Picking up where we left off, it was the Sunday before the start of the event. The rest of the week was (sadly) about work - we had full, busy days ahead of us. I ran into a surprisingly large number of people that I know, got to check out some very cool new things and made introductions to a number of new partners that could add to our product ecosystem. It was a busy, productive week!

So after wandering most of the day on Sunday, I had an event in the evening on the rooftop deck of a local hotel. It was drinks and appies and networking with a company that I was meeting with later in the week to discuss partnership opportunities. The food was excellent and I had a couple of really interesting discussions with people I would not normally have had a chance to interact with. And the place was amazing. Views back to Casa Milà as well as up and down the Passeig de Gràcia. PLus it had an amazing swimming pool on the roof deck. They had musicians playing and it was overall a pretty great evening.

They also had a professional photographer at the event that took some great photos, which they freely shared with everyone that attended. So I stole a few and will add them below.

I left the event around 8:30 I think, and met up with my friend Dave who I used to work with at Semtech. We’re now competitors, which is interesting, but the good thing about that is that it prevents us from talking shop. We always have a great time together (sometimes too good), and we were joined by another former co-worker who also happened to be in town. It was a fun night.

There was no doubt that it was going to be a fun night, and a rough morning…

Monday morning, bright and early it was time to head over to the conference center and start the week. I was excited to see how it was all going to work out, the crazy booths and the sheer mass of humanity. I was actually pleasantly surprised at how well organized everything was, in terms of logistics for getting into the venue. Getting 100K people through in an orderly fashion is an impressive feat, but they had it well sorted. The badge system was really good, security wasn’t too crazy and before long we were in - and had to make the walk all the way back to Hall 7 where our meeting room was located.

The front entrance where we had to get in each morning.

We had organized an executive meeting room, rather than a booth on the tradeshow floor. It was really helpful and gave us a place to meet, a quiet space to get away from the show and a place to sit and rest. It was perfect and we had a lot of meetings lined up.

Our meeting room - funnily enough MDA was across the hall and Semtech was in the next corridor over. It’s a small world.

Over the course of the 4 days we lined up over 20 meetings, which quickly filled my days. Monday and Tuesday were the busiest and I barely had time to get out onto the show floor to try and see what was new and cool. By the end of the day on Monday we were exhausted and ready to head back to the hotel.

Our hotel had a pretty nice bar in it, next to the lobby. In fact it was so popular that 2/4 show days it had been rented out for private events, which was quite annoying.

Tuesday was our busiest day for meetings, so the day flew by. I also had a dinner with one of our partners that didn’t start until 8:30, so after we had gotten back to the hotel, Graeme and I headed out to find a place to have a drink. We ended up finding a whiskey bar that is my new favorite bar in Barcelona. They had an amazing selection and it was the perfect way to spend a couple of hours before we headed for dinner.

Such an amazing looking classic bar!

There were almost too many options.

My first drink was an old favorite - you can never go wrong with Bowmore.

We had tried this one when were on Islay a few years back, but I had not seen it since!

Some wild decor - who knew you could find a use for old whiskey boxes.

A sign in the bathroom

Dinner Tuesday night was really fun - it was definitely one of the highlights of the trip. I got to meet some cool people and I ended up talking football (soccer) with a couple of locals. It was a pretty late night and we had another early start on Wednesday.

My meeting load dropped slightly on Wednesday, so I actually got to head out onto the show floor to see somethings that were going on. There were quite a few Formula 1 (and Formula e) cars on display. I’m not sure what the connection is - I assume most of the companies displaying the cars were sponsors?

While this is primarily a mobility (cellular) show, you have to remember that some of these companies are some of the biggest technology companies in the world, especially the Chinese ones. Yes they make cell phones, but some of them also do things like this for fun….

This was a fully electric, fully autonomous prototype from a company most people have never heard of. So beautiful!

As Wednesday was the last day the whole team would be together, we did a team dinner at another great restaurant. The food was excellent, and it was in a great area of the city.

My paella was pretty good - still not great, but better than the first one.

But desert was fantastic!

The restaurant was steps away from the The Barcelona Cathedral (Catedral de la Santa Creu i Santa Eulàlia) is the majestic, 14th-century Gothic heart of the city. Located in the center of the Gothic Quarter, this "La Seu" is the seat of the Archbishop and a masterpiece of Catalan architecture.

Barcelona also has one of my favorite casinos in Europe, and so I wanted to play at least one night. This seemed like my best opportunity. So after dinner I hopped in a taxi and headed over. I had a pretty good night, and ended up something like 800 Euros. Certainly enough to pay for duty free on my way home…

I was flying out fairly early on Friday, which made Thursday my last real day in Barcelona! I headed over to the show and had a couple of meetings. The show wrapped up at 2:00 p.m., which gave me some time for a last walk around to see parts of the event that I had missed I’m not going to lie, I was pretty beat and done with the whole thing, but I had enough in me to wander for a bit. It was torrentially raining when I left, but was fortunate enough to geta taxi pretty quickly. I think I timed it well.

I spent the afternoon in Libertine working and trying to catch up. I was pretty productive and got a half day of real work in, which made me a bit less stressed. I had agreed to meet Graeme for dinner, as he was also flying out early the next day. We headed over to this swanky hotel bar a few doors up the street for a pre-drink beverage. The bartender made a suggestion for dinner, so when it was time we headed over there.

As we walked over to dinner, we passed through this random public garden - check out the oranges on the tree! In March!

The owner of the restaurant must be a huge football fan. I have never seen so many signed jerseys - all the big names from Spanish football. There were also dozens of signed photos of famous footballers in the restaurant.

Easily the best paella of the trip!

I loved this painting that was hanging towards the back.

Evena signed jersey from the Egyptian King!

We had to be off to the airport at 4:30 a.m., so i was an early night of packing. The trip home was relatively easy and I got a bunch of work done on the plane on the way home.