If I’m going to be subjected to Rammstein & Laibach numbers as part of my mental earworm soundtrack, I’m damn well going to incorporate references to it in the posts.

Most of the Dev Summit is, I suspect, of no real interest to y’all, so I’ll skip it. Plus, I have to do a presentation on it once I’m back at work, so I’ll recycle that for a blog post.

It’s made for some long days.
On the plus side, there’s been interesting content, the standout being some folks from ESRI Netherlands who made the REST API entertaining.
Also, there’s a lot of coffee, and we got lunch. 😁

The ESRI UK mob went out for dinner on Tuesday night, and after a couple of false starts (booked for a party of 200, crowded with a two-hour wait), we ended up at a Vietnamese place which turned out to be pretty good.

Wednesday night was a conference/summit dinner: 300 people at an enormous German beer hall, with ‘traditional’ music (someone in a hostel once referred to schlagermusic as being this awful thing in Germany, and I think this is what they meant) , litre steins of beer, and enormous plates of meat.
All while people sat on benches at long tables, and folks in costume did the serving.

I suspect that it’s a loving re-creation of a traditional thing from a completely different part of the country, and which maybe never existed in the first place?

In any case, t’was a fun night out, and I was able to spot the exact point to stop drinking & go back to the hotel; Always nice when that happens.

I did take pictures, but as they show folks who aren’t me at a nominally private event, I’m not 100% sure about posting them on a public blog, so I won’t.

Today (Thursday) is the last day of the event, and there were some fairly fragile-looking folks in evidence, and a much more subdued vibe after the party of the night before.

The plan for Monday was to do more tourist stuff, but was hampered by rain.

Part of the Monday plan had been to go up the tower, but … I already know what clouds look like, and while the rain wasn’t bad enough that being outside was terrible, it did mean that inside options were preferred, so I spent the day doing a version of “What’s In This Building?” in Berlin.

Monday was the switching hotels day, from the Ibis Styles to the Park Inn, which meant I had to do something with my bag in the meantime, so I stashed it in a coin-op locker by a place called AlexOase, which seems to be going for a beach bar vibe.
In Berlin.
With Winter approaching.

And for the none of you who were wondering, I did try the pancake making machine at the hotel, and can report that it produces a small indifferent pancake that tastes a smidge undercooked.

Oh, and I tried for something arty & B&W for photos of the time zone clock thing; Man Being Crushed By Relentless Drizzle.

Eventually I could check in, and eventually the other ESRI UK folks arrived/finished pre-summit workshops, so we all met up & had dinner.

The hotel room has the shower as a part of the room, with an optional privacy curtain. That’s a new one on me.

Yes, I had currywurst again.
Don’t make this weird.

The hotel room came with a drink voucher for some reason (because they don’t have a bar?) so something claiming to be local seemed like the way to go.

Oh, and I took a picture which I’m pretty sure every tourist ever has taken.

A day, or at least some of a day, of being a tourist in Berlin. This one’s mostly photos.

Slept … Badly, but also slept in a bit, which made up for it. The hotel has a push-button pancake making machine, which I didn’t notice at first, so I’ll try it out tomorrow.

Because pancakes.

Today’s wandering took in the Brandenburg Gate, a park, and the Holocaust Memorial. Plus some things I saw along the way.

This is the reason I had the Sisters of Mercy track ‘Ribbons’ stuck in my head for a while; It’s Marx & Engels.

I was glad to be free of Rammstein & Laibach numbers, to be honest.

In an effort to take a picture of the gate which isn’t on every postcard, I took this one.

The park on the other side was nice, and had some big rocks in it, and also a crow (?) who objected to the rubbish disposal system.

And then there are the Stellae.

Unsurprisingly, I don’t have a funny comment or witty remark here; There aren’t any. The Holocaust Museum underneath (there is a longer name for the place, the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe) could be described as a carefully detailed nightmare, the steps laid out & the movements mapped.

This story properly starts yesterday, at a leaving ‘do for someone at work. Just one drink turned into more than one, and then another pub.

No big deal; I travel light, so packing takes very little time.

Then someone found themselves stranded, because their intended place to stay fell through, so the lounge at ‘my’ place became the backup, and only sensible, option. Fortunately, I have built up many many favours with the llandllady by not being a useless ambulatory houseplant, not failing to do a midnight run, and by feeding the cats, so this was no problem.

I don’t have a sleeping bag in this hemisphere; Should get one, as it’d be useful for this sort of situation. I basically had to say “here’s a couch; good luck”.

The reason all of that got mentioned is that they had to get up super-early, because I’m a paranoid & anxious traveller.

Anyway, it all worked out, I made it to Marylebone, then Paddington, then Heathrow with plenty of time to spare.
Maybe too much time; Probably didn’t need to be out of the house that early.

Flight was magnificently uneventful ( finished the WH40k novel I was reading, and started a Cadfael one ), and I can now report that Tegel Airport in Berlin is … Small. And showing it’s age.

Still, it does the job, and the passport control folks were friendly, and the people at the information kiosk were able to tell me the best way to get a bus to Alexanderplatz, where my hotel for the next few days is.

And a coffee place sold me a drink.

Hotel will do the job, though the WiFi is a bit rubbish; I’d hoped to be able to check on work stuff, but that’s not an option; Had to use my phone as a hotspot just to check the status of an Amazon machine, with no hope of actually connecting to it.

I’ve had my first meal in Berlin/Germany, and in honour of the grand cultural tradition, it was Currywurst. I’d assumed it’d be a bit Meh, owing to me not liking ketchup, but the curry powder made it quite nice.

My attempts to order it in German didn’t really work, owing to it being menu #8 on the board; I don’t know the word for ‘8’.

A subsequent purchase may have been more successful, but given that my only contribution was handing over the item, smiling and nodding when asked if that was all (though I did figure out that that’s what was being asked – Go Me!) , and saying ‘Thanks’ at the end, I’m not sure it counts.

So, in Berlin, planning to do some tourist things tomorrow, and … That’s about it.

Oh, and this is the hotel I’ll be staying at for the Dev. Summit¹. It’s a bit bigger than the current one.

¹ The actual reason I’m here is to attend the Esri Developer
Summit Europe. I’m doing some tourism ahead of the event.

Never been to a Developer Summit before. Never been a developer before. So that’ll be interesting.