AIChE Annual Meeting 2003
San Francisco, Nov 2003

My first time attending a full-size conference. This year, AIChE Meeting was going to be in San Francisco. Being close to Oregon, travel expenses were not a big issue, and Goran could afford to send three of his students: Brian, Thana, and myself. It was a great experience, both because of the sightseeing and the opportunity to give a presentation to people from all over the United States, and also from other countries.

The way to San Francisco

Thana and Brian took turns driving a car we rented. I didn't have my driver's license yet, so I had to suffer 8 hours of landscape-enjoyment and picture-taking. We decided to drive down I-5 and come back on Hwy 101. Near the border between Oregon and California, the I-5 goes over the mountains in Siskiyou Pass. The weather changes dramatically when reaching the pass; we experienced fog, a bit of rain, and cold weather (see second picture). But it lasted only a few miles... soon enough, it was sunny again: Welcome to California. After that, we enjoyed exceptional views of Mount Shasta and Lake Shasta.

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Upon arrival to the Bay area, we first crossed the Oakland bridge to reach the city of San Francisco. The sloped streets of the city were just as I've seen them on TV and movies.

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The presentations

The three of us had a presentation to give, but not all were the same day. Brian's was on Wednesday, and Thana's and mine were on Thursday. We did pretty good in the presentations. My presentation was basically material from my MS thesis. The last picture was taken by Goran on Thursday evening, after we were all done. Pretty group, aren't we?

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Networking

I ran into several friends that I met in Florida, and had the opportunity to meet and exchange ideas with many people. I hope I get to see them soon in some other conference...

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Sigthseeing

I was a bit disappointed that we had to make this trip as brief as possible. But we managed to squeeze a few hours to walk around San Francisco and take some interesting pictures.

We took the cable car, visited Ghirardelli Plaza, saw Alcatraz Island from afar...

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... and last, but not least, we crossed the Golden Gate Bridge.

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Our way back

The idea of returning on Highway 101 was to enjoy the sights of California and Oregon coasts. However, it was decided that we should leave in the very early hours of Friday, trying to get to Corvallis as early as possible. We didn't get to see anything of the California coast. By dawn, we were already in Oregon, and took a little detour to visit Brian's parents in Bandon. Even though brief, this visit to the coast provided some extraordinary pictures.

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