The GUADEC³ House - Part One (take two)

[Daniel Pisano <docpi bigfoot com>]

Aaaaargh! Two pages worth of e-mail lost due to a mail-client crash.
Bah!

So, here goes once more, afresh. Take two:

CC'ed to GUADEC-list for stirring envy, curiosity and extending an open
invitation to create a GUADEC³ community for Seville.
In short: What are the others doing? When are you coming? Where are you
staying? When can we meet? Where can we meet?

SEVILLE JUST GOT A NEW HOLIDAY WEEK BETWEEN SEMANA SANTA AND FERÍA!!!
Let's make a list/site/map for GUADEC³ WEEK!!!

---snipsnap---

Greeting:

Hello there!


Introduction:

This is the first e-mail of a planned series regarding what I would like
to propose calling

*drum roll*
The GUADEC³ House!
(Ta-Daaaah!)


Pictures!!!

Sample pictures of the interior of the house can be found at:
http://www.centrosevilla.com/pc.html
And yes, the chairs are bright red!


Location:

The house is located at the following address:

Calle Pagés del Corro 107
Barrio de Triana
41010 Sevilla

Check out http://www.callejerohoy.com/ for a map, enter the address,
marvel in awe.

The house is on the other side of the river in respect to the city
center, but there is a bridge conveniently close to the street the house
is in.
The convenience is here to be understood as "The most comfortable
opportunity to discreetly dispose of the incooperative parts of the
contents of your gastrointestinal tract on your way home while dawn sets
the gracious scene in tasteful elegant bluish tender pink tones."
The passage about the lighting of the scene is, of course, the
description for any bystanding spectators. The directly affected person
in question will more likely marvel at the deep dark-blue setting that
the Guadalquivir has to offer while making his individual, colorful and
contrasting contribution to the endless flow below.
One of the great advantages of spending the night together in a group
becomes very evident at this point as the participants can take turns or
even opt to go for the collective experience.
Also, you can feel a lot safer in a group since this raises the
probability of being saved from mishap (before or after the fact),
should Gravity have liked your contribution and decided to have a
greater helping in form of the contributor.

General Information:

According to Concha, our reservation girl at "Centro Sevilla"
(http://www.centrosevilla.com/), the house located at said address has
four apartments, two for four persons with the option to put in an extra
bed in case of an exception and two for five persons. There is also a
living room on the ground floor. Of these four apartments, one 4-person
and one 5-person apartment are going to be avilable for us for the time
of our planned stay. The house has been supposedly completely
restructured this month and we are going to be the second tenants after
the ones that are going to live there for the Easter week, which is
right before our stay. The two other apartments are still going to be 
renovated and are thus not going to be available until the week after we
leave.
Concha knows that there is need for about ten more people from the
Danish User Group and she was going to check with the landlord of the
house on a possible premature release of the remaining, unfinished two
apartments (we're in the software business, after all). What Kimusan^'s
plans are, I do not know, however, since he let his secretary (do not
ask. It came as a surprise to me as well) make arrangements, who in turn
was not informaed about this possibility. So they may or may not be
there.
Nevertheless, we are going to end up with the house to ourselves both
ways.


Booking Arrangements:

The GUADEC³ House is booked for the time starting April 1st, 2002, 12h00
until April 8th, 2002, 11h00. The cost of the 4-person apartment is of
97 EUR/night, the cost of the 5-person apartment is of 120 EUR/night. As
you can see from the Centro Sevilla pages, the usual going rate for the
time _except_ that of the week of our stay and the Easter week before
and the week of Fería de Abril after is of 58 EUR/night for a 6-person
apartment. Bad timing. But then again, "It's not what you do, it's whom
you're with!" innit?
But since we booked in bulk, I managed to get a ten percent discount on
the combined price of the apartments, resulting in a total per capita
lodging cost of:

(97+120)*0.9*7/9 = 151.90 EUR, apparently already including taxes and
handling fees.

I had previously estimated an expected cost of 173.60 EUR which arose
from the assumption of having to pay for eight days instead of the seven
night that we are actually going to pay for. I will try to flirt a
little with dear Concha and see whether I can renegotiate for a better
deal.


Payment:

In order to make the reservation, I had to make an advance down payment
for the first night of our stay in the house. My credit card was
therefore charged with 195,30 EUR. The rest of the money is supposed to
be paid up front at the handing over of the keys to the house upon
arrival on the first day.
I arrive at 12h35 at Seville airport and will try to make it as fast as
I can to meet you all, collect the money, meet Concha, get the keys and
officially open the house. I expect the checking out, the trip from the
airport downtown and to the house to take until at least 2pm.

I think that it is good to poll everyone concerned for the arrival dates
and times so that we can make arrangements for an invasion, rioting,
plundering and pillaging plan that best fits our travel schedules.

Facilities:

The house has a separate living room, kitchen, bathroom, air
conditioning, TV, washing machine and dishwasher.
We need an 802.11 airport.
Internet access still has to be determined.
Ethernet cabling and networking hardware contributions are welcome.

H0T B4r3a553D CL34N1N6 4CT10N

Uh, well, it was worth a try to make our house cleaning duty somehwat
interesting. We need to keep the house clean ourselves. It also needs to
be returned clean. In my understanding, this means that should we
accidentally burn down the house, we need to return the ashes in a
sparkling-clean container. Volunteers for cleaning duty are welcome. I
report as the first one. You will be drafted and rotated in the likely
case of cleaning staff shortage.

Intoxicating and irritating substance policy negotiation and finding:

We'll have to settle on a binding policy on smoking and smoking (also
and especially valid for guests) for that may not be everyone's favoured
pastime and we want everyone to have a great time, right?
As for drinking, I say let the river flow below (see above)..

Food and drink (non-inebriating):

Let us make a meta-plan for what to eat and cook when and then
completely overturn it once we are there and find that the local
conditions are totally different and require new dispositions.

So. Was that all? For now, I guess.

More later,
Daniel [docpi]