I'm Bacl

I'm back and I'm tired. Please don't try to ring me, my phones will be off until I've had some sleep.

Silicon Valley

I spent the day both yesterday on today down in Silicon Valley.

Yesterday I went to Mountain View and spent most of my time at The Computer History Museum. They've recently taken delivery of the second replica of Babbage's Difference Engine (the world's earliest design of computer - completely mechanical) from The Science Museum, London where they built it - and where you can see the first replica. They're quite excited about it and were giving demonstrations. It's quite amazing to watch it working.

They've also got part of an ENIAC the world's first Turing complete, programmable electronic computer*; part of a SAGE (think War Games); a Cray System 2, one of the earliest super-computers; and numerous early personal computers, calculators, main-frames and minis. They didn't have the Acorn Atom, one of the computers I wanted to see, on display though. Apparently they do have one in their collection but it's at a warehouse off site.

I also visited the nearby Googleplex, HQ of that super-power which runs half of The Internet (Blogger included) and The Mozilla Foundation, who make the software which you can access The Internet (and Google) with.

Today I explored more of the valley area, including Sunnyvale (Yahoo!, Palm), Cupertino (almost entirely owned by Apple), Palo Alto (HP, Stanford University) and San Jose (Adobe Systems, eBay, Cisco Systems, Intel, AMD, Nvidia, etc.). I invested in some junk from the Apple Company Store at their HQ.

My flight home leaves at 16:50 tomorrow, I think I'll head back into San Francisco in the morning - see if I can get that cable car ride.

Oh, I forgot to mention last time: There was an earthquake here a couple of nights ago. About factor 4, so the same strength as we had a few months ago, but it only lasted a few seconds. And no-one round here blinked or cared.

*Although they're peddling it as the world's first programmable computer, but of course that wasn't ENIAC it was Colossus - the World War II code breaking computer at Bletchley Park, England. And ENIAC did not use a binary numeral system (like all modern computers) when Colossus did.

San Francisco

Having made my way from LA to San Francisco the plan yesterday was to walk all the way along The Embarcadero, Fisherman's Wharf and The Marina to the Golden Gate Bridge, then back into town to take a cable car up to Lombard Street and walk down the zig-zaggy bit. I didn't quite manage all of that but I had a really good day none-the-less.

On getting into town and finding my way onto the front I was just going to get a photo of the Bay Bridge then start walking along toward Fisherman's Wharf, but in and around the old Ferry Building was a large and bustling farmers market, which diverted my attention for some time. There was all sorts of stalls selling all sorts of different types of fruit, veg. and other foods many of which I'd never even heard of. There was even someone selling real cheese. The sound track to this market place was an excellent, but strange musical drumming. I found the guy who was playing it and took a video:

You can see that in much better quality at http://gallery.me.com/philiphardy

Those aren't drums he's playing. Everything but.

I took my opportunity to get my cheeseburger at this market from the "something valley organic cattle ranch" stall. It was the best one I've had so far and I got the impression that the guy who cooked the burger knew it personally. I also got a custard an blueberry danish pastry from a bakery stall, which was also very nice.

Fisherman's Wharf and Pier 39 is an area at the end of The Embarcadero which is basically full of shops and sea food restaurants. There's also the sea lion colony (they don't smell too pleasent by the way) in the harbor, great views of Alcataz out over the bay and it's where the cable cars up into the centre start.

I didn't make it all the way to the Golden Gate Bridge, but I did walk further along past the Marina and got a decent photo. I still think the Humber Bridge is better, even if it isn't in such a nice setting.

When I got back to Fisherman's Wharf the queue for the cable car was about an hour long, so I didn't bother with that. I walked up instead (it's a very steep climb). Then down the zig-zag section of Lomard Street, which is both a strange and interesting road but I'd hate to live there: There's a constant stream of tourists walking up and down it and a constant stream of traffic driving down it, just for the experience. The people that live there don't get a lot of peace.

As I didn't get to go on the cable car I took a street car (tram) back toward the ferry terminal. The street cars in San Francisco are all preserved heritage cars which used to run on city tramways around America and the world - one open top example, I noticed, had come from Blackpool. By this time I was tired and also a little sunburnt (yes I did put sun cream on in the morning, but I forgot to take it with me so I couldn't top-up) so headed back to the BART station to get a train back to the hotel.

Although really enjoyed LA and Hollywood is well worth seeing, San Francisco is definitely a nicer, more relaxed place.

Tomorrow I'm heading in the other direction toward San Jose and Silicon Valley.

Universal City

32°c here today. I could get used to it.

I saw a fair bit of LA yesterday, went to Long Beach and Downtown LA - both of which were pretty disappointing crumby areas. The highlight was definitely Universal City:

I didn't go into the theme park when I found they wanted $89 (about £50) to get in which, considering it was half past two when I got there and I was only interested in the Jurassic Park ride, seemed ever so slightly unreasonable. I stuck to the City Walk and the tram ride.

I'm on a mission to sample a wide range of American cuisine while I'm here by having a chesseburger per day from as many different cheeseburger flogging places as possible (there are lots of those). Today I got one at Universal City from an outlet called Tommy's. It was the sloppiest thing I've ever eaten... Actually, you sort of had to partially drink it. It was mainly some sort of tasteless sauce stuck to equally tasteless American Cheese and a small tasteless beefburger. Most disappointing.

Hollywood

I found Hollywood. Took a while though. I got on the wrong bus and ended up in a place called Van Nuys, or something. I was under the impression there was only one "Flyaway" bus service and it went Downtown, where I wanted to be, so I just got on the first "Flyaway" bus that turned up. I did wonder why it said Van Nuys on the side, but I had no idea what it was.

I've found most of the main sights in Hollywood, they're no more than five minutes walk from my hotel:

I walked along most of the Walk of Fame while looking for my hotel. There's a staggering amount of tourist traps and tat (souvenir) shops - especially wax-work museums. In fact they're apparently building a Madame Tussauds next to the Chinese Theatre. I don't think I'll be bothering with any of them.

I've also come across the local Tescos - called "Fresh 'n' Easy" here - where I discovered a new type of pseudo food called "American Cheese" - it's an almost tasteless edible rubbery plastic and it comes with most ready-to-eat items.

Tomorrow I'm going to try and find more of the sights in the Hollywood area, Universal Studios and possibly go and have a look round the Downtown area and maybe see if I can find a way to get to Griffith Park.

Gone

I got her okay. The hotel Internet access isn't working so I couldn't post anything when I got here last night. I've just found a Mc Donalds (it wasn't difficult) to use their Wi-Fi.

The flight was... long. The was an Italian couple sat right behind me who felt it was perfectly acceptable behavior to put their feet up on top of my seat, above my head. Every time they moved my seat moved with them.

I'm off to make my way to Hollywood shortly, where I'm sure I'll be able to put my new camera to the test.

Going

Well I'm in sunny London, at Heathrow waiting for my flight. Just had my lunch at Gordon Ramsay's and to be quite honest I'd have preferred Mc Donalds. I have got a nice new digital camera to play with though, which is my next job...