Google Pittsburgh

While in town, we dropped in on the local Google office in Pittsburgh. As with many other Google offices, it has a lot of quirky and fun bits inside.

Just off the lobby is a "free little library" which has nothing to do with the Little Free Libraries, I am sure.

Guard is intimidating until you realize he's just an empty suit

The coffee shop in the building has a foam-decorating device. We weren't sure if it caramelized the foam or colored it with brown sugar or used some other method to put an image on your cup of caffeine. Patrons can even take a picture and have that image on their morning beverage. I decided on a local icon for my chai.

Such a handy gadget?

I drink the Pittsburgh Steelers for breakfast

One of the couches had a cute Android plushie.

The softer side of hard technology

The building also has a game room with arcade games, pinball machines, foosball tables, new and old game consoles, completed and uncompleted Lego sets, board games, jigsaw puzzles, and a ping-pong table. My son and I played a lot of ping-pong while my wife and daughter tried out some jigsaw challenges. We also played pinball, with me on a Terminator 3 machine and my family playing on an Addams Family-themed game.

Games

Electronic games

Recent Star Wars crafts

Lego variety shelf

The Android guy again!

I was shocked in one of the mini-kitchens to see that their hard boiled eggs contain egg!

Is this warning really necessary?

The rooftop deck gives a good view of the area, though the building is not near downtown.

I think downtown is in that direction

More neighbors

My wife speculated that Google has offices here specifically to recruit Carnegie Mellon and Pitt graduates. It's not too huge for a Google office but has plenty to recommend it. We saw a guy grilling on the rooftop as part of the lunches provided for Googlers. We had the regular stuff downstairs at the cafeteria (though no pictures, sorry!).

NYC 2026 Trip--Google NYC

We visited the Manhattan Google office in the former Port Authority Building. Like a lot of Google buildings, some whimsy is added to make the Googlers' work lives more happy. The outside does not exhibit that whimsy.

Google NYC

While we were waiting for our guest badges to print off, my kids found mechanical flowers hanging from the ceiling that open up when you approach them

What is that not growing up there?

Wandering around, we found a small museum of old technology. My children were fascinated by discs that were almost disk shaped and the great variety of keyboards. They even have an abacus on display!

Home for abandoned tech

Counting the old fashioned way

The building also has a game room which features pingpong, pool tables, foosball, board games, and video games including a DDR-style game. We tried out the later but only my wife was any good at it. She had plenty of practice back in the day. 

So much to play!

The classic

Another hallway has a display of Lego creations by Googlers, including a QR code that was a joke. A nearby table has more Lego for people to make new creations and add them to the shelves.

What would you build?

The roof is accessible in good weather, allowing views of Manhattan.

Empire State Building in the distance

More skyscrapers

View to New Jersey

View south to the World Trade Center

A church nestled in among the buildings!

Kooky and expensive hotel across the street

We visited several of the mini-kitchens to get snacks, along with having lunch at the cafeteria. The company takes care of its employees and their guests! It was a fun visit.

California 2025 Trip--Day Three

Day three of our California trip took us to a couple of different places.

I went and did some caching while everyone else visited a Google office, discovering a dino with a flamingo and finding other treats.

Neither dino nor flamingo is in good shape!

Getting your picture taken may not be a treat

We visited Shoreline with the historic Rengstorff House (which was not open for touring). The nearby lake and bit of San Francisco Bay provided nice walks.

Rengstorff House

The original owners bought a windmill from Montgomery Ward for less than $50 in the early 1900s. They had to put it together to irrigate their farm and home, but probably well worth it!

Water house and wind mill in the backyard

The shoreline...no, really!

We drove over to a local library to kill some time before meeting family at Stanford University for a picnic and some exploring.

Mitchell Park Library

On campus, our first stop was the Rodin Sculpture Garden to see some of the great works of Auguste Rodin.

Sign we were in the right place

Claude Lorrain stands up high

Orpheus

The family was cool enough to recreate Three Shades, the sculpture, in real life!

Three Shades become six!

Martyr

The star of the garden is a casting of The Gates of Hell, one of Rodin's masterpieces that incorporates The Thinker and Three Shades at the top. The Gates are flanked by statues of Adam and Eve.

The Gates of Hell

Adam

Eve

A Burgher of Calais and Jules Bastian Lepage were also immortalized by Rodin.

Burgher of Calais

Jean Bastian Lapage

Further in the campus, we saw their bell tower and the campus church.

Bell Tower and outer buildings

Church exterior

Inside was quiet and interesting.

Nave

Main altar

Organ

A fun thing about Stanford is that some of the fountains are okay for people to wade in! This fountain outside the bookstore was a favorite, though the student union had a deeper one that was more popular.

People allowed, not books

Smaller, deeper fountain

Trying to make a whirlpool

Sunnyvale, California, 2024

Some random pics from Sunnyvale, California...

We visited one of the Google offices, got some snacks and saw some sights on the campus. They have bikes in case you need to get from building to building quickly.

Google bikes

A lot of the buildings have secret rooms that are not on the floor layout maps. We discovered two rooms, though one was occupied by someone else so we didn't go inside.

Secret room that felt a bit Mediterranean

Door to nautical-themed room (also occupied room)

The office buildings have recreational rooms. This one had a ping pong table!

Game room decor

Team #1

Team #2

Serving

One of the rooms is a blinged-out private movie theater with a jungle theme.

Jungle theater

A lot of other cosy spaces provide a break from the usual office decor.

Is it an alcove or a couch?

An odd vase

Mass transit just outside the buildings

Hammocks!

My daughter relaxing

Two boys snoozing

We went to Sunnyvale's downtown hoping to get some mochi donuts but the shop was sold out of donuts at 7 p.m. The place was way too pink anyway.

The picture doesn't do it justice

We walked over to Murphy Street for other options and wound up at a gelato place.

Restaurants on Murphy

View in the other direction

Ice cream shop

The Shrine of Our Lady of Peace is also in town. A three-story tall statue of Our Lady was commissioned by Msgr. John Sweeny in 1980. Delaware artist Charles Parks worked on it at his workshop, building it outdoors. The work drew crowds in Delaware, so when the statue was completed and moved to California in 1982, it again drew crowds and became a pilgrimage site. 

Immaculate Heart of Mary statue

Regular, life-sized statue of St. John Paul II

We went to Laughing Monk Brewing for dinner one night. I had a personal flight (the official flight is ten samples!) of four beers. In left to right order below: Hefeweizen (wheat ale, 5.3% ABV) was a very good hefe; Irreverent Wit (Belgian-style white ale, 5.3% ABV) was not as good as the hefe; Holy Ghost (Pilsner, 5.2%) was a charming name but just a regular pilsner to me (I am not a pilsner fan, but at least I give it a try now and then unlike IPA); Midnight Velvet (Stout, 5.8% ABV) was a smooth drinking stout that I enjoyed best of all the beers.

Beers!

We also got the Bavarian pretzel which was very nice.

Pretzel on a hangar

The logo

Omescape is a local escape room with one room that has a cooking challenge. The room is called Undercooked. We had a very large group, nine people, so we ran the room twice. In it, players need to make menu items by finding ingredients and recipes hidden throughout the room, which included the main kitchen, a pantry, and a garden area. Group #1 finished with $180, 15 completed dishes, sous chef status, and five stars. Group #2 finished with $130 at 17 completed dish and five stars, though the computer that tracked recipes reset during their time so the employee had to input some data manually. So the results are not conclusive. But my team won.

Group #1

Group #2

We had dinner at Metro City Restaurant and Bar where I had a delightful peanut butter porter. That's the only picture I took there!

So nice, I drank it twice!

We had another visit to Google, this time by the Visitor Experience, located near the main Googleplex. Gradient Canopy is the newest showcase building created by Google. It blends aesthetics with practicality and efficient use of environmental resources. The roof is covered with solar panels but they are arranged to create a tile effect that gently slopes to the edge. This helps to use solar energy while allowing natural light into the building for the workers. It also gathers rainwater for use in the building and surrounding gardens.

Gradient Canopy building

Unimpressed tourists

In addition to work space for employees, the building has a Google merch store, a cafe, and the "huddle" space for special events. The events space includes a small theater that runs a promotional video for the building when other things aren't going on. 

The Huddle logo

In the walkways and gardens around the building are several works of art. The first we saw is Quantum Meditation II by Julian Voss-Andreae, made in 2022. The creator's background in quantum physics inspired this statue that "disappears" in a direct view.

Quantum Meditation II

The vanishing bit

Back to a solid

Further on is Curious by Mr. and Mrs. Ferguson Art from 2022. The bear's fur is made of more than 160,000 pennies. 

Curious

Doesn't disappear with a front view (though my child is almost invisible)

Go by Hou de Sousa (also from 2022) is inspired by the ancient Chinese game. Each of the pieces (600 in this work) has a question asked by Google users, though that is a small portion of the 3.5 billion queries they get each year.

Go

The Orb by Marc Fornes is a self-supporting aluminum sculpture hand assembled.

The Orb

Zachary Coffin's Rockspinner is a multi-ton boulder that can be rotated by just about anyone thanks to ball bearings and engineering ingenuity. 

My kids spin the rock

On the way to the Googleplex we saw Halo designed by SOFTlab in 2022. The thin films inside reflect different waves of light causing a multicolored show that was rather amazing.

Halo

Inside Halo

We finally made it to the Googleplex, the main headquarters buildings of the company. The area has several statues of the Android operating system mascot, one of which is seen below.

Googleplex and Android

The complex has a dinosaur skeleton. Rumor has it that the T-Rex (named Stan) was attacked by a flock of pink flamingos. Apparently he ate his assailants, if his scat is anything to judge by.

Stan got no nutritional value from the birds

Dino poop (why doesn't Google clean this up?)

The central area also has a volleyball court though no one was using it while we were there (and we did not bring a ball, alas). 

Exercise room and sun room in one?

I was amazed to see this tree growing out of the underground garage. I'm sure in a hundred years it will cause trouble.

Has it been imprisoned for some crime?