On Saturday, we took the BART into the city, wandered to the conference center to see where we would we would be spending our week, and grabbed some pizza. Since it was around 60 degrees (a good 45 degrees warmer than Ithaca was when we flew out that morning), we wanted to sit outside. The hostess told us that normally, we could, but to let us outside, she'd have to open the door, and this would create a draft that would upset the customers indoors. It took my mind nearly a minute to grasp that the 60 degree temperatures outside would be considered a draft inside. Silly Californians. :)
Later that night, we wandered over to Bi-Rite creamery and had their special sundaes. Sheila and I had two versions of their ice cream, olive oil, sea salt, and whipped cream sundaes. Yup, you read that right. They were good. Strange, but tasty. We wandered back and fell asleep by 10 p.m., exhausted.
This morning, Sheila and I went to the Science communication workshop, ran into three other Cornell or ex-Cornell students, and learned about the complexities and nuances that exist in the research/media interface. Part of the workshop included filming ourselves giving 90 second elevator speeches on our research, and then playing them in front of the whole workshop. It was stressful, but very helpful.
The rest of the afternoon we had free to play. Veronica arrived around noon. Joe drove down from San Jose to play with us, which was great. I hadn't seen him in 9 months, since he moved to California.
For lunch today, we stopped at a Turkish restaurant to enjoy their food and make silly faces.
Sheila makes a silly face.
Christian makes a silly face.
Veronica makes a silly face while eating.
Joe doesn't want to make a silly face.
And neither do I.
This is was Californians think snow is. It was 50 degrees outside.
Christian high-fives some six-armed, three-headed Buddhist statue. I think they both have excellent high-fiving skills.
We went to the Golden Gate Bridge, and arrived just after sunset. Sheila is posing next to a side-view of one of the main cables that holds the bridge up. It's huge, and amazing.
Joe, Christian, Veronica, and Sheila pose before walking onto the bridge.
We all pose, now on the bridge. It was windy, and dark, and "cold" (about 45 degrees).
We walked to the first tower before we turned around. Later, because we didn't know where we were going, we drove across the bridge (on accident), got some coffee, and hung out.
Sheila high-fices a yeti. Their high-five skills are not as good as Christian's.
