San Jose & WWDC 2017
Several weeks ago I was fortunate enough to attend WWDC! This year it was in San Jose, rather than San Francisco, which I was a bit bummed about, but I decided to do some exploring!
As I was landing I noticed these gorgeous purple trees, called Jacaranda, that are the same as the ones Nathaniel and I discovered in Lisbon last year! I couldn’t believe my eyes. I guess these trees are pretty common in places with climates like Portugal and Southern California, but my Colorado heart was so happy to see them again!
I stayed very close to the convention center, and nearby was a beautiful Catholic church and a couple museums. I didn’t have the time to go inside because of the conference, but walking/running by them was lovely. There’s also a bit of street art (both the walls and ground) nearby.
If you can, walk along the Guadalupe River Walk a bit. I tried running down it and ended up hitting a dead end one way, but it goes pretty far through the town, and has nice street markers on the ground. One of the parks along it even has a giant Monopoly board on the ground!
As far as food, here are a couple good spots I’d recommend:
Get an interesting cocktail (I got the Habanero Matador) and the octopus at Firehouse No. 1.
If you need some Italian comfort food, go to Original Joe’s.
Happy hour at Mosaic is reasonably priced. I got tuna tartare, pot stickers, and a cocktail (Firecracker Sour).
If you need food late, try Cafe Stritch. This is the jambalaya.
If you want a silly-named Mexican drink, look no further than Chacho's. This drink was called "No Panties" 😂
Definitely get an ice cream sandwich at CREAM (Cookies Rule Everything Around Me), where you can choose 2 cookies and your favorite flavor of ice cream, and even get things like sprinkles around the circumference of the sammy.
Don’t forget more dessert at Milk & Wood, where they have interesting popsicle flavors that you can drizzle chocolate and other toppings on 😋
Now, because this isn’t a blog about technology or coding, I won’t go into crazy details about the conference, but here are some of the highlights:
- The keynote is always fun, because they announce new technology. You can, of course, live stream it, but there’s just something about actually seeing Tim Cook in person and being there in a room full of nerds.
- Michelle Obama came and spoke! I love that she’s encouraging women to keep working in STEM. Plus I got interviewed for the local news while waiting to see her speak. 😜
- They have a series of lunchtime talks throughout the week. We got to hear from:
- Hidden Figures’ Christine Darden and how she excelled in a career at NASA.
- The Quadfather - a man who became a quadriplegic at a young age, and how programming and technology makes his life so much better.
- iLuminate’s Miral Kotb, who combined her love of coding and dance to create light up costumes for blackout dance performances.
- On the Thursday evening, there’s always a big party with a concert. This year they got Fall Out Boy, so my inner high-schooler, One Tree Hill loving heart and Disney girl were all happy 😉
- The swag was fun! Developers got black Levi's denim jackets, and pins! If you went to special events, they had extra pins to hand out, as well.
