I recently had the incredible opportunity to attend the TechEd 2006 Developers Conference, hosted in Barcelona, Spain. I say “incredible” because it was an invitation from Microsoft Romania to me and 6 other Student-Partners from across the country. So I’d like to thank Todi and all the other people that made this possible (you know who you are).

My Student-Partners were Alex Ghiondea, Alex Savu, Sorin Damian, Lucian Baciu, Mihai Tataran and Tudor Damian. Also Todi, the Microsoft Academic Program Manager for Romania was with us.

Because only Alex, Alex and Todi were from Bucharest, the rest of us had to travel to the capital. We all chose the train. It was a pleasant trip, during which I took these photos:

The scenery was extraordinary.

Tudy and I rallied with Lucian and Sorin, went to the hotel and then went out. The next day we all met at the airport and left for Barcelona. This was going to be my first flight. But it was excellent. We traveled with Lufthansa, the plane was a small one and it had quite a sprint when it started the take-off. We landed in Munchen and took a different flight to Barca.

This time, Alex Savu offered me the window seat and I took these photos:

This flight wasn’t that interesting at take-off because we were flying with a larger plane. I was fine, no flight sickness. We took our bags, split in 2 groups, took cabs and went to the conference to register and receive our badges. Some photos:

We arrived just in time for lunch, so..

In the first photo, from left to right: Ionut Balan (CHIP.ro), Mihai T, Alex S, Alex G.

In the next one: Alex, Alex, me, Lucian B and Todi.

Then we went to the hotel and checked in. Me, Alex S, Alex G and Sorin D went to visit the city, Sagrada Familia to be more specific. This is a temple designed by Gaudi. It was incredible! We stayed around 2 hours inside + 30 minutes in the museum and we probably saw 1/3 of the details.

After that we went to the conference, met up with other Romanians and went out for dinner:

Todi and Sorin D, Ciprian Jichici which was one of the TechEd Speakers (by the way, he did a great job, he’s one of the best speakers I know).

In the bottom pictures: Tudy, Alex g, Mihai T, Alex S, Aurelian Popa,… and in the next photo Adi Stoian, Zoli H, Bogdan M, …

So this was our first day in Barcelona. The rest …later.

Oh, by the way. The photos so far are here.