(For some reason the photos I embedded in this post didn’t come out. So just go look at them on my moblog)

I’m in Seattle this week attending the 2008 MVP Global Summit. It’s a four-day invitation-only event for MVPs around the world. It’s a chance for us MVPs to meet each-other and to spend a few days in deep-dives with the product teams.

My international journey started in Sydney where I met Nick & Bill at the gate - we were all on the flight that got delayed for a couple of hours due to thunderstorms.

Unfortunately the plane didn’t make up any time on the way across to San Francisco, so we all missed our connecting flights to Seattle. As Nick says, basically Qantas had rebooked him to travel the next day, and me to travel via. Phoenix. Because we needed to be in Seattle on Sunday, the Qantas guy suggested that we go and talk to Virgin America - as they’ve just started a SFO-SEA flight.

So we ended up booking ourselves onto the 8PM direct flight to Seattle, which gave us an afternoon to be tourists in San Francisco. We got the B.A.R.T (Bay Area Rapid Transit) into town and had a look around.

We went on a Cable-Car ride from Union Square down to Fisherman’s Wharf. What I didn’t realise is that there are big cables running through the street and the cable-cars just grip onto it. Exactly the same system as used in ski chairlifts, etc.

Saw Alcatraz from a far and then got a crazy cab-ride back into town.

It was actually quite nice to spend the afternoon walking around, as it helped me adjust to the timezone shift. After a quick dinner and another short delay we were all set to board to Seattle.

I must say I was VERY impressed with Virgin America’s in-flight entertainment. It had a media player/playlists, games, inter-seat chat + chatrooms, order-your-food-from-your-screen, touch screen, satellite TV, google maps, laptop/usb power on every seat, etc. A very good experience and this has become my benchmark for future flights.

Eventually made it to the hotel and got a reasonable night’s rest