The last leg of my OTN LA Tour was Ecuador. It was already interesting enough because of the altitude of Quito: about 3 km! I am not good with high places… But it became even more interesting when we learnt the news about the erupting volcano…
I arrived to Quito on Sunday evening and on the way to the hotel we had a chance to see the active volcano but unfortunately we were not able to stop and take photos. The first evening for me was simply a running nose, one of the symptoms you might get due to the altitude. I was a bit afraid the migraine would hit and I kept drinking a lot of water. The next morning I was very fine: no running nose, no headache. The conference was on Monday and Tuesday and luckily I had some free time on Monday so I was able to attend a fantastic sightseeing tour organized by my friends Paola Pullas and Soraya Reinoso. I visited both the Equators: the historical and the GPS measured. I saw the statue of Virgin Mary on top of the “little bread” mountain and visited the old town.
This conference only had two tracks which guaranteed us a good number of attendees in both parallel sessions. My first session was about Data Modeler and comparing functionalities. The room was quite crowded and the audience was extremely active. I enjoyed that a lot! My second session was 15.30 in the afternoon. The room was quite full again but I could see that the audience was getting a bit tired already after the long two days, just as I was. But they did not let me down: still plenty of questions and very active participations for guessing my number. The one who guessed the right number got my new book, signed 😉
After the tense day (8.00-19.00!), Paola and her team invited us speakers for a wonderful dinner in a restaurant located on the top of the “little bread” mountain. I was back at the hotel around midnight and my alarm rang at 3.30 to make sure I will make the taxi to the airport at 4.30 to start my long journey home: Miami, London and finally Helsinki….