Speaker Dinner
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WordCamp Pune Part Two: Foundation Day

ByTopher DeRosia

I slept a little late today, and forgot to eat breakfast.  I was reminded when I got to the lobby and smelled it.  :)  Today was Foundation Day at WordCamp Pune, where there was a single track for beginners.  There was demo time, some knowledge exchange, etc.  It was during this time that I learned about India’s time zone: Indian Stretchable Time.  Things happen when they happen, not when a clocks hands are in a certain position.

I was really thirsty while I was there, so I mentioned to Sheeba Abraham that I could use a bottle of water.  She came back with two huge ones, then a little while later with two smaller ones of better quality.  Then when Saurabh showed up he pulled two giant ones out of his bag for me as well!

During the break I mentioned I was hungry, so Rahul Bansal from rtCamp took me to a place called Malaka Spice.  I like a little spice, but not much.  I get Medium wings at Buffalo Wild Wings.  At Malaka I ordered some deep fried duck with some Mango sauce.  Rahul asked them to also bring some “spice” and he got a tiny bowl of what looked like stone ground mustard. He said I should try some.  I had already tried the Mango sauce and said that was plenty spicy and he said “But that’s the sweet… Oh.  Don’t eat this.”

We had a great time at lunch, Rahul is an exceptionally cool guy.  I really really love the way rtCamp is run. Here are some pics from lunch.

Ginger Ale: Sprite with Ginger added

After lunch I crashed for a few hours and got some sleep.  The Rahul and Aditya took me out shopping for some gifts for my wife and daughters.  They know what they got scarves, but not what they look like!

While we were shopping we got notice that people were already arriving for the speaker’s dinner, so we headed right to that.  I always love speaker’s dinners, they’re always smaller than after parties, and the bonding time is always better.  I got to meet all the speakers and had some really good talks with people about why HeroPress means so much to Indians.  It seems to be much more impactful there than anyplace else.  I’ll go into it in another post.

This weekend I also got to meet Saurabh Shakla, Ramya Pandyan, Aditya Kane, and Sheeba Abraham, all HeroPress contributors.  That was really really cool.

Here are some pictures from the speaker dinner:

A man cooking chicken on a stick in a clay oven.
A man cooking chicken on a stick in a clay oven.

Tomorrow begins WordCamp in earnest, it starts in 6 hours, so I’m off to sleep.