S60 Open to new features

The S60 Summit traditionally kicks-off with a party in the evening. I was hoping to have some time during the day to do a little sightseeing, but alas I spent the day creating Powerpoint presentations. Fortunately the night before I had met up with Stefan Constantinescu of RingNokia.com for a few drinks, then he convinced me to head to downtown Madrid with him for dinner (I had planned to wimp out and goto bed early). Stefan is a great guy and great tour guide, he had already scoped out the subway and knew where to go.

So Tuesday evening at 6pm I meet up with a bunch of other great guys - Rafe Blandford of AllAboutSymbian.com, Matt Miller of ZDNET / MobileTechRoundup / Geek.com, and Michal Jerz of My-Symbian.com. They had just came from the S60 Press welcoming where they received a Nokia E61i for a few days. We hoped on the bus and had geeky mobile/S60 conversations while we waited out the lengthy 45 minute ride to the S60 Fiesta.

The S60 Fiesta started out with a traditional Spanish horse show followed by drinks, food, wine-tasting, a band, and a nice night of socializing. The horse show was held in a bullfighting-looking ring, and throughout the program we could hear the bull in his pen kicking and snorting. The horse show ran a bit long and I'm sure I wasn't the only one secretly hoping they'd let the bull out to end this thing so I could get a drink!

The weather was absolutely gorgeous throughout the day and evening, maybe 20C late at night, just perfect. There were some backdrops of horses and Spanish dancers, Nokians were taking photos of the guests in front of these backdrops then printed out the photos onto postcards then gave you some stamps to send home. Towards the end of the night the bar got a little crowded, so Stefan just grabbed bottles of champagne from behind the bar and served the rest of us himself, an excellent host!

We stayed until the very end, they had to come by and kinda force us to leave we could have just relaxed there all night. I believe Michal and Stefan went on to the official after party held at the "Crazy Horse" club nearby the hotel, but I went to sleep like a good boy cause I knew that Morning Phil would be very angry at Evening Phil if he didn't get his proper sleep. :-)

Here's some photos, or check out all of them on Flickr...

Stefan Constantinescu checks out the Nokia E61i and contemplates whether or not to give it back at the end of the week.

We arrive at the S60 Fiesta, Rafe Blandford points us towards the horse show.

We have to climb a ladder to see the show, there's no more room so Rafe tries to push Stefan back down!

Horses! Did you know the name "Phillip" means "Lover of Horses"? (seriously. but I prefer dogs.)

Stefan and Matt Miller wave to the horses.

From left to right: Matt Miller, Peter Schneider (S60 Operator sales), Michal Jerz, Rafe Blandford, Stefan Constantinescu, Esa Eerola (S60 European Marketing)

Michal Jerz's camera weighs almost as much as himself!

Stefan explores the wine cellar.