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So I made it to Europe in one piece. Ive certainly had my share of events since I got here, but no furry animals were killed in the process.

Oh, by the way, I am at aKademy 2005 (the KDE world summit)

Saturday night Justin dropped me off at Dulles International Airport (almost typed aeropuerto) for my long trip to Málaga. The plane ride was very smooth (thank the gods because I really hate turbulance) and I arrived in Paris mid-morning. The adventure starts there.

In order to travel to Málaga, I had to first transfer to Charles De Gaulle, the major Paris airport. The problem was I only had 45 minutes to transfer from the big plane to the little plane. Oh, and I did something I have never done before at an airport. They didnt have a gate for the plane to dock, so they brought one of those transfer buggies over to the plane, hooked it up to the door, shuttled everyone on, and drove us to a gate door. That took way too long. Then, somehow I managed to leave the gate, go through customs, com back through the gate, and finally find someone to tell me where my next plane was (it wasnt on my boarding pass) and make it there 5 minutes before take-off. Luckily the flight was running late, so I wasnt in too bad shape.

Also, when does my passport get stamped? Ive been in three countries in the past two days and its still empty.

So.. I arrive in Málaga and wait for my luggage. Except it never came through the area I expected it to (where all the other people from my flight’s luggage was). After speaking with the lost baggage attendant, somehow my luggage got put on the conveyer belt next to my flight and found it no problem.

I then went to meet Waldo at the Hertz rental car station and we headed to the residence. Roads here are so confusing. They have ten million names for a single road, and then they dont even mark all of them. It took us a bit to find the University residence which conference go-ers were staying. The check-in attendant didnt speak a drop of English, French, Dutch, nor German, so we had an interesting time trying to figure out she wanted to photocopy our passports.

Finding the conference is a book-lengthed story in itself. The short of it is we drove around the city and saw all the sights for approximately 2 hours. We drove EVERYWHERE looking for the University, and after stopping at a gas station and finding someone who spoke enough Enlish to give us directions, we found out we had the wrong address. Ah well, we saw the city right?

Well we contacted a few people and got directions and still had difficulty finding the place. So after a short and exasperated search, Waldo and I stopped at McDonalds (the ONLY place we could find at the moment) to wait for someone to fetch us and to get a bite to eat.

Yes, my first meal in Spain was a Big Mac. (and my stomach is still angry at me the next day).

A few notes about Málaga: It is the second or third largest city in Spain with less thank 500,000 people. It is a relativly expensive city with lots of high class condos and tourists from all over the world. Every male under the age of 25 drives around on a scooter with a girl saying “¡Hola!” (My German friend actually says that is their stereotype for the Spanish and Italians).

Overall I have met a TON of people, some of whom I have spoken with before on IRC or via email. There are relativly few North Americans (I could count on two hands) and even fewer women (of which Ive seen enough for counting on one hand) so it has been interesting. I got some work done on my presentation, and just need to create my slides. Luckily I dont have to present until Friday so I have some time to work, play, and be merry.

I still havnt taken a single picture. I will, dont worry.

seele :: Aug.29.2005 :: General, KDE/Kubuntu, Life :: 4 Comments »

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