Debconf

DebConf is in Spain this year, in Cáceres. Getting here involved a plane to Madrid, navigating the metro system, a 3.5 hour train journey and then a walk to the accommodation at 2am. This year I had actually looked at a map before arriving in the city, although hadn't bothered to bring one with me. Or note the exact address I was heading for... At night, it is still pleasantly warm here. The streets were quiet except for the "pfft, pfft, pfft" of the sprinklers. Any directions I'd read which involved street names were useless - but I remembered enough of the map to get to where the buildings were, and then wandered around until I found the entrance. ...

For my first trivial bit of coding while I'm here, I patched the debconf IRC bot to announce nicknames as well as the real name of new arrivals (a feature request from madduck). I'm hoping to resist wasting time adding lots of features to it - the code is awful. This morning I went running at 8:30 - in theory there are going to be group runs in the morning and afternoon sometime, but for now I went on my own. It was quite nice with the ocean views... the local runners seem to wear tracksuit tops at this time of year, though.

I arrived in Mar del Plata yesterday - DebConf this year is all in one hotel (with a nearby hotel for overflow accommodation next week), which makes everything very convenient. When they're not serving meals, they're usually serving coffee and cakes in the hacklab. There were some teething troubles with the networking today, so I took a walk down the beach. Mar del Plata reminds me of Llandudno - it's a popular beach resort in the summer, but it's winter at the moment. Not that I've ever been to Llandudno in the winter, come to think of it... but imagine a cold summer day in North Wales. There's a run-down pier and everything. The big difference is that Mar del Plata is a huge city - I walked a couple of miles down the coast today, and the buildings were just stretching on. Oh, and everyone speaks Spanish. ...

Lamby reckoned I wouldn't be able to resist using the DebConf8 blog sticker thing. And he was right. My horrendously expensive plane tickets arrived last week.