Showing posts with label Barcelona. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Barcelona. Show all posts
Thursday, 17 October 2013
Fantastic Market, La Rambla
Happened across this excellent in door market just off La Rambla - it must've been closed on my previous trips as I've not seen it before.
Sagrada Familia
After leaving the Fira Grand Via conference centre at just after 4pm, I managed to squeeze in a bit of tourism. However, without my glasses to read the maps etc., I restricted myself to La Sagrada (only seen from a tour bus previously) and La Rambla (visited every previous time in Barcelona).
Wednesday, 16 October 2013
The Big Party
As usual VMware had laid on a party on the Wednesday night with all attendees invited.
The format is now familiar - a very large room, 5 or 6 bars serving complementary drinks, pool tables, pinball machines, retro arcade games and then something a bit different, which this year was the option to go roller-blading alongside the hired dancers. Great mix that, roller-blading and free beer!
The bars offered plenty of choice - including cocktails mixed to order. I stuck to a few beers, being mindful of the need to get to the 9am sessions the next day. A big improvement, I thought, was keeping the party on site at the conference venue. There was a 90 minute gap between the end of the sessions and the start of the party - ideal to ensure that folks filled their time by walking the solutions exchange booths, and not wasting time on travelling between venues. The party was from 7pm to 10pm so there was no excuse for staying up too late! Well, not a VMWORLD excuse anyway. Food was burgers / wraps, sushi and puddings. Plenty of it too.
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Entertainment was provided by dancers on roller skates, stilts or unusually dressed in interesting costumes or with ipads for faces, all backed by tunes from a DJ. First act was an all girl group called High on Heels that comprised DJ, vocalist, sax, violin and percussion. They did a really good job of covering classic and contemporary R&B, dance, soul etc., from Emile Sande to Black Box via Chaka Khan. Good stuff, and, for me at least, somewhat more talented that the main act. They also had a guy on stilts, covered in lighting and resembling Iron Man firing fire extinguishers just for the sake of it. Better than it sounds!
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I lost my specs to Taio Cruz. Not sure if that's entirely true, but Cruz was up as the headline act. He sang to a backing track provided by a DJ. He did all 6 songs but I confess to not really spotting much difference between them. The crowd were hyped up by his presence, but at the beginning of pretty much every song I thought he was launching into Dynamite, but I was wrong until the last track. Still, I think I was in the minority as the crowd were very much enjoying themselves. There was a great part of the set when large illuminated balls were passed out over the crowd (these were balls, not balloons) and it was great fun to bat them around overhead. Except when one of them hit me on the back of the head, removed my specs and that was the last I saw of them as they were trampled underfoot by 2000 bouncing geeks. Ho-hum, the hazards of partying! Made the rest of my trip a bit tricky though, must remember to carry spares in the future.
The format is now familiar - a very large room, 5 or 6 bars serving complementary drinks, pool tables, pinball machines, retro arcade games and then something a bit different, which this year was the option to go roller-blading alongside the hired dancers. Great mix that, roller-blading and free beer!
The bars offered plenty of choice - including cocktails mixed to order. I stuck to a few beers, being mindful of the need to get to the 9am sessions the next day. A big improvement, I thought, was keeping the party on site at the conference venue. There was a 90 minute gap between the end of the sessions and the start of the party - ideal to ensure that folks filled their time by walking the solutions exchange booths, and not wasting time on travelling between venues. The party was from 7pm to 10pm so there was no excuse for staying up too late! Well, not a VMWORLD excuse anyway. Food was burgers / wraps, sushi and puddings. Plenty of it too.
.jpg)
.jpg)
Entertainment was provided by dancers on roller skates, stilts or unusually dressed in interesting costumes or with ipads for faces, all backed by tunes from a DJ. First act was an all girl group called High on Heels that comprised DJ, vocalist, sax, violin and percussion. They did a really good job of covering classic and contemporary R&B, dance, soul etc., from Emile Sande to Black Box via Chaka Khan. Good stuff, and, for me at least, somewhat more talented that the main act. They also had a guy on stilts, covered in lighting and resembling Iron Man firing fire extinguishers just for the sake of it. Better than it sounds!
.jpg)
.jpg)
.jpg)
I lost my specs to Taio Cruz. Not sure if that's entirely true, but Cruz was up as the headline act. He sang to a backing track provided by a DJ. He did all 6 songs but I confess to not really spotting much difference between them. The crowd were hyped up by his presence, but at the beginning of pretty much every song I thought he was launching into Dynamite, but I was wrong until the last track. Still, I think I was in the minority as the crowd were very much enjoying themselves. There was a great part of the set when large illuminated balls were passed out over the crowd (these were balls, not balloons) and it was great fun to bat them around overhead. Except when one of them hit me on the back of the head, removed my specs and that was the last I saw of them as they were trampled underfoot by 2000 bouncing geeks. Ho-hum, the hazards of partying! Made the rest of my trip a bit tricky though, must remember to carry spares in the future.
Monday, 14 October 2013
Luxury Travel, Luxury Hotel?
From LPL to BCN, EZY did the job perfectly adequately.
Probably going to be the same experience in my hotel, chosen for its cost effectiveness!
Probably going to be the same experience in my hotel, chosen for its cost effectiveness!
Friday, 11 October 2013
Introduction
Next week I'll be travelling from the UK to VMWORLD Europe 2013 in Barcelona. Here I will record experiences and thoughts on the event and the content from the perspective of a Enterprise Data Centre Strategist for Dell in the UK.
Hotels are booked and a 7am flight out of Liverpool on Monday morning will take me there on a big orange plane. Looking forward to catching up on all that is VMware and their partners. This year I'll be looking to see how VMware intend to keep ahead of the game, deal with competition from Microsoft and OpenStack, and to more deeply understand Software Defined Data Centres and Networks. And there'll be the usual entertaining time finding the new and different solutions that third parties can bring to market, spotting who are likely to progress well in the future and who's no longer on the show floor.
First question is the slogan for the event: "Defy Convention". For me that would've worked 5 or 10 years ago, but VMware IS convention now, so we'll see how that one pans out during the conference.
I'll try and post reasonably regularly, but will also be tweeting along the way - follow me @NeilHAtDell to keep up to date.
Here's a first glimpse of the Fira Grand Via getting dressed up for the occasion (courtesy of VMWORLD Twitter account):
Hotels are booked and a 7am flight out of Liverpool on Monday morning will take me there on a big orange plane. Looking forward to catching up on all that is VMware and their partners. This year I'll be looking to see how VMware intend to keep ahead of the game, deal with competition from Microsoft and OpenStack, and to more deeply understand Software Defined Data Centres and Networks. And there'll be the usual entertaining time finding the new and different solutions that third parties can bring to market, spotting who are likely to progress well in the future and who's no longer on the show floor.
First question is the slogan for the event: "Defy Convention". For me that would've worked 5 or 10 years ago, but VMware IS convention now, so we'll see how that one pans out during the conference.
I'll try and post reasonably regularly, but will also be tweeting along the way - follow me @NeilHAtDell to keep up to date.
Here's a first glimpse of the Fira Grand Via getting dressed up for the occasion (courtesy of VMWORLD Twitter account):
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