Saturday. Arrived in Venice and met up with Marty & Karen. Thankfully they had found the hotel, so could point me in the right direction. We went for dinner, then had a wander around some of the streets of Venice. In places it felt we were walking around a theatre set. Then we found the local theatre itself! Marty bought us ice cream and we wandered around Piazza San Marco. Having failed to find a coffee shop or bar where we could sit and chat, we headed for the hotel bar. Only to be told that Marty couldn't drink there due to him wearing shorts! In the end, we took a leisurely stroll along the Grand Canal, before calling it a night.
Sunday. The three of us hit breakfast at the same time, and got to drink hot chocolate and croissants on the verandah overlooking the Grand Canal. Gondolas went by as the mist cleared and the view across the water appeared like magic. I took an hour out to quickly look round the Piazza San Marco and head towards the Rialto Bridge. Due to the amount of tourists, I took the scenic route, and I'm glad that I did. Some of the buildings off the direct path were wonderful. The bridge itself was quite something too. I quickly headed back to check out of the hotel with Karen and Marty. We then got a nice boat ride to Piazza le Roma along the full length of the Grand Canal. Finding the shuttle bus to the port proved troublesome, but Marty managed to find other geeks and located where the bus was supposed to be. On arrival at the terminal we found Dave Cross, Allison Randal and a few other geeks. Larry Wall and family found us, Casey West found Marty, who couldn't find Casey, despite him following Marty for the last 15 minutes around the terminal building :) After much waiting ... about 4 hours, I finally managed to get on board. I quickly dumped bags and headed for food. The cocktail party was a good chance to meet some of the other geeks, virtually all of whom (apart from the Perl speakers) I had never met before. It seemed to be a good crowd and there was a decent mix of people. Then we discovered dinner was until 9.30pm every night. It appeared that the tables were mostly grouped by nationality, so how I got on the American's table I'm not quite sure. However, I was in very good company with Allison, Robert and Casey, so I didn't mind at all. In fact it wasn't until Marty came over and told me the British contingent thought me a deserter, that I realised everyone else on the table was from the US. Dinner finished very late, so most decided to have an early night due to jetlag.
Monday. The talks begin at 8.30am. Robert talked about 'Optimising Your Perl Code', which mostly highlighted the benefit of benchmarking and profiling. The day was broken up with a stop in Bari to bring on more people, but also allowed for some to go ashore and do some sightseeing for a couple of hours. For the afternoon I went for a short talk, 'Email Filtering in Perl' by Casey. The afternoon session was broken by a lifeboat drill. It seemed to go well, and the entertainment people seemed to have fun explaining how to put on lifejackets. I spent the early evening looking for other geeks, though they all seem to have dispersed. It was a bit strange, and later we managed to agreed for other geeks to meet in the bar by one of the conference rooms. The wireless coverage was good there so it was an obvious choice. After dinner we started the tradition of Fluxx/beer/chat and sex of the beach. There is a story that unfolds here, but there is someone else who should tell it. If he doesn't expect a completely unbiased observers perspective some time next week ;)
