San Francisco trip

So - was over in San Francisco for the B-Sides SF security conference (and also managed to pop into RSA) which I have blogged aboutin a separate post, but as I managed to have some time to see the city and friends I thought I'd blog the non-work stuff as well.

After leaving Edinburgh in freezing temperatures, with ice on the cars, I had an excellent flight over with Virgin Atlantic, despite being in cattle class the whole way. It was a fairly empty plane, so by the time we arrived in SF I had been able to stretch out, watch 4 films and was raring to go. Was picked up from the airport by Danny - and the plan was to celebrate his birthday, so straight back to San Rafael in Marin County where the weekend commenced in 27 degree temperatures!

Marin County is beautiful, and all the restaurants visited were excellent. Definitely recommend Taqueria Bahia! Most of the evening's festivities were courtesy of Country Club Bowl, and then the Mayflower, finishing up with Soul Food on the way home.
Good to meet so many fun and interesting people.

Saturday morning, and off to Theresa and Johnny's Comfort Food in San Rafael - big breakfast saved the day.
We then took in a tour out to Point Reyes, near Inverness, and had a chilled out day, before heading off to watch the B-Side 70's kick off their tour at the Broadway Studios.

Sunday, got a lift into the city to check into the Hilton Union Square. Got a brilliant room upgrade to the 42nd floor, and then met up with Stew, a long term poster on the Empeg BBS who took me for a car tour of SF in his supercharged Honda Del Sol, starting with the corner of Haight and Ashbury :-)
Really enjoyed seeing Lombard Street, Fisherman's Wharf, the drive to Treasure Island to see the city from there, Coit Tower and then over through the Presidio to the Cliff House for dinner with more empeg guys - Hugo and Neil, as well as Neil's wife Lucia. Cheers for an excellent evening guys, and a huge thanks to Stew for driving me round everywhere.

Monday and Tuesday were all about the B-Sides conference, covered over on the 7Elements blog, and then on Wednesday before heading home I managed to take a trip on the trolley cars - in hail and snow (very briefly)

Many thanks again to Danny for the airport runs, as well as putting me up for the weekend and taking me out to some excellent places.

Definitely want to go back!