Andrew, Julie, and I decided to take a side trip up to see the Amazon
over the weekend. Now, saying, “Let’s go see the Amazon” when you’re in
Salvador is just like saying, “Let’s go see the Empire State Building”
when you’re in Seattle. It’s across the country, and the country is
*big!* Nevertheless, if your choice is visting the Amazon for 0 days or
2 days with long flights, well, go for 2. Totally worth it. But I get
ahead of myself.

Andrew and Julie had taken off Thursday to get things settled. I needed
to stay for the morning at a workshop, but left Friday afternoon. The
plan (and I know this will sound monumentally stupid) was for me to go
to Manaus (via a lovely stopover in Brasilia), and the next day in
Manaus, a guide would pick me up from the hotel. We’d then go to a bus
stop, where we’d go 3 hours by bus to somewhere, and then by boat for 30
minutes or so to the camp on the Amazon and meet Andrew and Julie who
were going up the day earlier. I found out later that they gave me a
50-50 chance of actually making it. Thanks guys!

As it turns out, aside from a 5 hour layover in Brasilia instead of a 3
hour one (where I met a great guy from Greece on his way home after
bumming around Brazil for 3 months, and a lovely lady who works for the
Brazil equivalent of the FBI on her way home as well), everything
actually worked out exactly as planned. I got to the hotel (the Hotel
Tropical, which is really nice, very old (like 20s construction, but
with lots of old Brazilian dark hardwood, even on the floors) and
crashed, and the next morning at 7:30 the guide showed up. It was Kris
Gomes, the son of the owner of the tour shop (Jungle Experience, owned
by Christopher Gomes. Apparently, he gets a lot of business from the
write-up in Lonely Planet, and seems to earn it well!). We then went to
the bus station where Antonio (our cab driver) dropped us off, and let
me know he’d be there to pick us up tomorrow afternoon. We hopped on the
bus and trucked up 3 hours to somewhere. The buses were these MarcoPolo
busses by Mercedes-Benz; air-conditioned tour buses, really.

By the way… using the toilet on these things is one of the more
challenging things you can do. I don’t recommend it unless you really,
really need to use it.

We made it up to some small town where Kris handed me off to a local
guide, and then we were on a boat (just a small dingy with an outboard
motor) cruising up the Amazon. Well, the Rio Urubu, which is a
good-sized tributary. 30 minutes later, I met up with Andrew, Julie, and
some other camp-mates (Rebecca from London, there with Federico, an
Italian, and Jean-Francios, a Frenchman who was spending 3 months
traveling randomly on holiday.

Wow, things can actually work!

SIGIR Day 3 brought the paper session to a close, but we had some of the
best papers for the end. In fact, the best paper of the conference from
IBM’s Haifa lab (which won the $1000 award sponsored by IBM… go team!)
was the very last one, but a very good paper nonetheless. They were
finally able to get some results on predicting query difficulty — e.g.
predicting whether the query would answered with high confidence, or
determining if the results were likely not to satisfy the user. Good stuff.

Xing Xie, one of our researchers from MSRA, put together a trip to the
Pelhourinha for 30 of us (turns out there were about 30 MS people, not
20 like I estimated!) to see a show and then go to a churasscara, which
is Brazilian BBQ. The show was similar to the one we saw at the banquet,
with the difference being some of the dances. No group samba at the end
(ah well), but the second dance was this guy with a big (~24″ diameter)
bowl of burning sterno on his head and two smaller (~6″) bowls with
burning sterno in each hand. And naturally, there was fire moving
everywhere… fire! fire! heh heh… fire!

Ok, I like it when people dance around with fire. It’s a crowd-pleaser.

They also had the best capoeirha that I’d seen… about twelve guys, all
of whom were amazingly built. And I found out why — they were doing
one-handed handstands, high back flips (like you see 14 yr old gymnists
do in th Olympics, but these guys are 6′ tall and they’re on a hard
stage, not a springy mat), and all sorts of other moves to warm things
up. Then, the capoeirha, which again was fantastic.

Fantastic.

We then went to Sal E Brasa Churrascaria, which as I mentioned is
Brazilian BBQ. There’s a buffet for not-meat, where they have fish,
fruit and veggies, salad and pasta, a fair bit of sushi (apparently
sushi is big in Brazil), and some other stuff like wild rabbit. I didn’t
try that. Then, at your table, waiters come by with meat on a skewer and
offer it to you. If you say, “Si, por favor” then they slice off a hunk
o’ meat — such as a thin steak of filet mignon, rump roast, or
whatever they happen to have.

You eat a lot of meat here. I mean, a lot of meat. And it’s really,
really good. Turns out Brazilian beef (and Argentinian) is much better
than the US stuff, unless you’re talking the US organic. Beef in South
America is free-range and apparently hormone free, so it’s not as fatty
and doesn’t have some of those weird tastes you occasionally get. Turns
out that a Big Mac in Brazil has fewer calories than a Big Mac in the
USA, purely because of the quality of the meat. go figure.

Anyway, we ate. And ate. And ate some more. Mmmmmmm…. protein!

We then piled into the tour bus and returned to the conference, totally
stuffed. Brazil is just great.

The second full day of papers went well, with a number of very good
presentations. I know most of you aren’t terribly interested in the
contents of an academic conference on search, so I’ll skip those
details. Once again, we met a number of great people and saw some
top-notch talent in action.

That evening was the annual SIGIR banquet. This year, the food was OK…
it was actually almost identical to the lunch we had the day previous
— guess the hotel has a standard buffet service they do. However, the
banquet entertainment was the best I’ve ever seen… it was a Bahian
folk dance troupe that did a number of different local dances, including
a capoeirha number and an amazing samba number at the end where the
troupe came out and got the crowd dancing. It was just a ton of fun —
very enjoyable!

Just a side note… the banquest was sponsored this year by Google, who
was once again conspicuously absent. Amit Singhal and his family were
there, as were the Google Brazil folks (aka Akwan, the company that
Google bought), although the Google Brazil guys were still a bit unsure
of themselves as Google Brazil — getting acquired is always tough if
you’re who is acquired. However, I didn’t see the usual cadre of
Googlers or even some recruiters, which was surprising. Rumor has it
that a number of them stayed home to work on a response to Yahoo’s
announcement of a 20B doc index, but as I said, that was just a rumor
(although a fun one, I must say!).

Tuesday night, after the first full day of paper presentations and the
poster reception, Microsoft held what we had intended to be a low-key
event at the Restaurante Yemanja ,
a lovely local Bahian restaurant on the beach (not that we could tell…
the sun sets about 6 PM in Salvador, so all we could see was a lot of
black!). We just wanted to do something where the ~20 or so people from
Microsoft could talk with people that we’ve collaborated and perhaps
make some new acquaintances. We didn’t want to compete with any other
SIGIR event, so we just invited people we knew or met via word of mouth
and some paper invites that we handed out during the conference. I had
planned on (and reserved space at the restaurant) for about 60 people…
I had estimated we’d invite about 80 people, half would want to come, so
20 Microsoft + 40 conference folks = 60. It seemed very logical at the
time. I was still concerned about the event… would the restautant be
all set up for us? Would the busses be on time? Would they hold enough?
Would people come? It turns out I really shouldn’t have worried at all
about people not coming… that was far, far from the problem.

We had two busses that held 25 people each, and left about 8:00 PM. I
was a bit nervous when we filled two and there were a number of MS
people and non-MS people still milling, waiting for the next bus (they
would return). Once at the restautant, we had approximately 30 minutes
of relative calm before things got a bit past us. I received a call from
one of my colleagues at the hotel who was shepherding people onto the
bus. I was getting nervous when he said the third bus was full, but we
could squeeze in 75 into the space we had. Then he mentioned the fourth
bus was filling up.

100? That’s not good… not nearly enough space.

The restaurant was very accommodating, and put people in the main
seating area in addition to the back room that we had (people were still
together, just in two groups now).

Then the fifth bus rolled up, with a shuttle van from the hotel not far
behind. Oh boy.

Luckily, some people from the first busses had started to finish, and
the restautant was getting more space from customers (it was about 9:45
PM by this time). So we got yet anoter big table, seated everyone, and
we were good to go. I and Jorge, a local TAM (Technical Account
Manager… what MS calls field sales, from what I understand) who
happened to be in town were able to start to sit down and actually have
some dinner… and WOW! was it worth it. We had this shrimp dish, which
was shrimp and chicken in coconut milk, I believe, along with another
shrimp dish in creme. We had some muquecas (MOO-ke-kas), which are fried
balls of various things (shrimp, chicken, and fish were the ones I
tried), and a bunch of other things that I’m not remembering at the
moment. For desert, we had this amazing coconut ice cream — there was
also a passionfruit ice cream as well that I tried that was also delicious.

Well, when all was said and done, we shipped people home in a couple
waves, and finally the last 14 of us hopped onto the hotel van about
1:30 AM for the trip back. Wow, what an evening! This was fantastic, and
for all the logicistal issues with the overflow, people seemed to have a
great time, and we did in fact meet a lot of new people at the event.
Turns out we met about 100 new people at the event — the final tally,
according to the bus drivers (who charged us per person, so I assume
they were being as accurate as possible) was 136, with one guy (Jorge)
who arrived there directly. So, 137… wow. That’s half the conference!
So I guess it wasn’t such a low-key event after all.

Great thanks to the people from Microsoft who really did a great job
inviting people and then making everyone feel at home and comfortable in
the chaos. Big kudos to our pal Chi Chao from Yahoo who helped get the
busses going — while his name implies he’s Chinese, he’s actually
Brazilian and speaks fluent Portuguese. he was able to talk with the
drivers and make sure they knew what was happening, which was a great
help. So who says Microsoft and Yahoo can’t work together? Also props
to Paulo, a dev in test in Redmond who knew Salvador and set up the
restaurant reservations and got everything prepared for us. And huge
props to Jorge for stopping by and really smoothing things out — from
helping to order food and helping work with the restaurant staff to put
people everywhere. I think we turned an otherwise slightly-above-average
day (e.g. a special 60 person event) into a great day for the restaurant
— 137 people total!

The fine folks at Yahoo threw a small reception on Sunday at the French Quartier, a nice jazz restautant nearby. Prabhakar Raghaven, now head of Yahoo Research, used to work with a number of folks now at MSR-SVC, and so a few of us who were about tagged along. The folks we met from UMD were also there, as was another fine CMU student (go plaid!) and a woman from Northeastern who has the distinction of having had her luggage lost two SIGIRs in a row — but apparently the emergency shopping trip worked out OK.

Some of the Yahoo folks invited us to go to a club a few doors down. It was a fun club with people dancing and drinking… all on a Sunday! The only minor snafu came as we were trying to leave. After the band finished its set, we took off… but you pay to get out, not to get in. So we’re trying to get everyone together so Stephanie, who was organizing the event for Yahoo, can pay for everyone. We managed to get almost everyone out, but 3 cards didn’t scan (they’re like parking cards from a pay-as-you-exit parking lot). So Stephanie paid again, and when one didn’t scan, started giving the guy at the door what-for. Next thing you know, they’re all working, and we’re out of there. Fear the irate redhead.

Anyway, while the press out there likes to point out to how companies like Microsoft and Yahoo are aggressively competing with one another, which we are, it’s actually nice to take a step back and realize that we’re all good people with a shared passion for technology, and search in particular. Yeah, we’ll be back at each other’s throats next week, but for now we can talk to each other as people.

BTW… it’s Day 2, and I still haven’t seen anyone from Google…

Monday was spent finding a cell phone SIM card (well, they call it a TIMcard here, as one of the local companies is TIM), and then hanging out on a sunny and rainy (weather changes fast) lunchtime over a few beers. That night, we were treated to the formal Yahoo opening reception for the conference with some wine, beer, hors d’oerves, and a capoeira show. Capoeira (cap-O-ee-ra) is a local martial arts dance that the slaves (Salvador was a big slave port) did so that they could practice a martial art, but not make it look like they were practicing a martial art. It’s very lively and much like a musical kata (a series of moves that you do when demonstrating skills for a belt in karate).

We had thought the reception would have dinner vs appetizers, so afterwards, a bunch of us hooked up with some folks from Ireland and went to another nearby open-air pub / cookery and had some local cuisine. We were they treated to another local custom — pay-for-peanuts. These girls (who are maybe 10-12) walk around with a tupperware thing of peanuts, and pour out a handful on a small napkin in front of you. You’re then supposed to give ‘em R$ 2, which is about $1, so a bit pricey for peanuts IMHO. I wasn’t so much bothered by the price (I’m sure it was a tad inflated for us) as by seeing these girls hawking peanuts at almost midnight on a Monday. I mean, they should be asleep with school in the morning! I understand that people who live in areas that are very depressed gotta do what they gotta do to survive, but still, I can’t help but think there’s something wrong there.

A number of us who arrived about the same time decided to visit the Pelourinho, which is the old part of Salvador. When we arrived, we were greeted by the most aggressive panhandlers I’ve ever seen. The first opened the door to the cab as I was paying the driver, and then kept trying to give me R$ 2 bills and asking for a larger bill in return. I ended up putting the R$ 2 on the ground and walking away. Other people would just come up to us, grab our arms or tug on our sleeves, and ask for money. It was just a gauntlet. We finally ended up in this restaurant area where a portly gentleman in a white suit came up to the panhandler that was still with it and chased him off — clearly the bouncer.

We then had a nice dinner with some folks from UMD at Mama Bahiia, a nice restaurant in the area. It was some great local food, and we enjoyed their hospitality greatly.

We left, and thought about hanging out around the Pelourinho a bit more, but after another 5 minutes with the pan-handlers and not seeing much (it was 6 PM, so a bit early for night life), we bugged out and played some cards by the pool in the hotel until we had stayed up long enough to get a good night sleep and get past the jetlag.

Well, we took off from Bogota after about an hour. The guy on the plane should be OK; he wasn’t doing great, but looks like they got him off in time. And I’m OK with being delayed for that kind of thing… I know I’d want it done if it were me!

I managed to make my Varig flight, only because it was delayed 2 hours itself. My 4-hour layover turned into a 1 hour layover and an extra 4 hours on the plane (we were 1.5 hours south of Bogota, so an extra 3 hours flight time + 1 hour on the ground). The flight was fine, and we arrived in Salvador without incident. I found myself an ATM and got cash, and found a taxi stand that shipped me out, so all is well.

The Pestana is right on the beach, and provides lovely views from every room. It also has a small balcony and a wide door to let in a lot of light and see the ocean. I’ll see about uploading some pics when I get an opportunity.

Welp, off to dinner!

The plane ride from Dallas to São Paulo was relatively smooth. I ended up sitting next to a woman with a beautiful 9-month old, Amanda, and she did pretty well, considering she was a lap-baby for a 10 hour flight. Or a 7 hour flight followed by a 3 hour flight. About 3 AM Brazil Time (definitely 11 PM PDT, but I may be off by an hour or two) the plane was diverted to Bogota, Columbia. One of the passengers was having medical difficulties — diabetic shock, I think (the captain had asked for some device and mentioned if you were a diabetic you’d know what it was). Two paramedics boarded the plane, and they wheeled a guy off in a wheelchair, and looks like his wife or girlfriend followed him off the plane. We still ended up camping out in Bogota on the plane for another 30 minutes or so — that’s where I’m writing this, as we all have some time to kill on the ground.

Bogota is interesting at 2 AM… it looks like a quiet city, and clearly in a valley of some sorts as there are lights on the hill. We appear to be out in the boondocks, as there aren’t many lights nearby. The airport looks like every other airport from the outside… the familiar walkways are there, and there’s another American Airlines jet parked to one side. Looks like a 757, although perhaps it’s a 767 (what we’re on now… aka the FedEx Cargo Special). It’s interesting to me how a city sleeps…. Even though it’s a completely different country, and has its share of problems, at night and from the air, it looks like any other city.

Amanda and her mother have finally sacked out… luckily, her mother is getting some sleep as well. They’re also heading to Salvador, although they may have a tougher trip than I. I was scheduled to have about a 4-hour layover, so with this side trip I’ll probably arrive in time to make my connection onto Varig. I don’t think they’ll be as lucky, as they only had about an hour and a half to catch a flight on TAM, the other local airline to Brazil. Which means delays and re-routing… I hope they’ll be able to get onto the Varig flight. So far, Amanda’s done well, but clearly hasn’t been happy – there have been a couple crying fits, which you might expect on a 10.5 hour flight. It makes me wonder how well Laura would do on an international flight… probably ok, as at least she’d have her own seat, but it’d still be hard for her, I think.

Anyway, more when we leave… for now, nothing much to do but kick back and wait. Yee-haw!

Well, I’m off to Brazil! Actually, right now I’m at gate 29 in Dallas awaiting a 10.5 hour flight to Sao Paulo, followed by a 2 hour flight to Salvador. But so far so good. I’ll be sure to keep you all abreast of what we’re doing at SIGIR and Brazil. But for now, time to board!