I took the Thalys to Paris this morning at 7.10 AM. The people sitting next to me were looking pretty funny when I grabbed my laptop from my backpack and started working a bit. An hour and a half later, the train stopped in Paris Gare du Nord. I rushed out of the train and into the metro pit... *OUCH* a rather long queue for the ticket desk. After standing on a packed metro cart for about 5 minutes, I get off at Strasbourg-St. Denis. After asking directions from some friendly parisiens, I arrive at the hotel. The man behind the desk is looking quite confused when I tell him I have a reservation and I end up getting out my laptop to show him the email, since my printer was still b0rked. I stuffed my suitcase in a small room and run over to the CNAM. Jouke is standing guard outside and points me in the right direction.
There is a rather large queue at the registration desk too so I decide to skip that for now and just jump into the O'Reilly room for the intro talk. No sign of my roommate yet. Intro talk done, no schedule in sight. I hop into another room and notice I'm in Nick Clark's talk on optimizing (which I already saw last year) so I hop back out. Another shot... Fotango room: Stas Bekman explaining mod_perl2. Interesting. My extra battery comes in handy but wireless connection drops occasionally.
During the first break, I bump into my roommate and some other friends. I decide to queue for registration and after a short while, I get my XL sized T-Shirt, a few minutes later my goodie bag and again a few minutes later my badge. Due to technical difficulties, the picture on my badge isn't the one I send in on the site. Break is over and I head back into the Fotango room. Stas is still there... I get out my laptop power supply and start charging. While I'm working on my lightning talk slides, moving scrabble tiles around, Elaine Ashton passes and notes those are quite cute. Talk is almost over :|
