CLOUG Conference and Chile- Part II

This was my first time to speak at CLOUG conference in Santiago, Chile as well as to South America. It was challenging to translate on the fly my presentation from English to Spanish for Oracle 11g RAC. However, since I have a minor in Spanish literature and spent a year abroad in college as an exchange student in Mexico, I was able to quickly switch gears to present in Spanish. With a shortage of translators to convert English to Spanish, the folks at CLOUG appreciated my bilingual skills and I enjoyed presenting on 11g RAC in Spanish. Of course no visit would be complete without photos of the beautiful landscape that makes Chile a beautiful country. Santiago is the capital of Chile and we had the CLOUG conference at the Ritz Carlton Hotel.





Santiago reminds me quite a bit of Los Angeles and what is even more amazing is that Chile is a lot like California!




Of course, the many excellent presentation by Oracle ACEs and Oracle ACE Directors went quite well and I enjoyed all the sessions that I attended until Montezuma's revenge hit me on day 2 and I ended up taking medicine from the pharmacy and recovering from a stomach bug. Fortunately, I was able to complete and give both of my presentations on the first day when I was well.




Due to a global economic crisis not seen since the Great Depression, not as many folks were able to attend the first CLOUG session. Hopefully, the world economy will improve and allow more folks to attend the next CLOUG conference! And this time, I promise to write and do it all in Spanish! Para que los demas se pueden entender bien, voy a dar mis presentaciones en espanol al futuro!

Now the fun part and best thing about the CLOUG conference was all about the people. I feel blessed to have spent time over many conversations with the likes of Robert Freeman (aka Mr. RMAN and New Features) and Tim Hall. Of course, my favorite part was interacting with the folks from Latin America who attended my Oracle 11g RAC session and listening to their challenges. One young lady who is a DBA in Chile for Fedex asked me some questions on Oracle RAC performance with Weblogic server and if she gets back to me, I will follow up with some tips :-)

We had the Oracle ACE dinner at an excellent Polynesian restaurant called Bali Hai that Francisco Munoz Alvarez reserved and an excellent evening of technical conversation over food, drinks and dancing was excellent!





I even tried the famous Chilean drink called a Pisco Sour made with egg white, Pisco a liquor from Chile made from grapes, lime juice and sugar. It tastes a lot like a margarita and some debate exists over whether the Pisco sour comes originally from Peru or Chile! We had a famous Oracle ACE from Peru, Plinio Arbizu debate the matter over dinner with us.

The last day of the conference we had a nice seafood dinner with lots of good Chilean wine at a local seafood restaurant in Santiago. As you can see, it was a lot of fun!





After the conference, Francisco led us Oracle ACEs who were in Chile after the conference on a nice tour of the nearby coastal towns of Vina del Mar and Valparaiso. These are a lot like San Francisco and San Diego!




We all enjoyed our tour of these coastal Chilean towns very much.



Hans Forbrich, Robert Freeman, Tim Hall, and Francisco Munoz Alvarez enjoy tour of Vina Del Mar in Chile.

We hope to have future Oracle conferences in Latin America and I would love to speak in Spanish on Oracle 11g and RAC in Peru, Columbia, Argentina, and Chile as well as Brazil in the future.

Cheers,
Ben