My part in OTNEMEA was all too quickly apon us. I arrived in Lisbon at about 6pm, having worked on the 2 hour flight, and still had a conference call to take part in. Luckily Heli Helskyaho was expected at 7.30 so I was happy to find a quiet corner and get on with it.
Luis and Nuno from the Portuguese Oracle User Group came by to collect us and although Heli's flight was delayed an hour it didn't seem to matter that we didn't join the boys, until 9pm; they eat late in Portugal. In fact when we left restaurant at 11:30 people were still arriving. It was a fantastic meal and I really pleased that whilst the national dishes are mainly fish they also had some great meats for me (I don't do fish).
My hotel was a wonderful surprise a beautiful room but with a bath simply in the middle of it, complete with remote control mood lighting!
The next morning we walked to the university where the event was held, and I was really pleased for the Portuguese User Group who had got 60 -65 people signed up for the event. It started a little late, which is normal culture but for 3 europeans and an american being corralled by a german, it is scary! Still once we got going all flowed well, nobody overran and the audience had a great day.
My "Do Oracle Applications Stack Up?' was my first session and I had some great questions including from very technical people who recognise Cloud is here. Later in the day I had my more technical "AppAdvantage" presentation where I did talk a little about PaaS.
OUGPT is a relatively new user group and it was wonderful to be part of their growth. Luis and Nuno from the user group were such wonderful hosts and after the event we went down to the Tagus River and for a flight on the sky lift, gondolas that travel 30 metres above the river in the evening sunshine. Then we walked back along the river and a wonderful evening meal, then taking the metro back to our hotels.
 |
| Luis & Tariq |
 |
| Bjoern, Me & Heli |
As always with these tours, next morning it was off to the next location, two flights via Istanbul to Amman.
No comments:
Post a Comment