This schedule is starting to wear me down. I awoke at 6:30am and was at the venue by 8:30am. The room I was assigned to for the day was actually very interesting (that doesn't happen very often). There was a challenge (similar to the NetFlix challenge, if you're familiar with that) the goal was to propose an algorithm to disambiguate people on the web (ie, if you're searching for "Michael Jackson" which one do you want - the singer? reporter? other?). It was fun hearing about the groups that participated and what they based their solutions on.

After the conference, we had to stay late to get a security briefing. The Prince of Astorias is coming to the Opening Ceremony tomorrow and there is a big production regarding his safety and all that. We didn't get our briefing until 7:30pm, so by the time we were done and got home it was already very late (after 9pm). I was too tired to do anything, so I ate dinner in the room. All of the other volunteers went to a RealMadrid game (the local soccer team). Tickets were $60 and I was very tired, so I didn't go. But I watched the 2nd half of the game on TV. It was actually a very exciting last 10 minutes and RealMadrid won in overtime! (well, it's technically not overtime, but penalty time... I'm not sure exactly what it's called, the direct translation from Spanish is "discount time" and since I'm not familiar enough with soccer in English I'm not sure what the equivalent is).

So, I went to bed after the soccer game ended, around 1am.

Labels: Spain, WWW2009