I made it to Vilanova on Friday for GUADEC, managed to get settled in to our chalet (I’m glad we opted for one with air conditioning!). After we got them to fix the hot water, I now think it’s pretty decent accomodation for the price, complete with wifi, swimming pool and a well-stocked shop. The only downside I can see is the distance from town. On Friday night we missed the last bus and walked in, which took over an hour and I developed a bad headache by the time we reached the town (we didn’t find the right beach, but stopped in a bar instead). My enjoyment of the walk wasn’t helped by the small children who were out on the street launching fireworks, mortars and other incendiary devices at or near us most of the way. 🙂

Yesterday we hired bicycles to get to the town center which was certainly more fun, but there’s quite a hill on the way back. Also, bus in and taxi back is pretty much cheaper than the cost of hiring bikes here anyway, so I’m not sure I can recommend it as a long-term strategy. We might do it again for the novelty, and it has the benefit of not needing to wait around for a taxi to get back.

Even before I made it to the conference venue yesterday, I’ve already met loads of cool people who hack on all sorts of cool software which I use every day, and I’ve recognised lots more people who I’ve not managed to speak to yet. I’ve also realised that we need to do a lot more work to raise the profile of the Telepathy project which I’ve been working on for almost a year now (eek!). It’s a really cool way to get IM and VoIP stuff properly integrated into the GNOME desktop, and everyone should go and check out the website, play with our releases, chat with me and come to my talk on Tuesday. Oh, and if anyone wants a Telepathy or Collabora t-shirt, grab one off me or daf. 🙂