We are now into 2010, and thinking back on 2009 it really was one of the best years that I can remember. It was full of amazing experiences which I will never forget from my first skydive to the summer of a lifetime travelling around America and Canada.
I decided to make this video as a summary of the year to remember all those experiences. I now challenge 2010 to better 2009!
Back in November I got to go to TechEd Europe 2009 in Berlin. I was one of four Irish Microsoft Student Partners chosen to go.
This was the first time I had ever been to a conference like this so I wasn’t sure what to expect, although I knew it would be a great experience after hearing stories from Student Partners who went in previous years.
The conference was running for a week and we were over for the entire thing. I attended some fantastic sessions with speakers who are well known within their field. Some of the great sessions I attended included one by Scott Cate about Visual Studio tips and tricks. This was a session full of little shortcuts that you can use in Visual Studio and some tips on how you can essentially improve your productivity and I plan on following up with a blog post showing some of those I find most useful.
Another great sessions I attended was one by Kate Gregory about using the Windows API code pack to develop applications that use some of the new features of Windows 7 such as the task bar. Again, I will follow up on this with a blog post.
Another of my favourite sessions was one by Rafal Lukawiecki about cryptography. It was a very interesting session and he was a fantastic speaker, I would’ve liked to have attended more of his sessions.
I learnt a lot at the sessions I attended and it will be very useful to me in the future.
However, the trip wasn’t only about attending these sessions, it was also about getting to meet up with other Microsoft Student Partners from all over Europe. I certainly enjoyed getting to meet and speak with others. Here we are in our ‘family’ photo (click to zoom):
I also enjoyed getting to see some of Berlin, a city I have always wanted to see. We were very lucky to be there the week of the celebrations for the 20th anniversary of the collapse of the Berlin Wall and attended the event where they knocked over dominoes in place of the wall.
Thanks Microsoft for sending me, it was a fantastic week full of experiences. I learnt a lot and got to spend time with some really great people.
Here is a video of the week (photo album: click here) :
As part of my trip to London I saw Derren Brown live in the West End run of his ‘Enigma’ tour. Some of you reading this may already know that I am a fan of Derren Brown’s work and have seen him various times on tour, this show being my fourth (a post about his show I went to last year is here).
Derren tours every year with a fresh show every third year and he usually comes to Belfast on the second run of the tour. Since this was the first run of the tour then he wasn’t bringing it to Belfast so I took the opportunity while in London to see the show a year early.
The show was brilliant in general, pretty much everything I have come to expect from a Derren Brown tour. You may wonder why I say in general? Well there were certain parts I was watching and thinking ‘I have seen you do this before’ and that is probably because I have seen all his TV shows and tours but it did disappoint slightly. However, these moments were rare and the finale more than made up for any doubts I may have had earlier.
The finale was certainly one of the best, if not the best, finales of his tours and it had me on my feet along with the rest of the audience for a standing ovation!
At the end of the show Derren requested that nobody would reveal anything from the show, especially the finale, so as not to spoil it for others and I will respect that.
Without a doubt, as usual, I would highly recommend you get tickets for this tour next year as Derren really is a master at what he does and certainly knows how to put on a good show. A night of fantastic entertainment!
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I realised that Derren Brown was on the West End run of his most recent tour so booked a ticket to see that. A separate post will be covering the show.
Whenever I landed there was very heavy rain, but it had thankfully cleared up by the time I reached my hostel. I was staying directly on Piccadilly Circus so went for a walk around the area once I was sorted. I walked to Leicester Square and seen it was setup for the world premiere of the new Harry Potter film so decided to hang about for it because I hadn’t been to a premiere before. Unfortunately the rain came on again but this time even heavier and was joined by thunder and lightning. I had a pretty good spot outside the cinema but quit once the rain started heavy because I wasn’t too bothered if I missed it, I’m not exactly a fan of the series.
I went for food to get out of the rain and once I was finished the rain had stopped and I could still hear shouting around Leicester Square so I thought I would check it out once more and actually arrived just in time to see Daniel Radcliffe and Emma Watson arrive, I had just missed Rupert Grint. The crowd were going crazy for them, I seen a girl running around and screaming ‘Oh my God, oh my God, I seen Rupert!’ and everybody started chanting ‘Harry, Harry, Harry’ when Daniel Radcliffe appeared. Whenever I was walking around Leicester Square again later that night the fans were literally ripping the place apart to try and get some of the decorations that had been put up for the premiere!
I remembered that ‘Thriller Live’, the West End show made up of Michael Jackson hits, was running so I went to their box office on the off chance of being able to get a ticket as a consolation for not seeing the real thing. This was the night of his memorial concert so I thought it might be completely sold out, but I managed to get one ticket for myself in a really good spot. The show was brilliant and at some points you would’ve thought it was really Jackson on stage!
The next day I went sightseeing, walking quite a bit from one side of London to the other. I started at Piccadilly Circus and walked to Trafalgar Square, Downing Street, Parliament (where I got into the House of Commons to see some of the debates), London Eye, Oxo Tower, the Globe, I went around HMS Belfast and finally around Tower Bridge. Some of these sites I had seen before, but it was great to be able to spend time at the ones I hadn’t. There were some great views of London from the walkways at the top of Tower Bridge and I also got to see the bridge opening for a boat. After this I went to the Derren Brown show.
On my final day I went around some of the shops to pass my time before catching the flight home. I went to Hamleys and Harrods where I wished I was a child again with very rich parents. Some of the things you can get for kids these days is unbelievable such as this fully functional car costing £20,000:
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It was a great few days, but the travelling wasn’t stopping there, the next trip was only 3 days away: America!
Below are my photos from the trip:
Following on from the last post about Barcelona, I will now write about the main reason I was there: to see U2. I decided to see them in Barcelona because I wasn’t going to be able to see them play Dublin as I’m in America. I figured I might as well take the opportunity while I had it and see them in another country. Barcelona was the first night of the tour and they would be playing the Nou Camp, this was bound to be an awesome show and they certainly didn’t disappoint!
Read on for more about it with pictures, including the newspaper article I ended up in!
