Back from FIG Morocco

Nice trip, took the Marrekesh Express from Casablanca to Marrekesh on Tuesday, then Wednesday-Saturday at the FIG conference.

Here is a link to the programme, which has a lot of links to papers presented:

http://www.fig.net/pub/fig2011/techprog.htm

The FIG page in general has lots of links to really good info:

www.fig.net

Friday night there was a commission 4-5-6 dinner (4=hydrography, 5=Positioning and Measurement, 6=Engineering Survey) dinner at a restaurant in the old city.

Here is a photo from the walk through the gigantic plaza:

There were snake charmers, perfroming monkeys, really bizarre stuff

Then, during dinner, a belly dancer (with Michael Dennis):

I left there Saturday night, and arrived in Madrid. I came out of the metro stop in downtwon Madrid about 12:30 AM, and the place was absoultely packed with protesters. At first I thought it was something to do with the "rapture", but then realized it was youths protesting the high unemployment (20%) and against the government. I had to do a big detour to get to my hotel, so many people you couldn'e even walk through there.

but, overall Madrid was really cool. I have been to a number of European cities, I think I liked Madrid the best. Next year FIG is in Rome, never been there.