First Night In San Francisco

Well, I've arrived in San Francisco now and got settled in to my hotel. I arrived about 2.00pm local time after an 11 hour flight, so had a quick wander around the area local to my hotel, got something to eat and crashed out around 6.00pm. It's actually 6.30am at the moment, so my internal clock is still a bit out of sync and I thought I'd do a blog post before going down and getting something to eat.

I'm in the King George Hotel just off of Union Square, which I thought would be quite apt to stay in as it's a "British-themed" hotel that has a bar called "Winstons" and serves High Tea in the afternoons. Unfortunately it's a bit more like Fawlty Towers than the Dorchester and like all the small hotels I've stayed in in the USA (one infact, in New York) there's no coffee and tea making facilities, no fridge and no mini-bar. Still, it's got free broadband internet access (which was actually what really caught my eye) and it's just down the road from the Moscone Center, which is where Open World is being held.

A word to the wise to anyone else coming over on Virgin Atlantic to San Francisco - the seat pitch in economy is ludicrously small, to the point where I, being just over 6' tall could only just squeeze myself in, and had literally no room to move my legs. To make it even more amusing the person next to me was an ex-college footballer who could only just squeeze himself into the seat (he had to leave the armrest slightly up to accommodate his thighs), which meant that he and I were going to be getting to know each other really well for the next 11 hours. In the end I made a fuss and they moved me to one of the front-row seats, but I can't believe that Virgin can honestly think that anyone slightly bigger or taller than average could fit in their economy seats. On the way back I'm going to have to pay 50 more to book a bulkhead seat, even worse pay up the extra for an economy plus ticket. I thought that you only got this with charter flights, but obviously Virgin are doing this now on their flights across the Atlantic. Don't ever go on Virgin economy if you're over 6' tall.

I had a look around the hotel area before crashing out last night  and took a wander around Union Square and Market Street, and as I am here on my own (at least for now) it's was all bit daunting but exciting and given a bit of extra spice by not having slept for around 36 hours. One of the funny things coming over to America is that you feel like you're in a film set, what with everyone speaking in an American accent, the cars, shops, buildings and layout of everything, and one thing I doubt I'll ever get used to is American TV, which always seems to have hundreds of channels with exactly the same program on (although we're much the same now with Sky) and everything presented in the same, frenetic and dramatic manner. Oddly, it feels stranger here than going to somewhere like Paris or even Asia - perhaps it's because on the one hand, it's all very familiar, yet on the other, you're always being surprised by the way they do things different.

I've got a spare day today to have a proper look around, with an on-site speaker meeting at 1.00pm at the Moscone Center, and then I'm being taken out on an "OTN Appreciation Dinner" to the Oola Restaurant & Bar later on this evening. Until then, I'm off to get some breakfast now (I might even be daring and go for hot grits and waffles and eggs-over-easy from the Diner just next to the hotel) and hit the shops straight after.