[Recap] Pre Summit Food Crawl

[SoniaK]

The meet up announcement was pretty ordinary- just like any other dinner meet up. But having it in the heart of the Bay City, focusing the Summit, with a target of meeting people from all over the world, the word ‘ordinary’ became extra-ordinary.

It was announced earlier that we would meet at Pier 39 on 8 October from 5.30pm onward. The prime focus of this meet up was to get introduced with the participants of Local Guides Summit 2017 before the summit itself, as well as to get introduced with the team Yosemite, as we were scheduled to start early morning the next day.

Looking at the response at the meet up RSVP I thought it would not be a huge gathering, but apparently it turned out to be a super big team. We were more than 30 in the group all together. And we even had to wait to get a table for the late comers for some 20 minutes or more.

We met at the Pier Market, located at Pier 39, in the Bay Area, San Francisco. It started at 5.30pm and continued until late…

This is really difficult for me to express in words how I felt, or how exactly the meetup went. I got to meet people whom I knew for long through Connect, with whom I shared mails and text messages several times planning for the Yosemite trip. And finally, when I met them all in person, I felt like I knew them all forever.

The food was great. Of course. Who would not like the taste of seafood from Pier Market? But the taste of the food doubled its flavor when it was shared with laughter, amusement, sweet melodies from Rohitha’s mouth-organ and the presence of lovely faces of #LGSummit17 participants.

I could not manage to take a lot of photos as I was busy organizing the team for the next morning trip. But I managed to capture a few. You can see it here.

I am glad that @AlejandraMaria , @AnnaBcn , @CaduF , @JulienH , @Lachlan_M_Wells , @JosephZhan , @IrenaS and few others joined us, even though they were not joining us for the Yosemite. Your presence just made the evening more colorful and gorgeous. I won’t thank my Yosemite Team as for I would like to take them all for granted. My San Francisco tour kick off wouldn’t be so wonderful if you guys didn’t join.

And lastly, a special thanks to TimBull and MahabubMunna, for joining us straight from the airport. They arrived in SF on that evening. And Mahabub even didn’t get the time to go to the hotel for checking in. It was nice to see him in the restaurant with all his bags.

I particularly missed you at dinner @KarenVChin , Ermest and @LucioV . And I missed others too who had prescheduled program to attend and hence missed joining us. How wonderful it would be to see the entire restaurant filled with the LGSummit17 participants!

And @OSAMA , bro, yes, I missed you in all my activities in San Francisco.

So, that was the first recap of my first meetup in San Francisco. Thank you for reading. I will come back again later, with another recap of our Yosemite trip. Stay tuned.

[LucioV]

Thanks @SoniaK looks like you had great time this first evening meetup in SF

I will never miss again a chance to meet great people like you in the future.

[SoniaK]

You better dont @LucioV . We all love you too much to miss.

[Andras_H]

Hi @SoniaK , I (and maybe I can talk in everyone’s place) would like to say a huge thank you for organizing that dinner.

It was a kinda kick off and even if we (Yosemite team) were late (which was my mistake because of the car rental:P) we could see how people enjoyed each other and the dinner that night. That is your credit.

[sherrym]

see now these meet ups are to far away for me

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@SoniaK wrote:

The meet up announcement was pretty ordinary- just like any other dinner meet up. But having it in the heart of the Bay City, focusing the Summit, with a target of meeting people from all over the world, the word ‘ordinary’ became extra-ordinary.

It was announced earlier that we would meet at Pier 39 on 8 October from 5.30pm onward. The prime focus of this meet up was to get introduced with the participants of Local Guides Summit 2017 before the summit itself, as well as to get introduced with the team Yosemite, as we were scheduled to start early morning the next day.

Looking at the response at the meet up RSVP I thought it would not be a huge gathering, but apparently it turned out to be a super big team. We were more than 30 in the group all together. And we even had to wait to get a table for the late comers for some 20 minutes or more.

We met at the Pier Market, located at Pier 39, in the Bay Area, San Francisco. It started at 5.30pm and continued until late…

This is really difficult for me to express in words how I felt, or how exactly the meetup went. I got to meet people whom I knew for long through Connect, with whom I shared mails and text messages several times planning for the Yosemite trip. And finally, when I met them all in person, I felt like I knew them all forever.

The food was great. Of course. Who would not like the taste of seafood from Pier Market? But the taste of the food doubled its flavor when it was shared with laughter, amusement, sweet melodies from Rohitha’s mouth-organ and the presence of lovely faces of #LGSummit17 participants.

I could not manage to take a lot of photos as I was busy organizing the team for the next morning trip. But I managed to capture a few. You can see it here.

I am glad that @AlejandraMaria , @AnnaBcn , @CaduF , @JulienH , @Lachlan_M_Wells , @JosephZhan , @IrenaS and few others joined us, even though they were not joining us for the Yosemite. Your presence just made the evening more colorful and gorgeous. I won’t thank my Yosemite Team as for I would like to take them all for granted. My San Francisco tour kick off wouldn’t be so wonderful if you guys didn’t join.

And lastly, a special thanks to TimBull and MahabubMunna, for joining us straight from the airport. They arrived in SF on that evening. And Mahabub even didn’t get the time to go to the hotel for checking in. It was nice to see him in the restaurant with all his bags.

I particularly missed you at dinner @KarenVChin , Ermest and @LucioV . And I missed others too who had prescheduled program to attend and hence missed joining us. How wonderful it would be to see the entire restaurant filled with the LGSummit17 participants!

And @OSAMA , bro, yes, I missed you in all my activities in San Francisco.

So, that was the first recap of my first meetup in San Francisco. Thank you for reading. I will come back again later, with another recap of our Yosemite trip. Stay tuned.

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[SoniaK]

@ErmesT , I didn’t realize that I didn’t tag you. And when I wanted to tag, it wouldn’t allow me because I had already mentioned 10 tags. If you read the post above, you will know what I am talking about.

[SoniaK]

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@Andras_H wrote:

Hi @SoniaK , I (and maybe I can talk in everyone’s place) would like to say a huge thank you for organizing that dinner.

It was a kinda kick off and even if we (Yosemite team) were late (which was my mistake because of the car rental:P) we could see how people enjoyed each other and the dinner that night. That is your credit.

---

Thank you @Andras_H . You are so kind. Credit goes to every single person that showed up. I am thankful to everyone for making this a success.

[AlejandraMaria]

THank you very much @SoniaK for this fantastic meet-up!!!

We had an incredible time together and All of us were full of energy and enthusiasm even after 40kms of biking or with the stress of the arrengaments for Yosemite. …

I am agree with you that we miss many LGs as @LucioV , @OSAMA , @KarenVChin , @ErmesT … and many all that for some reasons couldn’t join us. Next time😉.

Congratulations, Sonia

[ErmesT]

Hi @SoniaK

Thanks for sharing with me this exciting moment of the pre-summit.

I envy you and all the Yosemite team, but really it was impossible for me to be there at that time.

Through your recap, and all the other from all the friends LG, I can now feel that I was there, with all you.

In another post, @KarenVChin

said that the friendship built in the summit was the unexpected perk that we all received. I want to confirm that, at 1000%.

In this day my eyes are voracious of reading, about all the wonderful things that we experienced in a so short time. I cannot believe that this was only in 3 days. Let me spend a few words about all the people from Google that were there, working hard for making this possible.

Thanks @TraciC

I’m tagging only you, but I know you will pass this to all the wonderful team.

Ermes

[SoniaK]

Thank you @ErmesT . If they select us next time, I want you to be in my team when we go to Yosemite, ONCE AGAIN, for camping. And I know @KimberlyAnnG would join me too for the same.

@TraciC , I thought I would thank you and the entire team on a separate post, but now as Ermes already mentioned it, I would like to say, this event was not one of the best event of my life. It IS the best event of my life. I have not just learned a lot of new things, but also made a lot of new friends, a family out of my family and some real well wishers and most importantly, I got to meet amazing Googlers like you, Juan, Meg, Anna, Toliver, Sasha, Gus and many others. All these days I wondered how the Googlers would be in real life, would they be friendly with us, would they be cracking jokes, sharing stories with us, would they take part with us in fun activities! And you all turned out to be a real surprise to me. I found out that you are actually parts of us. It was an experience to meet such down to earth people. You guys are really special. You guys rock!

I would like to thank Toliver particularly, for arranging the tour to the Google San Francisco office after the summit. It was a great experience for me. It must be real fun working in such a cool environment. I loved that tour a lot.

[SoniaK]

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@AlejandraMaria wrote:

THank you very much @SoniaK for this fantastic meet-up!!!

We had an incredible time together and All of us were full of energy and enthusiasm even after 40kms of biking or with the stress of the arrengaments for Yosemite. …

I am agree with you that we miss many LGs as @LucioV , @OSAMA , @KarenVChin , @ErmesT … and many all that for some reasons couldn’t join us. Next time😉.

Congratulations, Sonia

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@AlejandraMaria , it was an honor to see you wonderful people joining us. You are the first summit attendee whom I met in the USA. Remember? So you and @AdrianLunsong are actually my first summit friends. And of course, then we met @Shirni and the whole story changed into boomerang.

[OSAMA]

OMG… @SoniaK this is a wonderful Meetup. And my favorite one Yummy Meetup , you all look great , yeah me too miss you and wish to be part of this Meetup , as Legend @LucioV said we will never miss the opportunity to meet Great people like you and all other Amazing members , thank you very very much , Thanks again and again Sonia

[OSAMA]

Thank you @AlejandraMaria stay tuned for Summit 18 it will be

the Greatest Summit Ever

[KarenVChin]

@SoniaK , I knew with all the months of planning for Yosemite, your group would be very tight by the time the Summit started.

After all, there is a lot of friendship building when you all get up before the sun rises to drive across and then down California to visit the majestic Yosemite and then later after the Summit, the equally amazing Muir Woods. Your group has now so many different countries to meet and have your mini Reunions, even prior to Summit18!

I would have loved to meet you all for dinner that night, but you know why I couldn’t. We did, hopefully, you will agree, make it up for the incredible Friday we spent together- Sailing, surprised Google SF tour, and finally dinner.

By reading everyone’s posts here, I can see the wheels turning in your minds how to better maximize your time pre, during, and post Summit18. #LGSummit17 withdraw is real, but the beacon of hope is getting ready next year’s Summit18 application process!

Cheers,

Karen

[SoniaK]

@KarenVChin , the Yosemite tour planning itself was very entertaining and interactive. We created a separate WhatsApp group for all the 12 participants (our group size was 14, including Ainur’s husband, who is not an LG and their lovely daughter, the youngest LG, Zeynab). We shared more than 100 emails to shape up the small details. It was so interactive event that we already knew each other even without meeting anyone personally.

And there was this Muir Woods trip too. @NatalkaR was the one who wished to go to Muir. And I just took the initiative to fulfill her wish, because I wanted to do the hike too. And when @MahabubMunna told me that we can go by public transport I thought it would be the best option if we want to save money. Apparently it was a 8 persons group. 5 from the original Yosemite group and the rest 3 joined us for the hike. It was a wonderful relaxing day as well. I will talk about both the experience in my upcoming recap posts. I would love to see you with us in Muir. I was so hoping that you could join us finally.

But one thing is for sure, I can’t agree with you more on the fun part on Friday sailing tour. And that surprise Google SF visit was an unexpected bonus for all of us. And finally, of course, the dinner was the cream of the cake. I loved every second of my day on 13th October. In fact, I loved every microsecond of my time in total San Francisco tour. Like they say in the song, I left my heart in San Francisco.

I just missed doing one thing in SF, wearing flower in my hair. May be that will be an added interest to go back to the Bay city once again,on LGSummit18. Who knows!

[SoniaK]

@OSAMA , everything happens for a good reason. I am yet to find out the good reason behind @LucioV , @HelloSamsonR and you not joining the summit this year. But hey, I am not any great people. I am just an ordinary woman. This is all your love for me that makes you find me great.

[TraciC]

I loved reading this post (even though it made me hungry, @ErmesT ) and your kind words have been passed along to my teammates, @SoniaK . They are often on Connect but sometimes may not see every post, so it has been shared and thank you for giving us an opportunity to meet so many of you folks in person!!! Keep being awesome Local Guides!

[SoniaK]

Thank you @TraciC . Keep inspiring us.

[KarenVChin]

@SoniaK , flowers in your hair? That can easily be arranged. San Francisco is known as the birthplace of the “flower power” and “flower children.”

#LGSummit18 is now less than a year. And the Summit 18 application process is even less that that!

So happy to see so many wonderful and amazing photos, creative videos, and now recaps such as from you, @Fructy and @Andras_H , and the many other LGSummit17 attendees starting to trickle in here on Connect.

Again, one of the many untold benefits of being a Local Guides. we have more than enough photos, 360s, and videos among all of us LGSummit17 to last exponential life times!

Cheers,

Karen

[ThanulakshanS]

Thanks For Sharing @SoniaK Hope You Had Great Time