I finally arrived in Pisa on Thursday evening.  My rescheduled flight was supposed to arrive around lunch time but when we got to Pisa there was a storm.  It looked really beautiful above the storm but the propeller plane was not able to fly into it.  This meant that the flight was diverted to Genova and after a lot of chaos I ended up on a bus to Pisa.  Surprisingly  I had met up with some friends on the flight so the whole thing felt more like an adventure than a disaster.  I had also come to terms with the fact that I was going to miss the second day of the conference and ended up quite enjoying the drive along the coast.

I was a bit bedraggled when I arrived at the conference venue.  The lightning talks were about to start but I decided that a shower was a much better idea.  Once I was finally wearing clean clothes I ventured out to catch-up with some people.  There is no doubt that I enjoy the social aspects of the conference.  There are so many fascinating people to chat to in the Perl community that the part of my brain that was still alive at 2am was buzzing with thoughts when I finally went to bed.  It was not the best start I have ever had to a conference but at least I ended the day smiling and looking forward to the next day.