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I starten af juni gik turen til Madrid (det er faktisk første gang jeg er “rigtigt” i Spanien – Lanzarote tæller på en eller anden måde ikke helt). Jeg deltog i en konference om kvalitet i offentlige statistikker (jo jo, jeg er nørdet på mange måder).

Konferencen var spændende, hvilket også var godt, for det er godt nok nogle lange dage (der er dog bonus strikketid at hente sig, når man skal holde koncentrationen på foredragene). De lange dage betød til gengæld, at der ikke var særlig meget tid til at udforske byen og bare nyde stemningen.

At the beginning of June, I went on a trip to Madrid (actually my first time in Spain “proper” – somehow a jaunt on Lanzarote doesn’t really count). I participated in a conference on quality in official statistics (yup, I’m geeky in more ways than one).

The conference was very good and interesting, which was a good thing, because it’s some seriously long days (on the plus side that means quite a bit of knitting time as you keep you hands busy and your head clear to concentrate on the presentations). The long days unfortunately meant that there was little time to explore the city.

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På en eller anden måde er det ikke helt så eksotisk at være i syden, når man kigger ud fra mørke konferencelokaler.

Somehow it’s not as exciting to be visiting a foreign capital, when you mostly get to look at it out the windows of a dark conference room.

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Det lykkedes dog at se lidt – bl.a. fordi spanierne er sent ude og der er liv i byen til langt ud på aftenen. Der var en god spadseretur fra hotellet til konferencen, så med et par omveje lykkedes det at få lidt af stemningen ind under huden og få set nogle seværdigheder. Jeg havde en lidt blandet fornemmelse af byen til at starte med, men den vandt absolut et par dage inde i turen – og nu har jeg det sådan, at jeg godt kunne tænke mig, at turen gik dertil igen snart.

I did manage to squeeze in some sightseeing – among other things because the city was alive until late in the evening. There was a good walk from my hotel to the conference, so by the simple tool of meandering a bit off the straight line I got to experience some of the mood and see some of the sights. To begin with, I must admit that the city wasn’t my favorite, but after a day or two I found that I had change my opinion – and now I’d quite like to get a chance to visit again soon.