So the main point of my trip to the states was to attend the Symfony Live event being held in San Francisco on September 27-28th.
It was a fun conference overall and I learnt a lot about Symfony in the 2 days, even if it did feel quite jarring to have to pause the sight seeing and discovery of San Francisco for a couple of days.
You can view videos of the main presentations on the Symfony website, along with more from other Symfony Live events around the world. You can also find a collection of notes here from another attendee.