Yesterday was spent settling into the Casa 400 and reconnecting with the European Postgres community!

The hotel allowed us to check in very early and so I got to settle in, grab lunch and a nap before we set out for the evening.

We had informally decided to go on a pub crawl with whoever was already in town. The decision making about where to go started around 5pm.

We now have about five years of experience trying to get 20 or more people into bars and restaurants without calling ahead and last night, luck was with us!

I broke down our lessons learned as follows:

• Start the planning one hour before the intended departure time.
• Have a printed map, even if it is not consulted.
• Ask for help from locals.

Thanks to Greg, we actually asked a local bar owner about where to go, and he called a friend’s restaurant for us!

We ended up at Nels for dinner with nearly 25 people taking over most of the restaurant. I was lucky enough to have a friend in town from Portland that joined us for a long conversation about marketing, PostgreSQL, geek cruises and aircraft carriers. I think I have a topic now for a lightning talk.

After that, we walked around searching for ice cream for Ads. We ended up at Pasta e Basta, which had ice cream and singing wait staff. After hearing “Hit the road, Jack”, “Here comes the sun” and a few other tunes, we closed out the night at the hotel bar.

I got to meet the author of pgChess, Gianni Ciolli, and catch up with Jonathan Katz, Dimitri Fontaine and Peter Geoghegan.

All in all, a great start to the week at the conference! I’ll be room hosting this afternoon in room #3.