sunny California

I am currently in Palo Alto, California. I arrived last night, and had all of today free, and then have a pediatric nutrition conference for the next three days before heading home. My friend Andrew just moved here and started grad school, and he was kind enough to pick me up from the airport, and I was 3 hours late, and even though he knew I would be late, he still had to circle around the airport drive for an hour! Yikes! I am very grateful. We got some food and did lots of catching up. Today we went to church with a bunch of his friends, then he took me around the Stanford campus a bit. It is really beautiful. The drive leading up to the main quad in the middle of campus is a straight road with palm trees lining it. It has quite an effect. Palo Alto is pretty impressive itself. Very posh. I am staying in a cute B&B near campus in a nice little business area. Anyway, the rest of today we went with 2 of Andrew's friends to check out the UC Berkeley campus. We finally made it there after getting stuck in major traffic in San Francisco until we got onto the Bay Bridge. We went up the tower on campus which had a fabulous view across the bay to San Francisco. Even though it was totally clear sunny skies in Palo Alto and Berkeley, there was the trademark layer of fog over San Francisco. It was fun just walking around all day. Then Andrew and I got burgers, and then he had to actually get some math homework done, so I am relaxing and getting ready for my conference early tomorrow. It's been a fun trip so far. I am looking forward to this conference. It is pretty well known, with lots of good speakers. I hope to come away with lots of practical new information that I will be able to use in my work. I always find it so inspiring to go to conferences like this.