Sponge Suuuuz Square Pants
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Because my brain is a bit like a sponge (it absorbs loads, but when you squeeze it, everything drips out as rapidly as it got sucked up), I tend to write random things down in a notebook so I don't forget them and so I can write about them later. Totally off track and besides the point, I've also discovered that writing random things in the aforementioned notebook whilst eating a meal in a restaurant is a cunning trick to get free drinks/excellent service (or, depending on where you are, spit in your food). Anyway, I left my notebook at home so had to improvise all week by furiously scribbling on a napkin. Disaster struck last night, when I Iost my scribble-filled bit of mouth-wiping rag en route from the hotel reception to my room. Sigh. So, the following entries may be a little bit patchy.
Tuesday
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After a hard day's slog, I met up with a few people and went for dinner before the evening's social at the Sky Bar. We ended up at a fantastic Italian place, which was, incidently, located right next door to a botox shop. How random!
The lovely old Italian waiter convinced me that I must have the dish of the day, Sole, and very kindly said "You no, worry, I prepare it all nice for you!". This was after he had listened to my list of questions: "Does it have bones?"... er yes, you fool, it's a F-ing fish! "Does it come with it's poor little head with it's poor little dead eyes stating at me and its tail and fins and all other bits that make it actually look like an animal instead of a lump of flesh?" Cue: horrified look from the waiter. Embarrassed looks and shuffling noises from colleagues.
Cheese pride
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So, I ordered the Sole and was very pleased when it arrived on my plate completely de-boned, de-headed, de-tailed and ready for me to eat. I couldn't make up my mind about desert because there was an ENTIRE LIST OF CHEESE as well as some tasty Italian sweet delights, so I struck a deal with Chris and we decided to share tiramisu and baked feta. The waiter almost had a heart attack there and then when I ordered cheese for desert. He realised that I was not quite normal when he arrived back to the table and found out that I'd been entertaining everyone with my "dead napkin-chicken" party trick...
Nipple-tastic
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Off we went to the evening's Social which took place on the 20th floor of some office block. The view was amazing (photo from Ruben!)
The sponsor had hired four anorexic girls to walk around naked and painted in the company's corporate logos. Tasteful. The bar was boiling hot, probably because they had to ensure that the naked girls did not catch pneumonia. These girls duly posed with the geeks/freaks/semi-normals (huhuhhuh and me) and otherwise spent the evening looking totally bored and smoking cigarette after cigarette.
The DJ was playing uber-cool tunes which didn't go down very well with the audience, until he started to play Nevermind, by Nirvana. Then everyone realised that it was some crappy remix and slunk off the dancefloor. Then the DJ realised what he was dealing with and played the real version, which prompted mass hysteria and screams of utter delight from everyone. The dance floor was packed, hair was flying, and there was the unmistakable smell of happy, sweaty, dancing geek.
Wednesday
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Release ME
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I finally got out of the hotel for an hour on Wednesday morning. The weather was beautiful. Look at the colour of the sky! This was the view from my bedroom window. Sorry about the angle on this photo but the bloody suicide prevention windows are really bad for photo taking purposes.
Berlin feels wide and spacious and very relaxed. When you live in Amsterdam, it's amazing to see how used to the cramped and confined-ness of it all you become. Berlin feels like a different planet compared to Cloggie Land. German people are very friendly and genuinely interested in where you come from and what you're doing here. I wandered around for a while, ducked into a few shops and then had to get back to work way sooner than I wanted to. As I walked back to the hotel, I noticed that the sign on the side of the hotel was a bit broken and, instead of "Hotel Palace", read "Hot Palace".
Burn baby burn
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Wednesday night's offering was a BBQ/Cocktail party which went down rather nicely, although it was a bit annoying to be shoved into a dark sweaty club by 22:00 because we were making too much noise in the garden. Geeks + steak + mojitos = noise. There was much joy and frivolity on the dancefloor as per usual. As seems to now be a bit of a tradition, the dancefloor exploded into a sweaty heaving mass when Nirvana was played. When the party was over, we walked back to the hotel and found some of the hardcore boozers propping up the hotel bar. It was only polite to stay and have a few more drinks with them and so that's what I did. I offended a random Belgian attendee by telling him what I always tell Belgians, which is not actually very complementary at all and involves the words most and famous and person and is and Marc and Dutroux. Huhuhuh.
Thursday
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Attack of the Paps
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The day came and went and I cant remember what happened. Thursday night is Dinner night, which is basically a posh party that costs a lot of money and is generally pretty un-atmospheric or exciting etc. The dinner took place in an old chalk factory which was pretty cool architecturally and many of the ladies had put on posh dresses. Most of the geeks hadn't showered since Tuesday. The geeks seem to be really into cameras, and the bigger their toys are the more proudly they show them off. All of the ladies at these events know that they are going to pretty much spend every evening being stared at through a telescopic lens. I think I almost had an epileptic fit from the flashes going off (and I don't even have epilepsy). So, to prevent utter boredom from creeping in, I decided to take pictures of every geek taking pictures of me. Kept me busy for a few hours, until the novelty wore off.
Die, Bert, die ['tis not "Die, bert, die", but "The, Bert, the in German"].
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I set off in search of more entertainment which was pretty hard to find. Olaf has a Bert doll which he takes everywhere he goes and photographs it in various positions. No one seems to find it strange that a man who's over 40 has a doll that he takes everywhere with him. In fact, the geeks love it and there's generally a presentation filled with Bert pictures in the last session of the week. A very, very, very strange American guy (from here on known as Freaky Yank (FY) ) who had infiltrated our table decided to kidnap Bert. They're so funny, these guys. Anyway, Olaf called the FY an "Annoying bastard" and strode off. He came back an our or so later and asked me, "Has the annoying bastard gone". "Well, you're back now," I said without a moment's hesitation. Olaf looked at me deadpan and walked away. Adrian, who by this time was totally drunk, was almost wetting himself with laughter and kept saying, "I've never seen one of your jokes go down so badly in my life." HAHAAH. Meanwhile, the FY really WAS kidnapping Bert and sent a ransom e-mail the next day.
Look at my telephone
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So most of these attendees cannot have any kind of conversation with anyone, unless its about something geeky. In fact, I really think that many of them try as hard as possible to try to confuse the person they are talking to as some sort of my-brain-is-more-full-of-boring-technial-crap-than-yours test, a sort of mental 'dance off' with technical terminology. YAWN. I got stuck next to someone who got out some sort of phone that opens up and looks like a mini computer, who then proceeded to tell me, whilst looking mortified, that he left his model E3234242 BHW 4445552345 UTHHH7777777 RTRTTT444444444444 PZW somewhere and has had to resort to using the old model E3234242 BHW 4445552345 UTHHH7777777 RTRTTT444444444444 PZY instead. ARRRRGH. Like I care?
It wasn't me
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There was a measly sum of people dancing on the dance floor, and after while most people were outside in the courtyard because it was a warm night. I was wearing a white top and, being the clumsiest person in the world, I spent the whole evening being uber careful and trying not to spill anything on myself, a quest I completed, to my own complete and utter shock. Miguel, however, did not have such a lucky escape when Adrian smacked my elbow and sent my red wine flying all over Miguel's posh white shirt. I was mortified because no one saw what happened and of course, I have a reputation where it comes to spilling things that are red on things that are white.
Hurry, hurry bring us cocktails
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Once the party was over, we decided to go to a nearby club, until we found out that it was a hardcore techno club and so we ended up in a posh cocktail bar instead, where I had the biggest tequila sunrise I've ever seen. Unfortunately there was more sunrise than tequila which was rather annoying but, as it was 3am, I didn't actually care that much.
We decided enough was enough and went back to the hotel in a taxi that had two tiny seats in the back. Of course, I had to sit in the back and thought that it was highly amusing to pretend to be a dog. No one else thought it was that funny though. As I wandered down corridor after corridor to find my room, I came across the funniest thing I'd seen all day and was upset that there was no one there to share in the hilarity with me. Someone had left a table smack bang in the middle of the corridor. I was laughing to hard I actually had to sit down on the floor to stop the pain. Poor lonely random table!
