I have a break and am at the conference using the public computers that have been set up for conference attendees to use. Even though I brought my laptop with me to Spain, it hasn't come in very handy because 1) I'm too lazy to carry it around and 2) the wireless internet at the hotel is too slow to use.

So, here's the latest update:

The conference officially started. As a volunteer, my responsibilities require a typical day to look something like the following... Get up at 7am, eat breakfast, get ready to go, ride the metro to the venue, and be there between 8:30 and 9am. Check in with my boss and hang out until the first session starts (between 9 and 9:30am, depending on the day). When the session starts I need to be in the room that I am assigned to for the day, ensuring that the presenter(s) is(are) comfortable and doesn't(don't) have any questions as well as count the attenders. After 90 minutes there is a coffee break for 30 minutes. During the coffee break I don't really have to do anything except answer questions and help people find what they need. Then the next session starts and my job is the same as during the first session (well, during all sessions I do the same thing). Then there's lunch, which can hardly be called a meal. It's a bunch of fingerfood and paella (and the locals say the paella really isn't that tasty). During half of lunch I stand at the entrance collecting lunch tickets and during the other half of lunch I get to "eat" (if you can call it that - it's really just glorified grazing). After lunch the schedule is the same as the morning.

At the end of the day, all of us volunteers check in with our boss and report the numbers for the day and debrief. In the evenings the schedule varies.

On Monday, in the evening my roommate (Karen, a great gal from Kansas, who has been volunteering for the last 9 years) and I and a few others decided we needed to go to a real grocery store to buy some food. The store also had a cafeteria, so we went there for dinner. I was ready for some familiar food, so I bought a small hamburger. It was good and filling. The time is all twisted around here. We eat lunch after 1pm, the conference doesn't end until 6pm, and by the time we're all done and back home we don't manage to eat dinner before 8pm. By the time we returned from the store and cafeteria, it was past 10pm. We finally got to bed around 11:30pm and were very tired.

Labels: Spain, WWW2009