Last month I got to spend a week in Prague attending the European Antennas and Propagation Conference (EuCAP). It is an interesting place, there are a lot of very old buildings and some stark utilitarian structures from the Communist era. The conference was in a building which was apparently originally built as the Communist headquarters in Prague, it is a vast complex in an imposing location with very impressive views over the city. Another striking communist era construction is the building containing the Prague Hackspace, brmlab. This remarkable venue looks like it could be featured in a Half-Life game. The hackspace seems very active with a vast array of tools and materials gathered in only a year and a half. There were at least three RepRaps in the hardware room and more being produced, a home made laser etching machine and a server room big enough for a large corporation! Unfortunately I didn't get any photos inside the space.

With the conference all done and my flight not until Friday afternoon San Francisco time, a last chance to be a tourist in the city by the bay was at hand. We caught a vintage 50s "train" (I'd call it a tram because it runs down rails in otherwise normal streets but they call it a train) from down town out to the heavily touristified Pier 39. The pier itself seems to be a collection of low-quality souvenir goods purveyors clustered with some restaurants. The views of Alcatraz and the bridge were more impressive.

Today is the final day of the conference which has frankly been terribly badly organised, but I won't go into details here. Yet another Starbucks lunch seemed un-appealing especially as the nearest one is about to shut for refurbishment and is reducing catering services already. Instead we visited the Cheesecake Factory having heard of it on the Big Bang Theory and lets face it anything that the character Shelden Cooper will agree to eat must be fairly good food. The restaurant was in the top of Macy's department store, which seemed a little odd but the food was good.

Today was again a long day of conference activities. My presentation was one of the last of the day, as usual I don't really remember presenting it, I got up and gave the presentation on auto-pilot. Other than that I've not done a lot today, busy days and restless nights meant that I ended up taking a nap at lunch and getting an early night.

The conference has taken most of the day today, I won't bore you with details. I did however come to the conclusion that the provision of internet access at this hotel is somewhat lacking to say the least. There is Wi-Fi and even a network cable in the rooms, but the hotel expects a further $13 a day on top of your room fee for access! I pay that much a fortnight for mobile broadband in the UK!