Robert and I are here at the beautiful, snowy Davos, Switzerland for the World Economic Forum. Robert attended last year and said I must come this year. It's an opportunity of a life time he said, so I am tagging along this year. Many have asked me to report back on my observations so here are some of my first impressions:

Getting here:

What you need:
You need snow boots, a warm ski jacket, and hats, mittens, and layered clothing to survive here. Most of all you need shoes that have a good grip on their soles, otherwise you will slip and fall. We've been here just for a day and I have already seen so many people slip in front of me walking on the road. If you are like me living in California, you probably never bothered with any super warm clothing, or good snow boots. I recommend Land's End for good, yet not too expensive warm clothing and Big 5 Sporting Goods or Sports Authority for great snow boots. If you have your eyes on a pair of warm and snuggly Uggs, consider buying Bearpaw brand. They are as warm and cute and one third of price.

Flight/Transportation:
It took us about 20 hours to get from SFO to our hotel in Davos. There are no direct flights to Davos or even Zurich from California, so you need to prepare yourself for a long journey. I finished a 200 page book, and I am a slow reader. We had no delays, and we fortunately got exit rows so we had plenty of leg room. United offered round trip tickets for $800 which are much cheaper than Swiss air or other airlines and we had good, uneventful flights. The flights (two of them to Zurich) took about 14 hours and then there was a 2 and 1/2 bus ride from Zurich to Davos. Then we had to take another shuttle from the bus drop to our hotel which took another half hour so. We were pretty tired by the time we got here, but we needed to get to the conference center to register, get our badges and get registered for sessions.

Registration/logistics:
Security is pretty tight here, so you need your badge to get in anywhere. Conference sessions and meetings are scattered at various hotels and meeting centers across town and they check your badge at the door and have you and your materials go through the xray machines like at the airport. I've seen as many police officers here as I saw on New Year's eve at Times Square in 2000, but the conference only has about 2500 participants. Popular sessions go fast too. Registration opened at 2 pm and by 2:10 some of the popular sessions were already booked. Shuttles run about 20 minutes or so from early morning to midnight and efficiently get people everywhere. Of course they offered us Pedometers at the registration and everyone who walks more than 20000 steps will win a prize. They are going for Green Davos theme. Robert and I are trying our best to walk everywhere. Maybe we can justify enjoying the Swiss Chocolates :)

Some challenges:
I've already mentioned the slippery and icy conditions. Wifi and Internet in the hotels are non-existent or expensive and not very fast if they are available at all. The hotel rooms are small. We walked in to our room and were looking for our bed. It was a fold away in the closet. Once we took the bed out, we had to stack our suit cases on top of each other to be able to walk in the room. I called to ask and see if we could possibly get a bigger room and was told we actually had one of their bigger rooms :)

The best parts so far:
Networking: I am sitting here at the conference center by the You Tube station, and Kofi Annan just walked by! Robert is interviewing the famous author Paulo Coelho right now who happened to just come by. Mike Arrington is sitting next to me on the couch. The Editor of Financial Times and Jeff Jarvis were sitting at our breakfast table this morning, and last night we attended a dinner to honor the Tech pioneers from all over the world, from Nigeria to Silicon Valley. We have only been here for one night and I can't wait to see what great personalities we will have the good luck to run into.

Yummy food:
I am not into stinky cheese so much, but everything we have had so far has been just wonderful.

Swiss humor:
The Swiss are surprisingly good-natured and smiling. The immigration officer that checked us in looked at me and pointed to Robert asking with a serious tone, are you with him? I answered yes and he gave me a teasing smile and asked again, are you happy with him? I cracked up and said, I can't complain. He brought me here. Although I will be happier once he gets me some Swiss Chocolate.
At the airport airshuttle to get us to baggage claim, they had sounds of cows and cow bells playing on the intercom and going through a tunnel there was a moving picture of a Swiss girl in a traditional outfit waving at you and blowing kisses from a window. Pretty cool and unexpected.

Eye Candy:
Ok so I have to confess that the Swiss are pretty beautiful people. I've been enjoying watching the young police officers with their navy blue uniforms, and I know Robert has been checking out all the beautiful ladies we see walking around. I know that cuz I've been looking at them too :)

Alright now it's time to go attend some sessions and report back.