Setting the stage: The ICT4All Exhibition is in two different sections. One inside a building, the other in a very, very large tent. The Youth Hub is definitely in the hot, non-air-conditioned tent. But it's not as if we're being (completely) shafted--Italy, Cisco, the UNDP, and a bunch of much larger organisations than us are here as well.

And as with any large, open space filled with thousands of people, it's a bit noisy. It's hard to hear anyone other than the person beside you at the best of times. Just now, it started to rain, and rain on a tent? It's a great sound and I'm loving it, but it's completely preventing me from paying attention to anything or anyone... It's my tipping point, I guess.

So I decided to blog.

WSIS has been an amazing experience so far. My trip here with Hugh was pretty... rough. First he had some trouble with a crazy Lufthansa manager and his slightly excessive baggage. Then I spent our flight from Toronto to Frankfurt explaining to a lovely old lady how to buckle her seatbelt, find the washroom, etc, and definitely didn't sleep. Then we had a few hours in Frankfurt (14, to be precise), several of which we spent in the city, seeing the sites. That would have been quite a lot of fun had a not been so tired... We saw the first German parliament, some historic churches, some homeless-looking men on corners with donkeys, and some other interesting sites... all before noon. The we spent the rest of the day trying to sleep and/or do as little as possible in the airport.

After we FINALLY got to Tunis, it took us a couple of hours to make our way to the hotel (bus driver was a bit confused as to the location... seems like a common story), but... we were here! And three hours later, we were at WSIS.

The first day was rough. I had had almost no sleep in the past few days, there were many, many people, lots of delays, and my brain capacity wasn't quite high enough to deal with it all. These last two days, though, have been an amazing experience, making lots of connections, trying to be as useful as possible around the Youth Hub, checking out sessions related to education, and getting ready for Online Safety Day.

I'll write more later... It's time to go find a couple of sessions.