Let's Fly to Google I/O Pt. 2 - Stick the Landing
Tags: io19, beginners, discuss, devjournal
Published: 2019-05-06 21:24:14

---
title: Let's Fly to Google I/O Pt. 2 - Stick the Landing
description: One developer's experience at his first international tech conference. What could possibly go wrong 😜?
tags: io19, beginners, discuss, journal
published: true
series: Let's Fly to Google I/O
---

Having landed safe and sound at SFO, it's time to get acclimatized and prepare for tomorrow's excitement.

## Part Two: Stick the Landing

On the plane ride over to San Francisco, I met an Israeli delegation from [Wix](https://wix.com) (try their product!), some of whom were also first timers. Our plan arrived early, and as a reward, we had to wait on the tarmac because they couldn't open the doors until passport control opened, So we got to know each other a little. At passport control, I really got to appreciate how privileged I am to carry a Canadian passport. Many of the other passengers on my flight had to have various body parts catalogued by border officers, but I didn't.

My new friends from Wix offered for me to tag along in the Uber to the venue (thanks, Tom, Lital, Yedidyah, Adam, and Guy), So I went with them to register early.
We shuffled around the airport for a few minutes until we found the creatively-named "Ride App Pickup". There, not two minutes out of the door, a local news station interviewed me about the driver's strike on Wednesday. Not even three hours in the States and I got myself on TV 😅... This is going to go well.

Traffic on the way to the venue was a mess, I hope it will be better tomorrow (prediction: it won't). Thankfully, registration was fairly painless, and we were quickly in another Uber on our way to the city.

## Forgot to Wear Flowers in my Hair
San Francisco is a beautiful city. There were parts of the city that reminded me of downtown Toronto and others that reminded me of, oddly, downtown Winnipeg. I got off at my old friend's place downtown and we went out for a cup of fancy coffee from a place called "Philz" (which, I'm told, secured several rounds of VC funds... 🤷‍♂️) and a walk along the exceedingly picturesque Embarcadero.

I'm really disappointed that I can't visit the [new train station](https://salesforcetransitcenter.com/) downtown. I've read a little about it and it seems (seemed?) like an important project. Apparently there were some [serious engineering problems](https://sf.curbed.com/2019/5/3/18280918/transbay-transit-center-timeline-calendar-dates-bio-history), so it's closed to visitors pending expensive, extensive renovations.

I'm also more than a little underwhelmed to discover that the world famous Silicon Valley is actually a collection of suburban office parks. I dunno, I guess something inside of me was expecting something a little more forward thinking? I'll work on checking that bias over the next few days, though.

## Eppes Essen
Turns out there are more kosher restaurants in San Fran than I anticipated. Neat-o! My gracious host went out of his way to procure plenty of kosher food for me to eat, too. What a guy! And, at the high end grocer we wandered into downtown, they had kosher-certified plaintain chips - my fav!

Since I didn't sleep on the long flight over, my energy is dwindling fast. But I'm here to stretch myself a little bit not just to be my usual lazy-bones homebody self, so I'm off to go wander around Chinatown. Wish me luck!

## Random Notes
- I'm finally seeing more [#webcomponents](https://dev.to/t/webcomponents) developers tweeting about the event.
- There was literally a Google I/O [challah cover](https://www.google.com/search?q=challah+cover) in the swag bag.
- On the drive from Mountain View to San Fran, you will see billboards for (in order) - Task Management SaaS, some company's REST API, and high-class weed delivered to your door.

Thanks for reading, and hey if you're at [#io19](https://dev.to/t/io19) and want to meet up, drop me a line here, on Twitter, or in the Polymer Community or WeAllJS Slack.