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Mon Jan 22 00:31:04 CET 2007

Off to Paris

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Boring hotel room in Paris, day 1

I left Stockholm Arlanda at around six pm, arriving at
Charles de Gaulle at like eight-thirty. An uneventful
flight. Took cab to my hotel, a certain Novotel Les Halles, in
central Paris. Quite nice.

Strange how they prioritise things tho- the elevator had a
TFT screen with cool animations explaining in a pedagogical
way what you could do at this particular hotel, and mirrors
everywhere, et cetera et cetera, but the elevator neon lights
were busted, flickering every now and again. Gave me this
strange 'Blade Runner' feeling.

Came to my room, #615. I slid the hotel card into the slot
and entered- only to discover that the room already had an
occupant. I actually never saw the person in question, but the
underwear on the floor next to the bathroom door was enough
for me to utter exit the room with a quick 'excuse moi'. 

Went back to the pretty hotel lady in the reception, and
tried to explain to her that my room was taken
already. Petrified, she gave me another card, to the room
#612.

This room was fortunately empty, but I had learned my
lesson- always, always, always lock all valuables
away. Who knows when the next guest will come barging into my
room...

Anyway, to my surprise, this room has an internet
connection. Not some crippled connection via wifi, but a
regular ethernet socket next to the desk. Yay! 

After starting dhclient, and getting a rfc1918 address, I
had to surf to the local web page for a dose of hotel
propaganda, then bam I was out. They didnt filter outgoing
port 25, so I can send email from my local MTA. Very nice.

Tomorrow morning I have to try to figure out how to get to
Summithq, where I will take a five-day course on creative ways
of connecting buggy hacks to the mother of all hacks called
Summit. Its going to be fun :)

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