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While in Madrid Oziel and I made a day trip to Toledo with Pablo. Long ago Toledo was the capital of the Spanish empire. Today is a quiet, but touristic, historic town.

Perched on the top of a hill, the narrow streets wind up and down throughout the town. The architecture primarily European, but as many of the builders were from the North of Africa there are many Arabic influences.

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Getting there proved more troublesome than we anticipated. A high speed train goes between Madrid and Toledo every hour for less than 10 EUR. We turned up at 8:30 am, planing to buy a ticket for the next train. However, RENFE has troubles with their computer systems, meaning we needed to buy tickets from the ticket counter. After a 45 minute wait, we were told that the earliest train for which we could buy tickets was 12:20. Luckily coming back was no problem. For future reference – tickets can be much faster at least one day in advance, and we understand that you can change the time of the return ticket easily.

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Midsummer is as important to the Swedes as Christmas. So knowing the country would be shutting down we decided to head to Madrid. But we made a mistake. Midsummer isn’t celebrated on the summer solstice, but on the Friday between 20-26 June. This meant we headed off a week early, but no great harm was done.

One of Oziel’s friends from University, Arturo, kindly offered to host us in his home in the vibrant Chueca.

Our main aim in Madrid was to eat, and to this end Arturo was an excellent host. The first night we had Mexican as we watched Mexico beat France in the World Cup.

Arturo took us to the newly renovated Mercardo San Miguel. It has everything you would want to find in a Spanish market – seafood, meat, fruit, wine, bread, cakes, etc … And it’s all available to eat in or take away. We set-up camp for a late lunch at the serrano ham stall, bringing with us a cheese platter, wine and bread. Then we moved to the cake stall.

We enjoyed pinchos at Lateral. We think it might be a chain. If so, look out for it on any future Spanish adventure.

We also enjoyed both the lunch and dinner at In Situ with Arturo. The food was great, the menu changed daily, the service was friendly, and we came to love the smoke free environment. In Spain people can still smoke everywhere, so when you find a smoke free environment it is an Oasis.

There was also a great place with orange walls, but we have no idea what it is called. But definitely one to watch out for.

Watch out for the running of the bulls in the photos below. I was in the middle of all the action!

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Oziel and I arrived to Madrid just in time to watch the world cup game between Mexico and France. We started off in an English style pub (that was more popular with the French), but during half-time Arturo took us to Mexican restaurant – where the patrons were more understanding of our cause.

It was in this new venue that Mexico found its form, scoring two goals against the French to win 2-0.

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After a rocky start my colleagues and I did end up interacting at CONES 2010 in Oslo. The proof can be found in the official photo album. I did a reasonably good job of avoiding the foreground, only being found too close to the camera once.

I am packed and ready to head to Oslo, just in time for the first semi-final of the 2010 Eurovision Song Contest! I will be catching the 5:20 am train to Copenhagen, and then flying up to Oslo.

I am sure it is going to be a huge week in Oslo. I won’t have much time to myself. Once we arrive, I will head straight to the workshop for the Center of Nordic Excellence in Software Engineering (CONES). We will then spend the remainer of the day in seminars until we break briefly before the workshop dinner. Wednesday too will be an early start, continuing the seminars from Tuesday in the morning. After the workshop lunch, we have a research group meeting before flying back home..

With this itinerary I am unlikely to even know what happens during the first semi-final. However, my past experience of Eurovision in Sweden has been intolerable. Without the voice of Sir Terry Wogan, Eurovision becomes a serious competition, solely about the musical performances. And surely no one can take pop that seriously.