Conferencia Española

I have been in Madrid for an IBM EMEA /Asia Pacific conference.

Arrived on Sunday evening, I order "Baguette of omelette" on room service, and crash in front of the TV to watch Barcelona beat Athletico Madrid 6-0. Samuel Eto'o was amazing. We need to buy him.

I presented on Monday morning, and spent the rest of the day fighting boredom. Had to go and get some kip in the afternoon after the presentation on Services Oriented Architecture made me lose the will to live.
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I met my cousin Maria for dinner. She lives and works in Madrid, teaching English to rich kids.

We walked around central Madrid and found a spot to eat. It was great to see her and catch up.

We ate ostrich, linguine, and croquettes of cheesy spuds and ham.

She is fluent in Spanish, Greek and English, and has lived in Madrid for a few years now. Then a cab takes us through the central sights, drops Maria off at her pad, and I am off to my Auditorium hotel - apparently the largest in Europe.

Back at the conference I catch up with German colleagues, and we talk about football and they tell me that Stuttgart won the Bundesliga this year. "Great", I say, "at least 3 English teams again in the Champions League semi-final next year".

We talk politics with the Yanks (Giulliani over Barack over Hillary).
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Then I fly home on Wednesday, and in the taxi home, I get a call from my South African buddy Robin. "I am in Madrid", he says.

"What?"

"I am in Madrid".

"I have just left Madrid".

Both: "Fuck".

We both arrived on Sunday, and missed the chance to hook up. He did mention it in his blog, which I read each week, but it must have slipped my mind. (http://www.robingolding.com/).

Watch the Champions League Final and am proud of my team. They played well. I refuse to go into a rant about crooked, corrupt, criminal, sleazy Italian football, but I do get slightly annoyed when the creepy and slimey Silvio Berlusconi hogs the limelight next to FIFA president Platini. Oh yes, and Rafa needs to rid himself of his Harry Kewell obsession.

I prefer to say, "We didn't lose the game; we just ran out of time", to quote Vince Lombardi, American football coach of the Green Bay Packers and Washington Redskins.

Quote of the week in Madrid, yank to a Spanish girl: "Would you like to see my tattoo? It says IBM. Well, sometimes it says IBM. And other times it says International Business Machines".