Grant Gochnauer - Blog : Technology : Foundation

I’m back! The last 6 days I’ve spent in the British West Indies on the island of Anguilla. It was a blast. I went out to see Vodori co-founder’s Scott and Stacy get married.

A complete photo gallery of the entire trip is available here.

Today is my 6th day in Barcelona and it has been absolutely amazing thus far. Gabe and I arrived Friday morning in Barcelona after about 2 hours of sleep and 24 hours of traveling but we weren’t tired a bit since we were running purely on adrenaline. Once dropping our stuff off at the hotel, we started out our journey with Meg and her boyfriend Alex. The first day was pretty much a highlight tour of the city. We visited famous homes and churches by the famous architect Gaudi, toured La Rambla, and saw Meg’s apartment. On following days, Gabe and I could go back in detail to each of the spots we looked at. One of the most amazing things about Barcelona is how intricate the architecture is. Every building has an amazing amount of detail. I can’t imagine any US city having architecture like Barcelona. One interesting thing I did notice was that there are no skyscrapers. Also, every building is very different, each with its own intricate detail. It makes it hard to quickly walk through the streets because you just want to take in all the surroundings.

People have been very nice. I’ve gotten to practice some of my Spanish however most people here speak Catalan which is similar to Spanish but it’s really a different language. There are different words and verbs for everything with respect to Spanish. I’d say most people tend to speak both Spanish and Catalan here so I just speak Spanish and have been getting along fine. I’m also very thankful that I’m traveling with Gabe because he speaks Spanish fluently and it has made getting information and talking to people MUCH easier. One benefit of traveling with a native Spanish speaker is that people tend to treat you more kindly. If I were to speak Spanish, it would be painfully obvious that I’m American (if you couldn’t tell already from my Hurley t-shirt and sunglasses). Thankfully Gabe speaks perfectly!!

Food here has been so-so. There are some weird things like having to buy water at dinner (and we all know I drink a lot of water). So at dinner, I end up spending like 5-6 euro (like 8-9 dollars) on just water alone! Also, I find it odd that many restaurants just bring bread to the table without asking anything, and if you touch it, they charge you about 2 euros per person and you don’t find out until you get your bill. Ah Europe ?. Also, it seems everyone here eats bread and no meat. I’m not sure I could live on just bread but my sister is as happy as a clam!

I’ve taken about 1,000 pictures so far on this trip and I still have 3 days left here. I’ve gone through and posted some of the best ones on the web site and will continue to do so through the rest of the trip. I’ve uploaded about 300 pictures to the site so far.
One of my favorite things so far on the trip has been seeing Gaudi’s La Sagrada Familia which is this amazing church that is still under construction, even after 120 years. The size of the church is beyond comprehension with amazing intricate detail which you have to walk up to the wall and examine closely to appreciate. It’s probably the most amazing single piece of architecture I’ve ever seen in person.

Getting around in Barcelona is VERY easy; everyone here takes the metro. To say that the metro here puts the CTA in Chicago to shame would be an understatement. The metro here is AMAZING. If I were an executive at the CTA, I would be flat out embarrassed when people came to visit Chicago. The metro trains and stations are all very clean. Each station has many large LCD signs which tell you when the next train is arriving (normally about 3-4 minutes apart even at rush hour). Inside each train you have the map for that particular train with lights showing where the train has been and where it’s headed. The trains even show you what side the doors are opening on for the next stop. Also, the trains move very fast; they never stop in the middle of the tracks unlike the CTA. The metro is actually run VERY efficiently unlike the CTA. CTA, oh how I hate you.

There is also quite a big night life here in Barcelona. People begin eating dinner between 8 and 10pm and then head to clubs around 1am. One of the nights we all went to this gay dance club called Salvation. People don’t start arriving until about 2am and dance until about 5am. It was a LOT of fun. It was the first time Gabe and I have been able to out dancing since Gabe turns 21 in April. It was a great preview of what’s to come in Chicago! The dance club was pretty cool but the biggest turn off was the amount of people smoking on the dance floor. Welcome to Europe I suppose. Yuck! Speaking of other weird things in Spain, everyone’s haircut here is either: a mullet, a rattail, or some combination of dreadlocks with a mullet and/or rattail. Haven’t these people got the memo on what is possibly the worst looking haircut in the world?! It’s amazing.

That’s all for now but I will say this has been an amazing trip. Sharing all these experiences with Gabe has been AWESOME. I look forward to when we’ll be able to travel more often in the future.

View the full Barcelona Album!

Defcon 14 was, well, AWESOME. Quite a few of my buddies all grouped up to take on Defcon 14. This was the second year I have gone and I have to say, this year was better than the last. There were nine of us that all stayed together at the Hilton which allowed easy access to the convention which was at the Riveria across the street. The group included: John Hering, Patrick Norton, Laurence Harjte, Kris Morton, Kevin Mahaffey, James Burgess, Marc Chung, Preston Lee, and myself.

The first night, Thursday, we all went out to dinner at this American Grill, had a few drinks, and then went back to the casinos to gamble. It was a great night. Within minutes we were all nerding it up about the latest technological news, ideas, or security vulnerabilities. Since we were staying at the Hilton, we clearly had to visit the Star Trek experience where we could drink at Quark’s bar and order drinks called: “The Warp Core“.

The next night, we ended up going to Freemont street in Vegas which apparently is the older strip. It was a lot of fun. We walked around through the casinos and bars, and just had a good time seeing all the sites. There was this SWEET ceiling that covered the outside area between the casinos which was a super big TV.

Saturday night the whole gang went to Bucco de Peppo for dinner and we walked away with only one party foul (that’s right Marc!). After dinner, we hit up the Riveria for the Defcon parties at the hotel there. It was a good time for all.

This year’s Defcon was definitely better than last years. Everything was inside which meant air conditioning which meant happy people. The talks were also excellent. As always, most had a great mix of nerdy humor with amazing intellectual insight.

View the full album