Linux World Tour

12-Apr-00, Buenos Aires, Argentina

After spending an enjoyable but quick weekend in Rio and taking about 200 pictures with my digital camera, we hopped on a flight to Buenos Aires, Argentina. I knew a little about Argentina from an article I had read on a flight before my first South American trip (this trip), and I was looking forward to seeing the country in person.

It's a good thing I came to South America instead of Charlie, because he doesn't eat meat: I had heard that their beef was fantastic, but until I was flying toward the airport, I had no idea why. Their cattle never have to climb hills. The terrain was so amazing I took pictures from the airplane.

Buenos Aires is flat.

Very flat.

Did I already mention it's flat? You can even see the curve of the horizon from the plane.

Some tough technical questions

Pablo Fernandez and Pablo Reyes, who work at the office of our partner in Argentina, SAM Sistemas, decided to bring some of the hottest developers in Argentina to their office to ask me some in-depth questions about MIDAS and our database access solutions. I'm not sure who benefitted more from the meeting, but we definitely got into some good technical discussions.

Claudio Briceno, George Hood and Tatiana Junqueira from our Inprise Latin America office put together the entire venue for the remainder of the Latin America Tour (and actually kicked off the first major part of the Linux World Tour). Claudio met us in Argentina, and took care of Ylonda and me for the rest of the trip, acting as interpreter, presenter, and assistant tour guide everywhere we went. We also had local friends everywhere who did a wonderful job of showing us the sights in each city and picking excellent restaurants to fortify us.

Kylix Presentation

Claudio and SAMs put together our meeting at the Buenos Aires Hyatt, which was great because I simply needed to walk down from my room in the hotel. Got some extra sleep that way. There were about 300 people in the audience.

Getting ready for the presentation

Another shot of the audience during the presentation. (Sorry, the light on the audience was dim, so the shutter speed was a little slow and made the picture blurry.)

Claudio moving so fast he's a blur.

The presentation in Argentina was very similar to the presentation in Sao Paulo, but Claudio Briceno was available to present the general overview for Kylix in Spanish, so he didn't need to be translated. For C++ Builder 5, I showed the IDE and CodeGuard. For JBuilder 3.5, I showed the IDE and Code Insight. For Delphi 5, I explained how InternetExpress works. For Kylix, I showed the same demonstration applications I showed in Brasil.

If you can, please come see Charlie, David or me when we're in your area. You can look at the schedule for the Linux World Tour to see when we'll be near you.

A better burger?

The verdict on the quality of McDonald's burgers in Argentina will have to wait. Our partners in Argentina were very conscientious about taking us to many good restaurants, and McDonald's wasn't on their list to visit, even though there was one outside the hotel. I think the reputation of the Rio McDonald's could have been in trouble, though.

One sign that I wish I had taken a picture of is the sign at a Burger King on their main avenue through the city. There are McDonald's on both sides of the Burger King, one next doo and one across the street. The Burger King has a big sign above their entrance, with an arrow pointing down to a large, flame-broiled burger. To the left and the right are arrows pointing to the smaller McDonald's burger. Definitely good for a laugh. Maybe I can get a picture next time.

Next stop, Peru

From here, we continue on to Lima, Peru, to show Kylix to the Peru Linux User Group (PLUG) on 13-Apr-00. I'll have more notes and pictures from there.