Trip to EGC 2011

Early in the morning the 22nd we got up and went to the airport. We are going to Bordeaux in France for the European Go Congress. First we took a plane to Paris and then another one directly to Bordeaux. Once we got there we took the bus a couple of stops and they jumped of to take a bus on another line. There we had to wait for 30 minutes for the buss to show up. If we knew that we would have taken the taxi instead. The time was 20:00 before we came to the hotel so it took us the whole day for the trip.

Our next challenge was to find somewhere to eat dinner and find a supermarket so we can buy breakfast for tomorrow morning. We picked a random direction and started walking. We saw nothing at all. Not a pub, not a restaudant or store. But then suddenly after 10-15 minutes of walking I see the so familiar sign of Mc Donalds. Yay! We will get something for dinner al least. Next to the restaurant we also see an advertisement of a supermarket so we keep on walking for a while of hopes to see the actual building where the supermarket is. We didn't find it but we found a mini supermarket that had what we needed for breakfast.

Then we directly went to Mc Donalds for a burger. Also bless the restaurant for their Wi-Fi so we could download the google maps of Bordeaux to our mobile phones. Those maps with the phone GPS is a life saver when you are lost in an old french city!

The next day we went to the playing venue for the registration. There was a long queue for payment and to get the badges. It was the paying part that made the queue so long, so because we already had payed I tried to walk up to them and showed the paper where it said that we had already payed and they took care of it directly and I got my badge and was a happy man.

By this time it was time for lunch so we took the tram to Hotel de Ville to find a restaurant. We sat down at the first place we found and I ordered a burger and a glass of their most expensive red wine. They asked me how I wanted my meat done and I said medium. Directly after he wrote that down and left I started to regret myself. I had a feeling that medium done meat in France is not the same as it is in Sweden and when I got my food I saw directly that my feeling was right. The meat was raw! They had just put it in the frying pan for a couple of seconds to get a brown surface and the rest was totally raw. I was quite ok with this but was a little bit worried about the restaurants hygiene. The burger tasted good anyway and the wine was just great!

After some sightseeing around Hotel de Ville and some more shopping in a supermarket we went back to the playing venue for the opeing ceremony. All important people and presidents of all organizations held short speeches. When it was time for the main sponsors speach they only was able to speak for a short while when the fire alarm went off. The sponsors seemed stressed while the organizers tried to cover the alarm so it shouldn't make so much sound. They shouted that there was no fire and all was ok, but not all was so sure about that. After a short while everybody was told to go out the nearest exit and out on the grass while the firemen searched the building for any fire. After around 15 minutes we were allowed to enter the building again and the sponsors were able to make their speech. This was the last speech and now it was time for a short movie that was supposed to last for one minute, but they were never able to get the movie started even tough we waited for ten minutes for it. So there were some problems but everybody seemed happy anyway. We are all having a good time!

We met some people we know and talked for a while before we went home to rest before the games start tomorrow.