Joaquim Rocha
Published on

YANY – Yet Another New Year

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    Name
    Joaquim Rocha
    Twitter
  • Principal Software Engineering Manager at Microsoft

I came back from Seville last Thursday, I spent the reveillon in there with my girlfriend.

One of the reasons I went there was also to know the place where I’ll work next February – BitRock’s facilities. It surpassed my expectations, the office is great and the people seem to be nice. Plus, it was great to have lunch with Daniel López (BitRock’s founder and my future boss).

I got to revisit the amazingly gorgeous city of Seville and eat tapas over and over. I need to say, it was surprising to me the Spanish way of celebrating the new year. I thought it was everywhere the way it is in Portugal or in the USA – you go to some place to have fun, to drink, etc. In Spain you spend it with your family! It’s like a second Xmas, then after midnight everybody goes out to watch the fireworks. Also, every damn restaurant is closed (even McDonalds, BurgerKing, Pans&Company…), except for the few ones who realized that when you have a bunch of starving foreigners, that means a bunch of money!

Luckily, we found a small shop owned by a not-Spanish person and we, some Italians, some Germans and other individuals with a Scandinavian appearance bought something to survive through the night (pizza, water, soda…).

The next day I found that eventually somebody wanted to give me their best wishes for the new year by braking into my car – wrecking the driver’s window and the left mirror – and stealing my radio (he/she/they found the radio front panel which I had hidden in the car). So, I had to bother Daniel and request his help to find me a car window replacement shop. Plus, it began to rain and believe me, it ain’t fun to drive under the rain with your window open… it’s quite an experience. At least they didn’t steal the car itself. Anyways, I should watch better where I park because I am used to the safety of Portugal To all Spanish, I wanna let you know I still love Seville and I don’t wanna invade your country even if mine was a military power. 🙂 When I finally got back home to Portugal I found out I had no internet connection (and I was “internetless” since I went to Seville)… For the cherry on top of the cake, when I opened my laptop in my home for the first time in this new year the screen hinge surrounding plastic parts broke and several screws fell from it… We got a Portuguese popular saying: “Um azar nunca vem só” which I can translate as: A bad luck event never comes alone.

Anyways, I am eager to go live in Seville and become a BitRockStar 😀

Happy new year for everybody, specially car owners with 5 year old laptops and lousy ISPs.