San Francisco, California

I'm having a wonderful time in the amazingly beautiful city of San Francisco! (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/San_Francisco). The flight out here wasn't bad at all. This is really one of the most beautiful cities I have ever been to (and I've been a lot of places you know)! So far I've seen downtown, Chinatown (http://www.sanfranciscochinatown.com/), cable cars, Nob Hill, Telegraph Hill and Coit Tower (with an amazing 360 degree view of the Bay Area), Russian Hill, Lombard Street (the "crookedest street in the world"), Fisherman's Wharf (http://www.fishermanswharf.org/), Pier 39 (http://www.pier39.com/), Ghirardelli's Chocolate Factory (http://www.ghirardelli.com/), San Francisco Maritime Museum (http://www.nps.gov/safr/), and The Golden Gate Bridge and Alcatraz Island from a distance. Tomorrow morning I think we'll walk over to the famous postcard view of the row of colorful Victorian houses with the downtown skyline in the background (as seen in the opening of "Full House" TV show), and then head back to the conference. Its been fun walking around some of the residential neighborhoods too, seeing how people live around here and the types of homes.

Saturday morning I think a few of us will drive north across the Golden Gate Bridge to hike in Muir Woods (a Giant Redwood forest with great views of the Golden Gate and of San Francisco Bay area), and maybe go to Sausalito too. I'll unfortunately have to work again at the conference Saturday afternoon though.

All the food has been wonderful too. Had seafood at Fisherman's Wharf last night, and a Mexican meal this evening - they prepared the very fresh and delicious guacamole right at your table. I'd like to eat in Chinatown at some point before leaving though.

The conference is going well and I'm getting to see a lot of the sights too - I've probably walked I don't know how many miles by now around the city, which, despite being very hilly, is quite easy to get around. It's been fun hanging out with my buddies from UT as well, and meeting people from other universities who do similar research as I do. Working at the conference hasn't been too bad either.

I'm back at the youth hostel now making some preparations for my talk which is tomorrow (Friday) afternoon at 2:00 PM. I fly out around 11:30 AM Sunday morning and land in Birmingham around 10:30 PM Sunday (with a layover in Atlanta). I'll be sad to leave and have to go back to work Monday morning as there literally is so much to see and do here it would take a lot longer than four days. I definitely will have to come back here again someday!