Cucumbers away!

5 December, 00:30
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Oef. This 'Jet Lag' lark is doing my head in: I keep waking up at Amsterdam meal times, starving hungry, craving a broodje kaas. Last night, or should I say morning, I didn't get to sleep until 7am.

In my typing frenzy yesterday, I neglected to add many a funny anecdote. So i'll continue from there on...

After dinner on Saturday night, we bailed out as early as possible, a few moments before I was about to collapse headfirst onto my plate. 'Get me to the train' I slurred. But oh no, Nick had other ideas and more shopping/toilet finding ensued. I did see some fab shoes that I will go and buy at some point but was so dazed and confused, I couldn't make up my mind which colour to buy. I made the mistake of randomly pointing at a camera I might like to buy, and the sales boy tried to cut me a deal on whatever 'Siny' or 'Pontax' or 'Kodek' rip-off I was looking at (note to self: bargain, bargain, bargain - they'll do anything to get a sale).

Saw some horrible black lace, barely-there underwear and pointed and laughed. Stupid move. Nick (who is, excusably, suffering from jet lag and so therefore cannot be held responsible for his actions,) runs up to the bloke and screams 'Which one would look good on her?'. I'm mortified! MORT-EEE-FIED. (Note to non RIPE NCC-ers who happen accross this blog...Nick is my boss.)

Back to the supermarket on Sunday afternoon: not only did we buy disposable underwear, I also saw 'sea cucumbers' for the first time in my life. I expected them to be long and green, naive little soul I am,...but no, they were short and brown and slimy and at first, I thought they were some sort of garden slug on drugs... you can even buy their 'innards' separately (orange and curly!) eeeeugh! The supermarket is located in a huge mall with the biggest santa I have EVER seen and fake snow falling from the ceiling! Xmas feels weird when it's warm outside and I can't get used to hearing xmas carols in the hotel while walking around in flip flops and short sleeves.

Since my last blog, by the way, at least two of my friends have mailed to tell me that I simply have to bring home disposable panties for them. Place your orders ladies - the packaging on these things is the best bit!

So, all of us RIPE NCC-ers, and the APNIC guys, are eligable for 'cocktail hour' (translate: cocktail three hours in the executive lounge (tone lowered avec us) with free and open bar and as many bizarre dim sum snacks as one can eat). Last night I enjoyed some fine Barcardi with Nick and Rob Blockzijl. The latter went off to bed to cure his jet lag. Then I scoffed the biggest 'Tuna Burger' I have ever seen. It was very tasty !

The hotel is located in the airport, which is a hub of activity 24 hours a day, so Nick and I went off to the 7-11 to stock up with supplies (me: shampoo. Nick: 'oh my god, these are the cheapest condoms I have ever seen! I'm going to stock me up!' Me: 'Er, I think I'll stand outside and examine my very interesting bottle of shampoo with very interesting and indecipherable madarin charactures for the next few minutes, whilst glancing anywhere but the shop....'

After tossing and turning and thrashing about like an agitated killer-whale for 7 hours, I finally got some sleep at around 7am. My shift started at 13:00 at the booth but I had to go and eat my fried eggs for breakky at 10. You can even eat Chinese food for breakky here but, not liking Chinese food at the best of times, the thought of eating it first thing in the morning makes me want to hurl and I'll stick to fried eggs on toast thank you very much, even if I do feel a tad like a plebian tourist in Spain seeking out eggs, beans and chips for tea.

The afternoon of booth management went well, although no one is really interested in our booth (yet). All the other booths are commercial and people just want the goodies and giveaways. The more serious want to cut deals but, since we aren't selling, we can't offer (although a man did come up and hand Richard Jimmerson his card - Tailoring Services hahahaa). The Internet Pavilion bags were popular though and funnily enough, as we were going to dinner this evening (Nick, Filiz, Paul and I, Nurani from APNIC and Hirshan from AfriNIC), a man got into the lift with us carrying one of our bags - we were all thinking, oh hello dear attendee! You got one of our bags and you're still carrying it around 5 hours after you got it hurrah! A round of applause for you! Turns out he is one of the Egypt booth workers who are opposite us. No matter, today Baher, the ICANN laiason, and an Egyptian, pulled his strings and got us on the booth free coffee from the Egypt coffee bar: I guess there'll be more 'bags for coffee' deals to come.

Our presentation worked well, but one of the big TVs does not have speakers so we requested those for tomorrow. We also decided to get a PA system and start shouting at people who walk by, er, I mean giving quick 5 minute presentations in various languages on spam, Internet secururity etc. etc. in order to lure people in. I took a quick look around at the other booths today, and only in our hall - there was a Hummer and the NEC booth had the cutest little robots on display and a bar (and a half naked girl on stage playing some kind of traditional instrument.) Talking of half naked girls, it's full of 'booth babes', and white knee high boots seem to be the fashion a la moment (er, and not much else for most of them...After seeing two girls wandering around in bottom-skimming white PVC dresses, I was truly thankful for our booth's conservative dresscode')

Monday evening was a quiet affair. This executive lounge cocktail hour thing is great, especially as you can pour as much of the loot as you like into your glass. We were all getting hungry and, after my bargain sushi from the supermarket (2 Euros for 6 pieces!), I suggested that we sample the Japanese restaurant in hotel since none of us fancied the 25 min train ride into the city. There is another restaurant in the hotel called 'The Hairy Crab'...somehow, the name puts me off. Anyway, I almost died when I saw the prices (18 Euro for two pieces of tuna sushi). Needless to say, most of us decided on noodles (cheapskates) ...