Paul's Down-Home Page

A few notes gathered during my trip, now that I’m on the way home (yay!) I got up early, finished packing, and ran into my friend Rick Taylor at breakfast. We had a great chat about the perils of raising kids (he has two girls and a boy about the same ages as our three boys). He also told me that Joel Oleson got to go to a sacrament meeting in Barcelona, and I confess to being a bit jealous.

First, airport security in Barcelona is a far cry from what we see in the US. My boarding pass underwent a cursory check, but no one checked my passport. At the screening point, no one asked me to take off my shoes or remove my laptop (though I did have to go back through the metal detector because my watch and class ring together were enough to set it off.) There were no shouting uniformed bullies, and no screening for liquids. This might be because of a casual attitude towards security at this one airport (security at Amsterdam is much more US-like), or it might be a more realistic assessment of the actual threat.

Second: my KLM flight BCN-AMS was delayed by about 45 minutes, but no one at BCN seemed to care. I thought I could call Northwest to get protected for my AMS-DTW leg, but once you check in, only the airline operating your first segment can modify the ticket. No one ever made announcements about the flight status or delay time, and two of the three gate agents I spoke to didn’t know how long the BCN-AMS flight was supposed to take. I guess that’s better than getting bogus announcements every 15 minutes, as sometimes happens on Comair. I just barely caught my AMS-DTW flight. Good thing AMS is uncrowded and easy to navigate. I never would have made a 30-minute connection at CDG, for example.

Third, intra-Europe business class isn’t what you think. I was seated in seat 2C, in what would be “domestic first” in the US. The seat pitch and size are identical to the coach seats, and seating on the 737 is 3-3, just like in coach. The difference? One, there are no complimentary upgrades (at least as far as I can tell) so it’s only about half-full. Second, they serve your choice of two hot entrees, plus hot bread. I had a grilled chicken breast with mango and pepper coulis, trout tartare, and a small square of chocolate-banana cake. All were delicious, way better than domestic US first-class food– and all this on a two-hour flight. (Extra bonus: KLM 737s have in-seat power using regular outlets.)

Fourth, the video-on-demand system on NWA’s A330 is really slick. I watched the Simpsons Movie (laughing my butt off the whole time) and was able to start and pause it when I wanted– almost as nice as being in my living room with ye olde Tivo.

Finally, I’m looking forward to having a couple of weeks without any air travel.

Birthday bonus: NW lost my bags. Thanks, guys. (The FA did offer me a birthday bottle of champagne, though, so I guess that outweighs the temporary hassle of being bag-free).

For dinner, I went out with a group of MS folks to a local restaurant called 7 Portes. It’s been here since 1837, if that tells you anything. Wow, it was good! Our table of about a dozen people shared four or five different appetizers, including jamon iberico (which I put on Catalan tomato bread to make a tasty open-faced sandwich), fried salt cod balls, and anchovies (skipped those!) I ordered something that was described as crayfish– turns out their web site menu has it right in saying langoustines. I was mildly surprised to see giant non-crawfish on my plate, but they sure did taste good. The food overall was excellent– everything I had was top-notch. I am now a huge admirer of jamon, which is illegal to import into the US. More’s the pity; I know lots of people whom I think would enjoy it.

As always, I have more stuff now than I did when I left home, so I’m in the midst of packing it all for my return tomorrow. BCN-AMS on KL, followed by AMS-DTW on NW, followed by a quiet evening with my family– I can’t wait!

I’m typing this from Danny Bohm’s session at IT Forum in Barcelona (he asked me to sit in to help cover Forefront for Exchange questions.) While I have a minute, I wanted to jot down a few of my impressions of Barcelona and IT Forum.

First, if you don’t speak Spanish or Catalan, you’re probably going to have trouble outside the normal tourist spots. I tried to shop for a Christmas sweater for Arlene yesterday, and it was an equal mix of hilarity and frustration. I can speak pidgin Spanish thanks to my French fluency, but that doesn’t help much with people who primarily speak Catalan. Everyone I’ve encountered has been very friendly, which helps a lot, but before my next visit I’m going to brush up on both languages.

Second, it would be much nicer here if the sun came out. The show is at CCIB, which is right next to the water. It’s beautiful, but the overcast and haze remind me a little too much of Seattle. It’s been around 60 degrees F, which means that lots of the locals are bundled up in scarves, big jackets, and so forth. (Boots are incredibly common here, both for men and women– a little surprising.) I’m hoping to see the sun on the water at least once before I leave.

The event itself has been lots of fun. Ask the Experts last night was very well attended, as was my session today; I had probably 250 people (in a room with 300 capacity). It’s fun seeing and hearing the variety of attendees, from pretty much every country you can think of in the Western hemisphere. Danny’s session is in a big rigid tent that, on the inside, looks like a traditional meeting room. It’s nifty. 

The event support was great: my speaking room had a clock, a cue box that showed red/yellow/green lights from the staff to indicate my remaining time, and an excellent AV setup. It’s much nicer than the setups I’m used to at other Microsoft (and non-Microsoft) events in the US. There are some other aspects of event support that are drastically different here, too, like the snacks (lots and lots and lots of fruit, plus other stuff) and the large designated work areas for attendees (called delegates here).

There’s a large mall, the Diagonal Mar centre, right next to the CCIB. I went there shopping yesterday and bought some treats for the kids. I stopped for dinner at Sagardi, but couldn’t find even one thing on the menu that sounded appetizing. I hit Canas y Tapas instead and it was OK; I’m not sure what I’ll have tonight; I’ll post an update sometime between now and the time I get home.

Right now I’m in the Northwest WorldClub at O’Hare, waiting for my KLM flight to Amsterdam (and thence to Barcelona). This show, IT Forum 2007, is the first time I’ve been invited to present at a Microsoft event in Europe, and the process has been quite a bit different from that of the US shows. The content development process is somewhat different, and the logistics folks have done a very good job of taking care of signup, reservations, and the like. Unfortunately I’ll only be there for a very short time, so I won’t be able to work in much sightseeing. In order to get an upgraded seat, I had to fly DTW-ORD-AMS-BCN, which isn’t exactly convenient. However, I scored seat 1K on my flight, which means I should have a great view of downtown Chicago on the flight out. Counterbalanced against that is the fact that KLM’s 747s don’t have in-seat power. Since it’s Sunday, that’s OK, as I won’t be working anyway. Tomorrow is another story altogether, though.