Sleep was Hard to Come By in Spain

It has become relatively rare that I get to scratch a new country off my list for work, but the 2018 Fast Starts presented one of these opportunities. I started off with a very hectic week in Madrid. [Check out the subsequent week in Thailand here.]

Let’s start with the timing, which was definitely far from perfect. Our cruise got back into Galveston at 9AM on a Saturday. My flight left Austin later that evening from Austin, and I wouldn’t get into Spain until Sunday afternoon. We also had quite a bit of heartbreak to start the week with all sorts of network problems that needed to be sorted out. And the scale at which we were running things required quite a bit of planning, but we did make it. Between making sure things went smoothly, being on the phone with Skytap (sometimes at all hours), and presenting several sessions, it made for a very busy week. Tim wasn’t very happy to see me most of the week because of it.

That being said, there were a few fun things that I managed to do during the evenings as well. Bill and Sam were both over there as well, so the three of us got to spend several of the evenings together. We went out the first night and found a hole in the wall tapas bar which appeared as though the back was in a cave. They even had a guy playing piano randomly (even a bit of Metallica). We got a beer, some monchego, a plate of anchovies (they weren’t as bad as I would have thought), some delicious stuffed mushrooms, and several types of ham or sausage. Oh the Spanish love their ham!

Another night, we went out with the Skytap team for a really nice dinner at the restaurant where Real Madrid goes to celebrate. We had more things that I can even begin to remember — but a few that stand out were the white sangria, the garlic shrimp, and nearly all of the other nine appetizers we ordered. The mains were all good as well. I ordered the steak the waiter recommended, and while it wasn’t the best I’ve ever had, it was really good. Somehow we ordered a few desserts to share, one of which (I don’t remember the name) was absolutely to die for.

On top of the delicious food and beverages, the company that night was amazing. Bob, Erin and Ian are always a blast to hang out with. Roger Snook, Bill, and Sam were able to join in on the fun too. Then things got really interested when Bob and Sam started talking tech (no, seriously they did), as Bob explained some things about one of his side projects.

On Bill’s last night, the three of us went into the city center again, and this time ended up at a restaurant that Sam found as being one of the 35 best tapas places in Madrid. This was a total Mom-n-Pop shop where literally we saw the man and woman who owned the place in pictures from years ago still there working away at their craft. The great part about tapas is that you get to try a lot of different things, and even better was that all of them were very good. It wasn’t my favorite dish we had there, but they did have an octopus dish that was very flavorful, and also some of the most tender octopus I’ve ever eaten. We capped off that evening with a walk around the city before catching a cab back to the hotel.

I had presentations all day Thursday in multiple locations which made for a hectic day. The hotels were also way out by the airport, so I wanted to take it a bit easier, which ended up working out really well. That last night, I got to hang out with Troy, Tim, Gina, and Matt which was a lot of fun. The food was good and the drinks were flowing, which made for a very good evening after a tiring week leading up to it.