California 2010
IISEF (Intel International Science and Engineering Fair)
The Queen has been a judge at this science fair for the last 4 years. This year they were so hard up for judges that they asked the King be a judge in San Jose, the location for this year's contest. I judged Computer Science and Engineering and Bio-Materials and was absolutely blown away by the projects developed by these 15, 16 and 17 year old children.
The hotel that we stayed in for the contest was the St. Claire in downtown San Jose. It was a very fancy hotel when it was built in 1924 and has been fully refurbished. Kennedy, Roosevelt, DiMaggio, Hope, Garland and Gable were supposed to have stayed there.
This is the view from our room. The judges do not get the best view.
San Jose had lots of public toilets on the street. They were free and all you did was press a button and the door opened. They were very clean.
An odd combination - pizza, sandwiches and keys made.
We had some time one day to sightsee and we went to the Winchester Mystery House. The widow of the inventor of the Winchester repeating rifle was told by a tarot card reader that she would be haunted for the rest of her life because of her husband's invention. She moved from Connecticut to California to escape and then started adding rooms onto her house to confuse the spirits. She added rooms for 38 years and staircases that went nowhere and windows that opened to walls. When she died she was up to 160 rooms!!!
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