When I woke up, the guy that was with me the night before was gone, and instead was another one from the party. His name was Danny, and he had gotten so drunk at the barbecue that he failed to find the group of people he was supposed to be with, and then failed to find the exit of the park.
But he had managed to come back to the barbecue spot and had slept there. He went off in the opposite direction from mine.
 
The crowd was supposed to use a park not far from the centre of Vienna as a base camp. I headed there. It seemed within reach on foot. It took me one hour.
 
A very pleasant hour, that I walked with some good old heavy metal ringing in my ears, through some green parts of the city.
When I got there, I found out that the park where it was set up was huge and the explanations to find the exact spot that were on the website truly sucked. It took me really long to find them. Actually, I never found them, they saw me and waived at me. There was nothing particular to distinguish them from other groups of park goers. I was looking for a big group but they were only 5.
 
We played a game of poker that would have made a rich man out of me, had we played for money. And then I left them to go to a big-official-important meeting between the owners of the website and their loving ambassador-slaves. I really wanted to see that.
If you remember the way-above-mentioned Ulf, he was the one that got me in there. He is an ambassador himself and put my name on the list as a "guest" when I was already on my way hitchhiking to Vienna.
 
I got there right in time for the beginning, and it was a long ass day of listening to presentations, politely asking questions, listening to bogus-answers and saying thank you. Full report here.
 
Then, the participants of the conference were invited by the "Leadership Team" (that's how the owners call themselves) to a dinner in a nearby restaurant, paid by the profile upgrades of standard members. It was rather quick as there was not much to eat.
 
I sat randomly and found myself in the company of utterly boring italian "ambassadors". Ulf came to my table and asked me what I had thought of the conference. I didn't want to sound ungrateful for his invitation, but I couldn't lie to him. Actually he expected my answer about the leadership people being at the same time full of themselves and ass-licking. He told me that their originally planned performance was even more full of emptiness and that he had hacked into it greatly. In facts, to all the "ambassadors" that I asked about, I got more or less the same answer: "It was a waste of our time and theirs".
 
After the restaurant, there was a party planned in a nightclub somewhere in the neighborhood. They had reserved the whole thing just for us. I was really looking forward to this one.
 
On my way there I ran into my friends Trevor and Massimo. They had a bottle of something with alcohol in it that I helped them drink. And by the time it was finished, we were there.
 
The club was just the right size for our group. It felt full but not too crowded. The music was truly horrible. Very very very bad, but somehow I was expecting it. I danced to the beat, unless it was too unlistenable.
 
I flirted with a couple of girls, talked to many friends over the loud music, bounced between the bar, the toilets and the dance-floor ; bounced on the dancefloor.
And around 4am, I felt like leaving. I picked up my backpack from under the table I had left it and walked outside. And I started looking for a nice place to sleep.
 
It's funny that, coming to the grand meeting of an hospex network, I spent half the nights outside. I suppose I could have found myself loads of hosts, but I left home a bit on impulse, and I wanted to stay free. What if one of the girls I flirted with had wanted to bring me back home? Was I to say no because I already arranged to sleep at another guy's place? Nonsense.
 
I found myself a bush in a park. The sun was not out yet but it was already very bright. I crawled in my sleeping bag and very soon I was off to a better place.