very close of the VTA and nor far from Caltrain. Do not hesitate to ask us some questions if any.
Good luck for your installation.
David
Oups, I did not notice that you already live in the same complex
I completely agree that North park looks like Jouy (but I did not remember that HEC was so luxury :-). Forget my idea so, but honnestly, it will be difficult to find something with light rail and Caltrain here. I spent time to look for when I arrived in October and honnestly, San Jose is that way, not the best place to live. Mountain view is probably a better place (almost 35 mn VTA from downtown SJ, with direct access to the Caltrain, some shops, restaurants). Good luck again.
Hi David,
This is so nice of you to have taken time to advise me! The main problem is that I don’t have a car, which seems worse than having a fatal disease here! So living far from San Jose will be difficult… And as much as I hate leaving North Park because it is such a great place to live, I really can’t stand having a 1 hour commute during the week, no shops around, and be obliged to come back from San Francisco at 9pm on week ends to be able to catch the last Caltrain and Light Rail…
I think I might have found an alternative: I found a residence online close to San Jose Diridon, and my company has a shuttle that drives from Diridon to the corporate campus in 15 min… and Diridon is a Caltrain stop so I would be able to go to San francisco without too much trouble… and there are apparently restaurants around… I’m going to visit it on Saturday and if the apartment is correct, I think I’m going to jump on it since it is probably the best deal I can find in my situation.
Thanks again for your insight!