Reykjavík and CCP

Woke up this morning at 5am when Bea woke up to go to the UK. Tried to sleep longer but it didn't work. I get a bit anxious when I have to wake up in time for travel. I called Sara to make sure things were okay with the house and Craig to chat for a bit. Did a load of laundry (I don't have enough trousers). Packed.

Transport timing to the airport was spot on perfect. Walked to Vasa Viktoriagatan, looked at the time for the next tram. While doing that the tram turned the corner. Got to Gotaplatsen, waited 3 minutes and took the airport bus. Which meant I was at the airport for a while.

Met Christian, Andrea and Georg at Frankfurt. EWT sponsored us flying business class on Icelandair. Yippee for us! Tried Brennivín, an Icelandic schnapps. Reminded me of aquavit.

Christian and Andrea (husband and wife) had plans to rent a car because she would not be part of the sprint. They offered to drive the other two of us to the hotel. Turns out the small rental care could hold four people and only two suitcases. But that was fine because the airline misplaced their luggage, so only Georg and I had a suitcase.

None of us were really prepared for finding the hotel on our own. Christian had a small map printed out, with no street names. I could puzzle out some of the signs (like "Reykavik A" means "East Reykavik") and we knew it was near the water. When it felt like too far we asked a couple guys. They didn't know but did point us back to the center of town. We drove past a map and while looking at it stopped another two people. They didn't even know where they were on the map. We had the address with us and found the street. It was only about 5 blocks away.

Got in, registered, said hi to people, put on a sweater and met for the bus to CCP, a games company based here. They develop the MMPORG "Eve." It uses Python for a lot of the internals. We got a tour of the office and a small talk on the company. They have an amazing view of the waterfront. Sean's been taking pictures, see his blog.

I had a fun time talking with Nathan Richardsson at CCP. I've picked up various bits of trivia about Iceland over the years so I got to ask about them. I also tried learning some of the Icelandic language. It's related to Swedish, but further than Danish or Norwegian so I have to concentrate a lot to guess what something it. Still, I'm pleased that I can do it.

I've noticed that the Icelandic men I've talked to (I've not yet talked to Icelandic women, outside of hotel staff) are more likely to pat someone on the back or otherwise touch others than Swedes or Americans. Still not as much as salseros.

An observation with 3 data points isn't that good though.