Shot this at the summit:

S60 Summit Day 0 coverage

Rafe didn’t arrive yet, I knew no one in the hotel, what should I do until the S60 Fiesta at 17:00? Go to one of Europe’s finest museums of course!

Madrid is a very urban city so it was nice to come across these two trees on my way to the metro:

A 15 minute ride later and I reached my destination:

While I was in line I managed to snap a picture of a famous artist, Goya:

At this point I couldn’t take out my Canon without looking like I was about to take a picture of something; stick the Nokia (NYSE: NOK) N95 on silent mode however and you can be a pretty sneaky guy. Check out some of the shots I took:

I prefer sculpture to art and was rather unimpressed by the small collection. There was only one security guard watching these majestic pieces of marble so sneaking around and taking pictures was pretty easy.

Every time I tried to grab a picture of a painting, I failed:

Taken on a Canon, can’t you tell by the ultra bright Xenon flash?

This guy was doing a damn good job making a copy of the painting in the back ground. I spotted a few other people doing the same thing.

Security walked in front of me when taking this picture. You can tell how short this guy was:

Three floors of art later, I was in the mood to take a scroll thru the park. The Royal Garden was right across the street. All of the following pictures were taken on a Nokia N95.

I noticed that Steve Litchfield always takes pictures of flowers or videos in his garden, so I thought why not show him a reason to attend the 2008 S60 Summit?

I even ran into some ducks:

I was looking at my watch and quickly realizing that I had to leave. The fiesta was going to take place! We all got these hot pink wrist bands. I don’t know what purpose they served, but I’m definitely going to keep mine for the memories it has given me:

We all hop on board the buses and the excruciating 45 minute drive begins. When we arrive however I really get the sense of how packed the event was:

The party began with a 45 minute horse show that was rather … let’s just say I prefer it would have been shorter:

Watch the guy on the white horse, he falls off:

After all was said and done the actual party began. It was very dark so none of my shots came out right, except for this leg of pork:

I had a great time and Nokia staff certainly knew how to party.

This is a picture I snapped on my N95 at the Museo del Prado in Spain while the security guard wasn’t looking. The man is Caesar Augustus.

The history of the Roman Empire is something that has always fascinated me, even as a little boy. I remember my first visit to the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York and seeing these 3 meter tall men who looked powerful, honorable and simply perfect. Around that time I started (more like attempted) body building, but that isn’t important right now. What is important is that the philosophy of the Roman empire was to understand, learn and return to Rome the various cultures of the countries they conquered. Knowledge was a currency more valuable than any material wealth. Learning was celebrated.

Before the S60 summit took place Phil Schwarzmann contacted me and asked if I would like to go. I wanted to, but it is something I couldn’t afford. This wasn’t important to Phil, he had a list of several bloggers whom Nokia (NYSE: NOK) was going to invite on an all expense paid trip just to attend. I just happened to be on that list.

Matthew Miller from ZD|Net and Michael Jerz from My-Symbian were nothing but names who I would often see in blue and underlined. I met Rafe from All About Symbian in Las Vegas during the 2007 CES, but our brief encounter lasted less than 15 minutes. After 3 whole days I can safely say that these men are no longer hyperlinks, but they are my friends.

Matthew is an American like myself who has lived on both sides on the coast. His love for mobile extends beyond S60, but he is committed to owning an E90 one of these days. He has a podcast called Mobile Tech Roundup where he talks about everything from cell phones all the way up to tablet pc’s.

Michael Jerz is from Poland and his love for mobile also extends past S60. I played with UIQ for the very first time on his Sony Ericsson (NYSE: SNE) P990i. He owns a red Nokia E90 that is practically his third arm. His summit coverage isn’t up yet, but I bet it has something to do with the thousands, yes thousands, of pictures he took. He has been writing about communicators since the first one was introduced.

Rafe is from the UK and lives in the country side about an hour away from London. He wants to see Symbian remain the mobile leader regardless of whoever builds the UI on top. His website publishing days began back in University, similar to myself, when PSION owned all of Europe. We had fun bashing each others pronunciation of words, but I’ll always be envious that I don’t know how to speak proper (UK) English.

Darla Mack and Steve Litchfield were invited to the event, but couldn’t make it. I deeply regret not getting to spend a few days with you guys. Darla and I met at CES 2007 and spent a day together in New York for the Evening with S60 event. I have yet to meet Steve, but I’ve been watching his "Smartphones Show" podcast since starting Ring Nokia.

When I accepted Phil’s invitation to Spain I did it because I wanted to see Spain. Selfish I know, but I’m known for being an asshole so I may as well say it. What ended up happening was I got the opportunity to make friends with people who have the same fire in their hearts that I do when it comes to mobile phones. The location of the S60 summit quickly became irrelevant after the first hour of hanging out with my fellow writers.

Nokia really does live up to it’s ad slogan of connecting people and I want to take the time to thank them for it. Thank you to Phil for the invite and thank you to Matt, Rafe and Mike for the great couple of days in Madrid. Like the Roman’s, I’m going to take everything you have taught me and incorporate it into my writing style and point of view about the mobile industry I proudly consider myself a part of now.

I can not emphasize how awesome the event was and how sad I am that Steve and Darla couldn’t make it. Expect my coverage to go up sooner rather than later, I’m still recovering from the massive 9 hour shift in time zones.

Nokia (NYSE: NOK) choose not to cover touch at the S60 summit. Reasons weren’t given, but I don’t really mind. I can understand that any company would rather wait to demo something that would amaze people rather than show off something that wasn’t ready.

I did manage to take a picture of this powerpoint slide however:

First bullet under "Smart Simplicity"

It exists.

This was the day before the actual summit; Nokia (NYSE: NOK) treated us to a party in the Spanish country side that was most enjoyable.

Check out Phil’s post over at See into S60, lots of pictures included.

Thanks for being my wingman Phil

It has been less than 6 months since starting Ring Nokia (NYSE: NOK). I must have done something magical because I ended up being interviewed by Phil for episode 22 of the Voice of S60 podcast!

Let me know if you enjoyed our conversation.

Tomorrow is Friday, I took off work.

I’m throwing Windows XP SP2 back on my notebook and after that is done I want to blog all about the S60 Summit. Those posts will be stickied to the top, everything else (the news I missed during my stay in Spain) will be under it.

Eldar from Mobile-Review already has his coverage up on the net:

• Part 1 covers the speeches that were given in the auditorium
• Part 2 is a walk thru of the exposition hall

I had the honor of meeting Eldar during the S60 summit, we even had breakfast together. I hope I run into him again at another conference since I am disappointed we only conversed for about 3 hours. This man’s knowledge of everything mobile made me feel inadequate.

I only hope that one day I could reach that sort of Jedi status, now please excuse me while I go pass out after 12 hours of traveling.

No one visited me even tho I posted my room number online. I did receive a ton of text messages however:

This key is awesome. The electricity to the hotel room doesn’t function unless the key card is placed into a slot by the front of the door:

This is the room. One bed, two chairs, one television, huge mess:

The (lack of) blogging has been happening from this desk:

You might be noticing that these images are not N95 or Canon Powershot A510 quality. What can they be? I’ll give you a hint:

It is my brand spanking new Nokia (NYSE: NOK) E61i given to me by Maria Kellokumpu, Nokia Enterprise Communications Manager. There is a story behind this gift, but I don’t have the video that explains it all:

I’m ridiculously happy. It would have been better if I didn’t drop it and scratched the back, but I’m not complaining.

Thank you very much Maria!

Just came back from a podcast with Phil from the Voice of S60.

I got a nice little piece of information for you: touch screen support for S60 will be talked about at the summit!

No information yet as to details, time lines, devices, etc. All I know is that I’m going to be hearing about it tomorrow.

Wicked!

Background Information: I began this post yesterday, then took a siesta and then went out all night. I’m probably going to offend some people with my liberal grammar usage of tenses.

Today was unlike any other day I’ve ever lived.

I never understood how it must have felt for my parents to come to America with little to no English skills, but today it became clear as crystal. I’m in Spain right now and have absolutely no clue what it going on around me. It can be frighting at times, but very rewarding when something as simple as successfully communicating a thought or concept to someone occurs after a few painstaking minutes.

Nothing I have looked at, heard, eaten or smelled today has come close to replicating past experiences in my life. Everything is new, everything is fresh.

Let me take a step back, how did I actually get here? This is the story only a Nokia (NYSE: NOK) N95 could tell:

I woke up early Sunday morning to a very typical breakfast. Three boiled eggs, a block of feta cheese and a few tomatoes. Some may think this is unhealthy, but my father (a retired doctor) has been ranting about how Americans don’t know what food is ever since stepping off the plane back in 1991:

Once that meal was finished we all climbed into my mother’s Honda and got going to the airport. After failing the security checkpoint twice due to my wallet, I am finally granted access into the terminal; third times the charm. The tectonic plates shifted before my very eyes and out emerged this evil demon:

How do I know it was the spawn of Satan? I gave into temptation and touched it.

5 seconds later American Airlines makes an announcement that my flight is delayed. Coincidence? I think not.

Half an hour after my flight was supposed to depart, we begin boarding. I ran to the gate:

The next 3 hours would prove to be a true test of my patience. I don’t like people who fidget and I was sitting next to a teenager who must’ve had 10 too many Red Bulls. Trying to sleep is also quite difficult when someone is playing their PSP on full blast, without headphones.

Oh well, I won’t let this ruin my trip! As soon as the plane lands I dash to the front so I could distance myself from shaky only to come across another strange figure. I didn’t ask this guy what the mask was for, I just kindly requested permission to take a picture:

At this point my stomach was beginning to emit noises that would demand the services of an exorcist, so I go to the nearest restaurant I could find at JFK airport. Sure it was expensive, $15 for a damn chicken caesar salad, but I got that that much needed dose of food my belly was aching for.

Here is the real deal. I’m going to be on this sucker for 8 hours:

Before boarding I took a seat in the British Airways lounge and plugged my N95 in. I would’ve sat down longer if I knew how many people were going to board this airplane:

The flight itself wasn’t difficult, keeping my eyes to myself was. I have a thing for Latin women and let’s just say that the flight was definitely spicy. I’ve never flown Iberia before, but if I’m ever going to be in Spain again I will only fly with them. The flight attendants went out of their way to make me happy, the food was amazing, the feature movie "Little Miss Sunshine" was available in 3 languages and the coffee was magically delicious. I arrived in Spain with a smile on my face … until I saw passport control:

Two hours later I get on another line for 30 minutes to get enough euros for my taxi ride. My driver was going over 180 km/h (over 110 mph) in his VW Passat and thus he got a very nice tip.

Checking into the hotel was quick and efficient and I was now a man on a mission:

• Locate adapter for my American electronics
• Find the nearest bank to exchange dollars to euros
• Get my phone working

The front desk people rocked. They sold me an adapter, told me a currency exchange office was within the hotel, but they couldn’t help me find a prepaid SIM card. I didn’t let this upset me, I’m in Spain for crying out loud, it’s awesome!

I run back upstairs to grab my camera and on my way out the door I bump into Ganesh from the S60 Browser Team. I told him my issue and he was kind enough to let me use his E61i to call T-Mobile (NYSE: DT) and get international roaming enabled. Thank you very much, you have no idea how much I appreciate that.

Now I leave the hotel and take on the streets. Spain is an assault on the senses and I was too busy reaping the benefits of experiencing a new culture to take out my camera and snap photos. After failing to locate food so early in the morning (11:00) I resorted to making a quick pit stop at a butchers and getting the proper supplies to make myself a hearty sandwich. The pork here is epic. After 5 hours of aimlessly walking around Madrid the jetlag kicked in. At 15:00 yesterday I was dead asleep.

I woke up around 19:00 only to get a phone call moments later from Phil for an invite to hang out. How could I refuse?

What was supposed to be a quick trip to the super market turned into an evening of good old fashioned fun that ended around 02:30

We discovered a company named after him:

But best of all was the half liter of cold beer after all that walking:

I had a blast and instantly fell asleep the moment my head touched the pillow.

It is 09:00 in Spain right now and I just got of the shower. I’m starving.

There you have it: The story of how I got to Spain and how the first 24 hours went.