Greetings from The Shaven Yak, one of the most premier and exclusive bars in Dublin!
Okay that’s a lie, The Shaven Yak is actually a pub-type breakroom that has been built within Google’s office here in Dublin…pretty badass huh? Anyways, I had the opportunity and pleasure of giving a presentation to Euro Googlers (Eurooglers?) yesterday – in true Nerd Fitness fashion, these are some of the topics I covered: Captain America, Superman, The Legend of Zelda, Everquest, Optimus Prime, Kratos, Halo, Angry Birds, and more.
The talk was recorded, so hopefully they’ll post it on YouTube like they did with my talk at the offices in San Fran. And even if they don’t, it was pretty similar to my previous presentation so don’t feel like you’re missing out on too much!
I had an absolute blast at Google and really appreciated the opportunity to talk about Nerd Fitness and the community internationally. I feel really honored to be part of such a cool group of people – I did my best to make you proud!
Today’s post is a quick one – by the time you read this, I’ll be on a bus for an impromptu visit with my buddy Benny from FluentIn3Months.com in his home time of Cavan for one of the world’s biggest traditional Irish music festivals. Benny is the man and runs a fantastic blog (which you should check out if you’re interested in language learning); I”m excited to hang out with him for the day and explore the town in which he grew up – I know it’ll be tough, but I’m sure we’ll find a way to have SOME fun tomorrow.
I locked myself in a hotel room
I’ll leave you today with a quick funny story: two nights ago, I checked into my hotel room in Dublin and proceeded to get changed before going to work out at a park down the street. I walked over to my hotel room door, pulled to open…and the handle practically broke off in my hand. Ruh roh.
I’m actually locked in my hotel room.
That’s okay, I’ll just use the hotel phone to call the front desk and let them know that I was LOCKED IN my hotel room, right?
Crap, no phone.
Meanwhile, I keep my iPhone in airplane mode while traveling internationally, so I’ll just use the wifi to hop on Skype and call the front desk.
Right?!
Wrong – the wifi is broken.
At this point, I am actually a prisoner in my hotel room. I have no way to contact the lobby, no way to leave the room, and absolutely nowhere to go. After a few minutes, I moved onto my last resort: I cracked open a window, and start yelling at random people in the street as I definitely added rocket fuel to the “dumb, obnoxious, and loud” American stereotype – “HEY YOU! EXCUSE ME! HELP! I’M LOCKED IN MY HOTEL ROOM!”
My apologies to all future Americans traveling in Dublin.
Fortunately, one dude finally stopped long enough to actually listen to what I had to say, and bailed me out by going to tell the people at the front desk that I was stuck in Room 4. Damn Room 4.
I’ll be bouncing around Ireland for the next two weeks, and then I’ll be heading off to Scotland for a week (hopefully to find the Loch Ness Monster and play golf at St. Andrews – the birthplace of golf), before continuing on to Spain where I hop to meet up with Corbett and Ashley in Barcelona. Good times!
Until next week!
-Steve
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