Hack in Paris (HIP), at Disneyland Paris, ended up being a really fun, comfortable, family-friendly, interesting conference. We were only there for the 2 days of talks (preceded by 2 days of training), but we got to meet a ton of smart, fascinating, fun international folks. The first night was a little cocktail hour for all the speakers and staff (and since I was filming the talks, I was staff! fun!). At one point, I was having a conversation with someone from Poland, Germany, Argentina and France! The common language between everyone was English (or a form of English) but my French was challenged by every French-person I spoke with. Of course, everyone was really sweet, complimenting my stumbling, stuttering French, and they would speak to me in French "doucement" (slowly, clearly) so I could understand more, but overall English was the most spoken language during Wednesday night, Thursday and Friday.

The best thing about HIP was how international the audience was. Fewer than 300 attendees, 16 different talks, plus the staffs and some of the families of the speakers. But I'd say I only spoke with four or five Americans. The rest of the people were from ALL OVER and it was such a neat atmosphere. Just like every other hacker/infosec con I've been to, everyone was friendly and willing to talk and share information. Good times!

I spent Thursday and Friday filming the talks - I've never watched 16 talks one conference before and I've gotta say even for someone as untechnical as me, I thoroughly enjoyed about 50% of the talks and felt like I learned something. The keynote was awesome (by Mikko Hyppnonen) and Jayson Street's closing inspirational talk was kind of getting me teary eyed. ;-) Chris Hadnagy from http://www.social-engineer.org/ gave an interesting, if toofastforanonnativeenglishspeakertounderstand talk, and I was uber impressed by Georgia Weidman. Even the Q&A sessions were interesting and yeah, I guess my dad's speech was pretty good. ;-)

Saturday was Nuit du Hack, a separate, more casual and less professional event. They compared it to Black Hat (being like Hack in Paris) and DefCon (being like Nuit du Hack). About 1000 mostly French hackers, coming to learn and compete in challenges and party for one day. :) It was kind of crazy but awesome.

I really hope I can come back next year. That would give me one year to REALLY improve my French! Because even though I could understand what they were saying 75% of the time, damn, I really need to get better at responding quicker. Everyone was really understanding and sweet about it though.

Friday night, I had the opportunity to rush back to my hotel after the talks ran late (thanks Jayson! ha!), change, put on deodorant, and rush to the RER station so I could catch the train into Paris so that I could surprise my friend Elaine! Kate and I planned it - that we would meet at 8 at a restaurant called Chez Mémé - though Elaine just thought that she and Kate were going out for drinks and having dinner. I got there a little early and saw Kate and Elaine in the Frog and Rosbif having a drink. So I decided to wait against a lamppost, waiting for them. When they finally left the bar, they went in the wrong direction! So when they came back in the right direction, and walked past the lamppost, I started walking REALLY closely right behind them, listening to their conversation, almost touching them. They didn't notice for several steps, and finally Kate looked over her shoulder and noticed me but then Elaine looked over her shoulder, probably to b**** at the annoying lady walking so close to them and then she sees me... stops.... SQUEALS.... and then hugs me for about 8 minutes and screams in the middle of the street for another 10 minutes. It was hilarious. Dinner was delicious and so much fun, having a super ADHD and animated conversation with Kate and Elaine, catching up on about 7 years! After dinner, we walked around and checked out a couple local bars, laughing so much and just not having enough time to talk. We headed to the metro to go our separate ways around midnight and after catching the 12:35 RER back to Disney, I think I made it to bed around 1:30. It was such a wonderful evening!! Elaine, Kate, you to come to Nashville! And then, we need to organize our 10 year Paris reunion for 2015!! :)