Day One

11/13/2006 5:46:00 PM

I woke up pretty early and was up around 8:30 or so.  The internet connection here isn't fast, or especially reliable, but it was good enough to get my mail from the weekend and get caught up.  I went down La Rambla looking for Katya's hotel, but never found it (turns out that it's mostly off that road) and traipsing around in the warm weather (high 60s) in my semi-dressy clothes was getting annoyingly warm.  I took off for the metro and the day improved dramatically-- despite a few amusing confusing bits, getting to the convention center was easy, and only took about 15 minutes and two trains. 

The convention center is right next to the waterfront... there are great pedestrian paths (near the '92 Olympic Village) and the sea was beautiful.  After enjoying the sunshine for a bit, I headed over to a nearby mall.  American pop music really has conquered the world.  It was a little disturbing to hear the Backstreet Boys in a Spanish mall.  I wonder if the Spaniards also all (claim to?) dislike boybands too?

After a brief staff meeting, Dimitris, Katya, me, and a bunch of other MS folks went out to a Tapas bar across the street.  I ate quite a few things I didn't recognize (mostly tasty) and drank quite a bit of wine.  Dinner done around 10:30, they dragged me out to a different bar across town for a few more drinks.  Katya knocked over a glass of wine onto the poor guy sitting next to me, but I think he got plenty of enjoyment out of making her feel bad about it.  :-)  At around one (an hour after closing) we finally managed to leave and start the longish walk back to the hotels.  It's quite nice here at night.  Alas, it's now three am and I've got to be up in 5 hours or so.  I tried to tell my colleagues that I'm too old for this, but at 27, I'm apparently not convincing enough.  Apparently, heavy drinking followed by little sleep and a full day of work is supposed to be a staple of your 20s.  Go figure.

Anyway, here's a picture of the conference center where I'll be working the next few days.