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Spain 2008
June 28th - July 6th
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| Traveling |
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The plane left Fargo at 6:50pm Saturday and, after changing plains
three times, arrived in Santander at 2:50pm Sunday. (10:50pm local time).
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Starting out at the grand airport lounge in Fargo at 6pm.
Notice the aesthetic use of chipboard in the design.
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The route. (Made this map with Maya).
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Left Amsterdam from gate C4.
I like watching people moving down the slidewalks.
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Barcelona looks as flat as Fargo.
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Waiting for the plain at the Barcelona Lounge. It was 45 minutes late.
Slator may be right. According to my Spanish phrase book it's Bar-th-lona. (c before e sounds like t as in thin.)
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The plane to Santander. It just parks there and you walk out to it.
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| The Hotel |
Hotel Silken Rio Santander
I took a taxi from the airport to the hotel. That was an experience!
Spain had just won Euro 2008 and there were thousands of wild fans and parties all over the city. Most of them in the street.
This didn't faze the driver as he whipped through downtown traffic at a steady 120kph (75mph), blew through two red lights, and
dodged the screaming, flag waving, jersey throwing, fans with a wave and a honk.
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Had a bit of a problem noticing that you had to use your room key to turn on the lights. (Otto had the same problem.)
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First view from the hotel room. (Click image for panorama view.)
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The bathroom has a cool/funky half shower door.
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Toilet and bidet (For washing privates, feet, and babies).
Heather tells me she'd skip that experience.
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Hallway to the room.
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Room 304
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Hotel as seen from the Grand Casino.
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Back of the hotel as seen from the beach during low tide.
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| Day 3: Santander |
Can you say "Oppressively humid!" The temperature was in the 70's and there was a nice
offshore breeze but it was still felt like walking through a sauna.
Even though I'd been awake for some 30 hours the day before and didn't sleep well
(Perhaps it was the seven hour time difference or the endless stream of honking cars filled with
screaming foot ball fans cruzing the streets until 3am?) I grabbed a granola bar and went for a
two-hour hike around Santander before lunch.
The city's a crazy mix of architectural styles packed closely together on narrow
winding streets that always seem to run uphill. The city appears to be clean and well maintained.
There are public recycling bins on every block and they even vacuum the beach at night.
At noon I stopped at a small Cafe. Lunch didn't start until 3 but I could get orange juice and a croissant.
Pulpiest orange sludge you've ever seen. Next time remember to order "zumo de naranja sin pulpa". (no pulp)
Stopped back to the hotel at about 1:30 for shot of air-conditioning and immediately zonked until 5:30 when the front desk
called to see if I wanted the room cleaned.
Taking that as a hint to leave I took off for another walk until about 7:30, hit the beach for an hour, then sat in
the bar with a couple of icy Heinekens and a plethora of mini foods (tapas) until Otto showed up at around 11:30.
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First look at the beach in daylight. Around 10:15 am.
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Damn! I forgot the outlet adaptor.
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Hey! It fits in the razor outlet, so here's my computer desk.
Update: Hmmm... It runs the laptop but won't charge the battery. :(
Update 2:Yeah! Hotel housekeeping had one that someone left behind.
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These recycling bins are everywhere.
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Local city park with some cool trees. (The picture doesn't do them justice.)
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While most of the cars I saw are not available in the U.S. here's one that's familiar.
This was also the oldest car seen on the trip.
(Gas is 1.302 Euros per liter. That's about $7.78 a gallon.)
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Rocks and cargo ships at the beach.
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Lighthouse.
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View from a nearby scenic overlook.
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Cleaning the beach at midnight.
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| Day 4: Adventures with Otto. |
While Otto was sleeping in until Noon I went in quest of an electronics store or
someplace that might sell an electrical outlet adaptor. No such luck.
Otto and I made it to the conference just in time to miss lunch. There was a little
trouble finding the correct bus. It seams that someone, whose name I won't mention,
confused "University of Cantabria" with "University Hospital" on the bus marquee.
On the way to the reception we stopped at the hotel and asked if they knew where I could
get an adaptor. The lady at the desk asked a guy in the office who asked the bellman (Anton)
who I think suggested that housekeeping might have something in their lost and found. They did!
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There's some crazy wind blown trees near the beach.
(Otto and I had drinks
with a couple of other conference goers on the patio that's hidden behind the trashcan.)
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I had to swing way over to the edge of the sidewalk in order to walk under this one.
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I assume these trees were severely pruned and didn't grow this way naturally.
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They do have some cool bark. (Dr. Schwert tells me they're Sycamore.)
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How about an apartment with a beach view?
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Or this place if you like glass?
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Outside the main venue.
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Event room #2. The woman in the black gave two talks. This one was like SLATE and a later one was like
the REESE proposal.
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Outside during the afternoon cafe break.
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They gave us a copy of the conference proceedings. It was huge!
It about doubled the weight of my duffel bag.
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Bus stop with other conference goers, skate park, and graffiti.
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There were some ugly buildings near the campus.
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Walking to the reception. That's the Savings Bank of Santander and
Cambria up ahead and Ronald Böck, to the right of Otto, in the green shirt.
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The outlet adaptor!
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I don't know what this mural represents but it was across the street from the reception hall.
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Returning from the reception we passed another bank. The Bank of Santander.
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| Day 5: The rain in Spain falls mainly on the playa. |
It's a good thing we figured out the bus routes yesterday as it was raining when I awoke.
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Rain on the Plaza de Italy.
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Rain on the beach (playa).
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The computer room.
Those are 1GHz Pentium III's and it was sweltering in there.
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The main event hall where the daily guest speakers give their talk.
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It appears that you are supposed to run everywhere in Spain.
"Run through the door", "Run to the door", "Run down the stairs", and my favorite
"Duck and run down the stairs."
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Run Otto Run!
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They have a vampire bat as the logo for the night bus routes.
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This is a fire hydrant but I'm not sure where the water comes out.
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There's a whole row of these apartment building across the street from the university.
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Super Empanadas! Saw these at a local supermarket.
There were also three native English-speaking girls shopping there.
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| Day 6: The return of the sun and channeling Dr. Slator. |
Today was sunny and much less humid than Monday and Tuesday.
There was one presenter from Mexico that gave two talks. One yesterday on a system
that was almost identical to SLATE and one today that was the last REESE proposal.
There were also two other talks that were very similar to the ideas in the REESE proposal.
We discussed our idea with one of the presenters (Ronald Bock from Deutschland).
He thought it was a good idea and was surprised it was rejected.
There was also the gala dinner at the Grand Casino. A six course meal that supposedly
cost the conference 70 €.
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The park behind the university.
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It's a stadium and the aluminum...
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...sports palace.
It is primarily used for basketball and volleyball and holds 12,000 people.
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It kind of reminds me of a whale.
Behind is the Campos de Sport.
It seats 22,124 football fans and is the home of the Real Racing Club.
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They also have concerts there.
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There are lots of buildings across from the park
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Hey, It's a normal(ish) fire hydrant.
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It says "Bomba de Gas" (gas pump?) on the sign.
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No concrete slab sidewalks here. It's all tile.
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A blue (azul) flower.
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Supermercado!
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Solar panels on one of the campus buildings.
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Saw this car on the way to the Casino. It was parked on the sidewalk.
I believe it's a Jaguar E-Type (61-74).
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This is the Brittney Ferry we could have taken from Plymouth UK to Santander. It would have only added an
extra day to the trip but someone was a little worried about mal de mer.
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The Grand Casino Sardinero where the gala dinner was held.
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The stairs up to the second floor where we had cocktails
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A crowd of people at the gala dinner.
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Made some friends at the dinner. They were natives that helped us figure out what was on the menu,
how bad it actually tasted compared to "real" Spanish food, and how to say "cafe solo"
properly so they wouldn't try to put milk in your coffee.
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Me, Ron, and "C"
Ronald's from Germany and C's from Japan.
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The menu at the dinner.
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| Day 7: The presentation. |
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I gave the presentation on Studying Native American Culture in an Immersive Virtual Environment.
We were only given a short paper's 15 minute time slot instead of the 25 minutes assigned to
a full paper so I had to hurry things a long and skimped on WWWIC background information.
There were questions on its use against control groups or comparative technologies, why women did worse on
the question about gender roles in the Mandan society, and why we were having trouble recruiting teachers. There
was also a question on why we just didn't use Second Life? (Because It costs money and may not always exist in its current form.)
They also liked the Idea of using a task-model to monitor player progress.
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Look! Mr. Stick was here before us.
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The presentation.
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It's another totally ambiguous sign.
"No women", "No swim suits", "No swimming",
"No skirts", or
"No exposed midriffs?"
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Friday's lunch. Much better than Wednesday's but not as good as yesterday.
That's fish on salad with green bean stew, hard bread, banana, and water.
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And the time is...
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≈14:20. The dial says 13:20 but Spain recently changed their time zone.
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How about an A-frame like apartment?
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Or this rounded rectilinear shape?
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First American chain restaurante.
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There's a McDonalds on the way to the airport.
It's near what I think is a shopping mall.
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| Day 8: The rains return and back to Barcelona. |
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It was raining again this morning.
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The rain didn't stop people from going for a stroll with an umbrella.
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or without.
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I found some orange juice without pulp at the Lupa supermarket.
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And a drinking fountain on the way back.
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It was raining and we had about six hours to kill before our flight so we decided
to take the Santander city tour.
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The tour bus. I didn't get an outside shot because it was raining so I cropped this
out of a picture on the web.
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Lighthouse "Faro Cabo Mayor"
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View from out on the point.
(Dr. Schwert was upset we didn't climb down to measure the strike and dip.)
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The tower.
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I'm not sure what this represents.
(The Monument to the Fallen ones?)
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Looking to the left from the lighthouse.
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Looking down. (I don't know what that is either. Maybe an older signal?)
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Looking right towards the point.
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Looking right and straight down.
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Looking under the lighthouse.
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Otto on the trail from the lighthouse to the point.
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The bay of Santander.
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Stopped for lunch at the lighthouse cafe and bar.
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It had something of a view.
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Otto picked something unknown from the menu. Looks like it was fish and olives.
I had an egg and tomato sandwich that was quite good.
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At least I knew what this was when I ordered.
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The bathroom was interesting. Pull to flush.
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Twist for water.
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Ahhhh... Air dry.
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"The visitors have to their disposition, in the reception of the room, equipment to facilitate the access to handicapped people and knapsack portabebés"
I think handicapped access, dogs must be leashed, and babies must be diapered sounds better.
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Otto has some tastes some wine.
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I saw this sparrow hopping around with something small in its beak but as soon as it saw
that crust on the ground it tossed it away and went after the bread with gusto.
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It started to rain again while we were waiting for the bus.
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Otto was cold so he built a fort.
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Back on the bus.
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Saw this sailing ship out the bus window.
It sits in the harbor and I think is a museum.
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Saw a bunch of little boats...
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... and four "Spanish" horses too.
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How about a big blue apartment?
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Or this tiny little blue one?
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All the kids were cute.
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These two played for hours with their stuffed fox.
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Santander airport. The security here was almost self-service.
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Boarding the plane to take us back to Barcelona.
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The hotel room at the Ciutat del Prat in Barcelona.
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More of room 321. Everything on that floor was too yellow.
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Hotel hallway
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At least the art wasn't the same as in every U.S. hotel.
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Spain has a lot of roundabouts like this one in Barcelona.
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We went looking for a place to eat but the only places open were a couple of pizza places.
Even the Damm Star bar was closed.
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| Day 9: Barcelona to Fargo. |
Today's Sunday and according to the girl at the desk "everything's closed."
Since there wasn't much time to do anything anyway we ate at the hotel's breakfast buffet.
It was pretty good but not worth the 15 €. We checked out at 9:45am and grabbed the
10:00 shuttle to the airport.
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The view from the Barcelona hotel.
(Mental note: Next time, don't let Otto choose the hotel. :) )
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There wasn't much to do in Barcelona. It was Sunday and everything's closed.
That's the front of the hotel's airport shuttle in the lower right.
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Driving the herd up the loading ramp in Barcelona.
That's an A330 they're boarding.
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Hmmm... Maybe Barcelona isn't all flat.
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We never got a chance to see a bullfight.
Fernando here, is as close as we got to seeing a bull.
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| Afterthoughts |
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I should have taken a few more days and traveled to Santander via the ferry, bus from Barcelona, or train from Lisbon
but since I wasn't paying travel costs we went with the significantly cheapest option. It's nice to have a day to find
my way around before the conference but a person should take time for touristy things after the conference. It's when
you're most comfortable with the environment.
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