Things have been quiet here on the blog since last Wednesday, when 20 Notes from Spain forum members from all over the world turned up in Madrid to celebrate our second Great Madrid Escape weekend.
The idea is quite shocking: people who usually only ever communicate over the internet all actually get to meet in person! Marina and I picked 5 or 6 of our favourite restaurants in the capital, and we all met for lunch and dinner from Thursday to Saturday night. In the meantime, everyone took the morings and afternoons to check out what most interested them in Madrid (torrential rain permitting…)
Despite overzealous attacks on late night drinking establishments until the depths of Friday night (or early Saturday morning, perhaps), and the resulting feeling of physical doom amongst some through most of Saturday, the event, for us, was a tremendous success. Why? Because it turns out that those people one chats away to on the internet are all exceedingly nice. Ridiculously nice in fact!
If you run some sort of internet community yourself, I can’t recommend this enough: pick a place and get together some time! It makes this whole on-line thing even more worthwhile than before.
We’ll certainly be repeating the GME experience again in the future. If you are interested then join the conversation with the exceptionally nice folks in the forum now, and keep an eye out for GME updates in about 6 months time…
In other news… good luck and murphy willing, the Notes from Spain podcasts will be back regularly, very very soon…
Justin
22 Apr 08 at 9:28 pm
I agree Ben, meeting our online pals is a great experience. We’ve done quite a few through our site and it always amazes me what a good experience it is.
Which reminds me, I must organise another event, it’s been at least 3 months since the last one!
Maybe one day I’ll come along to one of your get-togethers!
Mrmark
22 Apr 08 at 11:00 pm
Ah so that’s why the forum’s been so quiet lately! Good to hear you all had a good time – We’re looking forward to seeing the pics (hint! hint!), maybe even a youtube clip? I’m sure there was one from last year?
Jacheree
22 Apr 08 at 11:42 pm
I randomly found your blog and I just want to say thank you for all of the great information and observations on Spain. I’ll be studying abroad (coming from the States) in Barcelona this summer and I cannot wait!
Your website is helping me better prepare myself!
acosta
23 Apr 08 at 12:33 am
I am so sorry I couldn’t go this year.
NEXT YEAR DAMMIT!
Thanks Ben and Marina
Pepino
23 Apr 08 at 9:37 am
@Acosta. You missed a treat, it was fab! (well, apart from the rough weather of course). Thanks Ben and Marina, and everyone who made it along, I had a great time!
Jonk
23 Apr 08 at 3:07 pm
Any chance of a mini one in the time around, say, September to November?
It’ll be great to have all these people back on the forum!
Jill (la vieja de la manga)
23 Apr 08 at 3:48 pm
I found the cold and rain rather refreshing – living in all this blue skies and sunshine can be rather boring je..je..:)
ValenciaSon
23 Apr 08 at 3:59 pm
Great food, great settings and great people and a lot of vino made for an awesome time! Leslie and I are still reeling at how wonderful the forum friends are as well as the food and settings. Madrid is a world class city. Ben and Marina and the forum gang are world class people. We are lucky!
Jon Hundt
23 Apr 08 at 5:25 pm
my other favorite forum is the TDPRI – dedicated to the appreciation of Fender Telecaster guitars. It is USA based but has members all over the world. Here in Holland we managed to get 20+ TDPRI-members together for a jam session, we’ve done it now 3 years running. And it is truly fun to meet in person all the people you “forum” with.
The GME was great, met lots of nice new friends and ate well. I missed out on the late-night drinking (we’re from Holland and over 50 – we don’t really do much of that anymore…) but we managed to enjoy ourselve just as well.
Parubin
24 Apr 08 at 9:14 am
This makes it clear I must find some time to make it next year.
Diana
24 Apr 08 at 10:56 pm
We got back home last night and I must say Madrid itself was great but the most delightful part was spending time with the nicest forum group that one could imagine. Many thanks to Marina and Ben for making it possible!!