Buzberry

I promised to post about my experience at the WWDC.

June 7, 2009.

I landed in San Francisco at around 4:30pm. I had two things to do. First I had to pass by my hotel to check in and then, I had to go to the Moscone Centre to pick up my entrance badge for the WWDC. I only had 1 hour left to pick up the badge-otherwise I’ll have to wait until the next day (which isn’t actually a good idea). The door at the Moscone Centre closes at 7pm and I was there at 6pm. I took my badge and asked the guy that works there about the keynote. “So… what time is the keynote?” The guy at Apple said “The keynote will be held tomorrow at 10 am” and then I asked, “What time do I have to be here in order to attend the keynote?“ The guy said “the line for the keynote had already started.. You can stand in the line if you want to. The seating is based on first come first served basis.” <– Oh my God! This is not good…!

“Ok thank you very much.” I went outside to look for the line. I found an old guy wearing a hat sitting next to the main entrance. “Is this the start of line Sir?“

He said “Yesss it is!“ with a big smile on his face.

“What time did you come here?” I asked

“At 5:30pm- just 30 minutes ago. Do you want to join me and be the second in line?“

“.. Noo I guess I’ll come back later.”

“Oookaay.. Don’t be late! This place will be full in no time!“

I left the place and NO. No way! I can’t wait in line for that long, but I also want to attend the damn keynote. I don’t really care about the other sessions at the WWDC. What really matters to me is attending the keynote!.. I thought about it a lot. I thought the best thing to do is to sleep for a couple of hours and wake up at midnight. So I slept at 10 pm and I woke up at 1 am ready to go!

I packed a small bag. I had a laptop in it, a book, an iPod, orange juice, and a small blanket, which I bought, from the airport. It’s very cold in San Francisco especially late at night. Anyway I left the hotel at 2 am. I took cab to the Moscone centre. The cab driver turned to be from Egypt so we started chatting about San Francisco. He asked me “So.. why are you going to the Moscone Centre so late at night?” I told him to stand in line for the Apple Event. “WHAT?? Yanhar Abyad!” Hehe I laughed a lot when he said “Yanhar Abyad” It showed how a true Egyptian he was! Anyway he was a good guy; He gave me his number just incase I needed anything. The Moscone Centre is only 10 minutes away from my hotel so I reached there at 2:10 am. I found the old guy still sitting and behind him were 4 Japanese guys, 1 from Swiss, 1 from Australia, and two American guys. They all had smiles on their faces when they saw me coming closer! They said “Wohoo you are number 10!” So I’m the 10th guy in line- I guess that’s not bad.

Here are my friends. The guy on left is number 1 in line.

They started introducing themselves and so did I. Minutes later number 11 and number 12 arrived and so on… Most of them were App Developers. We started chatting about different things not just about the iPhone. Everybody was so friendly. Number 13 and 14 were from Manchester<– Interesting. I asked one of them “Do you watch Soccer?” He said “Ya I’m a fan of Manchester United!” He took out his wallet to show me his season membership. We started talking about Soccer and to be precise about Cristiano Ronaldo. I told him that I’m a fan of Real Madrid and it’s rumored that Ronaldo might be joining Madrid this summer. The guy said, “I don’t mind as long as Madrid pay us good money, we can get Ribery instead“. Hmm interesting. Remember it’s still 4 am. The Japanese guys were so kind; they offered us food- they had some onion rings and stuff, but I didn’t eat.

I took out my laptop and started browsing the internet. There were some reporters standing around the corner. I saw a woman with a microphone and guy holding a camera coming toward us, they turned out to be from bloomberg. The woman started interviewing the first guy in line, then she interviewed one of the Japanese guys, then the guy from Australia and then it was my turn!

She said “where are you from?“

“I’m from Kuwait!“

She said “Oh that’s a very far place, at what time did you come here?“

“At 2:00 am“

“Are you excited about the keynote?“

“Yes!! Very excited“

“Are you expecting a new iPhone?“

“Ya, I think we will see a new iPhone today“

“You think Steve Jobs will show up today?“

“I hope soooo“

“Oookaay thankyou very much!” She went to the guy next me.

I noticed that the line is getting bigger and bigger. A lot of people started coming. I need to use the toilet! I asked the Italian guy sitting next to me “Do you know if there is a toilet that I can use?” He said, “Yes, Starbucks opens at 5 am- you can use their toilets“. Great! BUT wait! I don’t know if it’s okay to leave my place and go to the toilet. It’s my first time here. I kept quite… I waited until its 5 am and then I told my Italian friend “Hey, I am going to Starbucks, do you want anything?” He said, “No, I’ll come with you!”  Oh great. I said, “Is it okay to leave our stuff here?” He said, “Yes just tell the guys that we are going to Starbucks”. So I told the guys sitting next to us that we are going to Starbucks. “Guys we are going to Starbucks. Do you need anything?” Some of them asked us to get them some coffee. I left my stuff. I really need to use the toilet!! We stepped out of line and went to Starbucks. I can’t believe that the place is full of people! I can easily see more than 1000 Geeks standing in Line!! It’s still 5 am. Starbucks is just 100 meters away. It’s very cold. I need something warm, but before that I need to use the toilet. Starbucks was full of people. I looked for their toilets and I saw an A4 paper hanging on the toilet’s door saying “Sorry, toilets are closed!” Oh common!!

To be continued.. Click Here for Part Two

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FAH