This is just a short post to let my followers know that I’ll be at FOSDEM next month. I’ve booked the flight back in September and I booked the hotel yesterday, so it’s all set. I just hope not to get lost through Bruxelles.
The only reason why I’m posting this is, actually, that I need some suggestion from somebody who knows Belgium: both my phone operators lack dedicated roaming up there, so I’ll probably end up with an hefty bill waiting for me back home. Given in Italy you really can’t get a local pre-paid SIM to user your phone if you’re a tourist, I’m not sure if the same holds true in Belgium. And most importantly, whether I could re-use such a SIM over the years (as I plan on coming to FOSDEM with regularity, if I survive the trip alone this time).
At any rate, if you want to discuss anything in person, I’ll be the guy with the strange hat and the purse satchel (geek points for getting the reference), hanging around with the Gentoo or libav folks.
I don’t have roaming there too, so I use hotel wifi and fosdem wifi, was enough for me in the past years!Looking forward to see you again at Fosdem!
hey,you will probably be able to buy a sim card for your phone. I am in the netherlands and you can buy them at the supermarket herealso, the card has a limit on it, meaning that if you don’t use it for a certain number of month, the card will stop functioning. the units are usually valid as well for a limitied number of weekshere n the netherlands, the sim card cost 10 euro, you can buy units from 5 euro
Where are you staying? Any interest in sharing the hotel? I haven’t booked yet.
I’ve booked at Hotel du Congres (where Fabio also is) — I’m waiting to hear from Luca as well on what he’s doing.
I just grabbed a room on Priceline at Le Meridien.
Last time i was in belgium i went to the next ALDI and bought a ALDI Talk Starter Kit (10€ with 10€ balance included), no registration needed.http://www.medionmobile.be/afterwards i activated the internet bundle (4€ from the balance for 400MB over 30 days).
prepaid SIMs are everywhere I guess.See you at FOSDEM!
Forgot the mandatory link: https://www.opensc-project….
I’m not sure where I’ll stay yet, I’ll bring along Josh, Tom and Lynn. Since I’m arriving from the USA I might not able to bring the usual stuff btw =
FWIW, I got what’s supposedly a 5-star on Priceline for $95/night. Super cheap considering Hotel du Congres was around €135 and the exchange rate’s like 1.2$/€.
Too bad Priceline is for US-only :)I could have looked around a bit more but at the end of the day I’d rather be sure there is someone I know at the Hotel — plus I didn’t make a non-revokable reservation, so I have time to make up my mind anyway.
I think “HRS”:http://www.hrs.com is a good alternative to Priceline for Europeans. I use them frequently and never had reason to complain so far.
I am a Gentoo luser 🙂 who lives in Brussels and works at the ULB. If you still need help with obtaining a belgian SIM card, just let me know. To save you the trip to the store, i could buy it myself and give it to you either at the beer event on Friday evening or on Saturday morning (if you can wait till then).By the way, if there are other Gentoo developers coming to FOSDEM who need any kind of assistance, let me know. My time is rather limited, but i’d be glad to offer information and make anything that can be done by phone or the internet or short walks around my place (such as buying a SIM card from the supermarket).I don’t know if there’s a centralized Gentoo site about FOSDEM (i just checked out the Forums but did not see anything). If there is, please let me know and i’ll post there. If not, you could have Diego contact me if you need something (or he could give you my email address, i guess?, to contact me directly).