I’m in San Francisco and ready for WWDC next week. This week I’ll meet friends and do some touristy things in and around the city... Thanks to everyone who posted comment tips to my earlier travel blog entry.

The trip was nice but it was a long day with all the time shifts on the way from Europe to the US west coast. Having the US immigration service take my fingerprints and mug shot sucks. On my connecting flight from Washington, DC to San Francisco, I was pleasantly surprised by Independence Air, they have great prices and very friendly staff both on the ground and on board.

After all the long flights, waiting times and a quick BART ride I was glad to drop into my hotel bed. I’m staying at the Taylor Hotel at the corner of Taylor and Post (can you tell I love Google Maps :-) It is immensely helpful). The hotel is pretty bare-bones but clean and affordable, with friendly management. Unfortunately I can’t pick up their free wireless signal in the lobby from my room and I can’t be bothered to go down there every time I need Internet connectivity. Luckily, there are about five to six other wireless networks visible from my room if I move my Laptop and tilt its screen just right :-) Several of the networks are unprotected and I can use one of them to connect, although the weak signal keeps it rather flaky.

I spent most of today walking around and shopping, most stores were open for business even though it was Memorial Day. I could resist the PSP for now, but I’ll be here for two more weeks and the SONY center that has them in stock is across the street from Moscone West, so you know what will happen one of these days :-)

I also had an exceptionally tasty dinner at the Toy Boat Dessert Cafe, which I highly recommend.

Tomorrow I’m off to the Apple campus in Cupertino for a meeting, and since I already have the rental car for the day I’ll probably spend a few hours in Palo Alto which I really liked last time.

For those attending WWDC, here are the sessions I plan to attend, although it will probably change several more times.

BTW, I am *very* impressed by iCal’s cross-timezone capabilities. I used the program to plan all my travel details and by correctly marking the events with their time zones and switching the view time zone at the appropriate times, I was always organized. This is something you almost never use or notice, but when you do need it and it works so well, it’s invaluable.