OTN Tour of Latin America 2015 : AROUG, Argentina – Day 1

I woke up far too early and spent a few hours on the computer.

A number of folks on the tour have built up so many Hilton Honours points they get access to the executive lounge, so I was signed in as a scummy guest and I got breakfast for free. 🙂

At about 09:00 we walked across to the AROUG event, which had the following order of events.

  • The day started with an introduction to OTN and the ACE program by Pablo Ciccarello.
  • I was up next with my “Pluggable Databases : What they will break and why you should use them anyway!” talk. I had a full room and the response to it was really good. I got some good questions at the end and amazingly, I managed to finish on time. 🙂
  • Then came Debra Lilley with “PaaS4SaaS”.
  • Next up was “Controlling Execution Plans (without touching the code)” by Kerry Osborne. This was a double session, split by lunch.
  • After that was Mike Dietrich with his “How Oracle Single/Multitenant will change a DBA’s life” talk.
  • I closed the day with “It’s raining data! Oracle Databases in the Cloud’. Once again, a busy room and some good interaction with the audience. I’m not sure how many people feel ready for a move to the cloud, but the level of interest is definitely high.

I got really tired in the middle of the day. At one point I sat in a big chair and started to nod off, so I went out and got a giant cup of coffee, which perked me up. 🙂

There were a couple of the other speakers I was interested in seeing, but they weren’t presenting in English, so no luck there. 🙂

After the event we walked back to the hotel and I was coerced into drinking alcohol. Well actually, I just fancied it. 🙂 Due to the fact I rarely drink, I felt very drunk very quickly. My alcohol tolerance is truly pathetic. 🙂

From the bar we wandered over to meet the other speakers and organisers at a barbecue restaurant. You might think that wasn’t the best place for a vegetarian to be, but you would be wrong. There was loads of good stuff I could eat, plus excellent company! 🙂

After far too much food, we headed back through the rain to the hotel and then to bed.

This really concluded the AROUG event for me. All my sessions were on day 1, so I get day 2 to do a bit of sightseeing. 🙂

I’d like to send out a big thank you to everyone who came to the event, including the attendees and the speakers. Also, big thanks to the organisers at AROUG and the ACE Program, who made this possible for me.

Cheers

Tim…

LAOTN Tour (Southern Leg) : ArOUG Day 2…

I was determined to get on a bus tour of Buenos Aires this morning. The plan was to do this yesterday, then spend this morning revisiting a few parts of the city in a bit more detail. Unfortunately, my inability to follow basic directions scuppered that plan… 🙂

So this morning I got myself to the tour bus and rode the loop of the city, taking photos as I went. You will see lots of blurred images and lots of pictures containing parts of the bus, but I don’t care because they are still good memories. 🙂

I got back from the tour bus, had a quick shower, then walked to the conference venue to do my last presentation of the ArOUG event. Everything went smoothly and people seemed really happy with it. I got to speak to more of the attendees, which is always fun, and pose for a bunch of photos with people. Everyone in Latin America has such nice skin tones, then there is me looking like casper the friendly ghost next to them. I think I will get a fake tan before I come next time. 🙂

After saying goodbyes to a few people, a few of us went out to a local bar to toast the end of another event. Alex would be proud of me, as I drank a pint of the local equivalent on Guinness, while eating chips (fries) with a cocktail stick. What a great idea! No sticky fingers. 🙂

I’m now back at the hotel and I leave for Sa0 Paulo, Brazil tomorrow. That’s four out of five events done. It hardly seems real…

Thanks to everyone in Buenos Aires and the ArOUG that looked after me and made me feel welcome during my stay. I hope to see you again soon. Also thanks to the Oracle ACE Program for making this happen.

Cheers

Tim…

LAOTN Tour (Southern Leg) : ArOUG Day 1…

I arrived in Buenos Aires, Argentina late last night. The ferry ride from Montevideo took about 3 hours.

This morning I got a taxi to the ArOUG conference venue and did my first presentation of the conference. I was originally scheduled to do both my presentations today, then have tomorrow off, but Alex Gorbachev needs to leave earlier tomorrow, so I’ve swapped slots with him and my second presentation is now tomorrow afternoon.

Feeling adventurous, I decided to walk back from the conference venue. The directions seemed pretty straight forward, but I managed to get myself lost. I walked around for quite a while, thinking I must be close to the hotel, but not managing to find it. I eventually decided the only way to get back was to get a taxi. As I walked to find one, I noticed I was standing next to my hotel. Bonus!

The plan was to spend the afternoon on a city tour bus, but unfortunately I got lost on the way to the pickup point and I just walked around for a few hours until I found myself again, standing next to the hotel. 🙂

After reading a bunch of security messages from Oracle I felt quite nervous of taking photos and making myself look even more like a tourist, so I didn’t take many photos. If I can get on the bus tour tomorrow, and not get lost again, I will take loads.

In the evening went out to a barbecue-style place to eat. Everyone ate a little bit of salad and fish to start, then guys brought a procession of different meat out on large skewers, more like swords really, then it was a meat-fest for the rest of the night. I’m a vegetarian, so I kept eating the veggie stuff while I watched a herd of assorted animals get devoured. Everyone was very happy and full by the end of it. Even so, Alex still managed to eat some food from a street vendor on during the walk back to the hotel. I have no idea where he puts it all! 🙂

Cheers

Tim…