Bruno Silva

onAIR - Adobe Air Tour Europe 2008 - Madrid

Last weekend I had a great time at Madrid (Spain), sponsored by West Icon, the company which I work for. The goal of this trip was to learn more about Adobe Air in, as a follow up action of the Flex Camp seminar at ISCTE which had a great impact in the company perspective about the impact of Rich Internet Applications (RIA’s) on the web. During the last couple of weeks we’ve been starting to work with Adobe Flex and Adobe Air in a new product (still top secret ). onAIR tour event was great to get some tips about nice functionalities of Adobe Air. This was the first event of the European tour and it went pretty well.

We went to Madrid by car. A loooong trip. we arrived on Saturday, and headed to Parque Warner. It was great! I just love Superman, and because of that I just love the fountain bellow. The Superman roller coaster was pretty awesome. I really felt like flying.

The weather was great. And during this season, there isn’t a lot of people in the park. The longest wait we had was about 15 minutes, in Superman roller coaster. I can’t even imagine how crowded this place can be in Summer… We paid 25 € per person. This is the price when entering into the park after 4:00pm (it closes at 10:00pm). During this time of the year, it is plenty of time to visit the park. The place is beautiful, and makes you feel like you’re in a Warner film. You can to the Daily Planet, or visit Bat-cave! I really liked the Wild West area too. A lot of emotions and excitement can be achieved in the several attractions like the roller coasters. I even saw Batman driving his Bat-car in front of Gotham City city hall! Children were delighted to take photos with him! Jerry was in the streets too. I wonder where was Tom… He wasn’t chasing him.

In the photo bellow you can see Atocha train station. It is pretty big, and really beautiful. It is the central point in public transportation in Madrid (unfortunately you may know it only because of the terrorist attacks at March 11th…).

Right next to Atocha station, there is a great art center, called Museo Nacional Reina Sofia. We were pretty lucky, because the entry was free, and there was a temporary exhibit of Picasso paintings (The collection of the National Museum Picasso of Paris). But those that I really loved were Salvador Dali’s paintings. Madrid is a pretty nice city, but I hate Spanish food, and I prefer Barcelona rather than Madrid. Nevertheless, it is worth to visit, and I really mean it.

onAIR event was pretty nice. Since this was the first event of the European tour, the sessions weren’t recorded yet. But because Portuguese people are awesome, riaPT (Rich Internet Applications Portuguese Community) guys recorded the sessions by their own, and they are available in their blog.

You can take a loot at the agenda in the official website. I only have one complaint: the event was supposed to be in English, but there were some sessions in Spanish… Luckily it was pretty easy to understand.

During the breaks I was able to try Guitar Hero for X-Box 360. It is nice, but I wouldn’t buy it. Maybe a friend of mine will, and then I can enjoy it. I also playing Wii Sports in the Wii that was available in the Gaming area.