#breakfasttour

After bitching about Facebook yesterday, and then dedicating a few tweets Today to #facebooksucks, because, believe it or not, it does, I've decided it was about time to write about something good, something nice, something positive, something like the #desayunotour, or #breakfasttour the Costa Rican Twitters put together Today.

It wasn't an easy task to bring together this activity, as the organizers, Shimmy Gin and I, don't really have the drive, the time or the social skills requiered to pull such an event together. Thinking about possible places to bring people together for a tweet-breakfast, the only place that came to mind was Denny's, only Denny's happens to have a few restaurants in the Metropolitan area, and some people were pulling towards different restaurants causing confusion among their peers. On the other hand, a matter that often slips my mind, Denny's is not your "average-priced" restaurant, less a "popular-priced" restaurant, so that also stirs people away as well.

If I must be honest, it kind of made me feel somewhat uncomfortable when Shimmy Gin turned the breakfasttour into a "farewell party" of sorts for me, since on Friday I'm leaving for Hungary (for three weeks). I mean, sure I like to go out with my friends, but having a farewell party every year before I do my "annual trip home" makes me feel... odd. I guess I just don't want to be singled out, and a lot of people looking at me like something "interesting" is happening with/to me does make me feel like some kind of circus freak. Thanks Hyne, though, that was not the case.

Shimmy Gin, Me, AceCostaRica and JoséGonzález, The Twitter BreakfastClub

Unlike with the #pintotour, an amazing and groundbreaking activity that should go down in the annals of history as "The Twitter Gathering", the #desayunotour was quiet, with very little concurrence. Only five of us were present. If I must say, I was somewhat relieved because I didn't count with the fact that Denny's doesn't really have space to accomodate a large party, particularly not on a Sunday morning, when everybody seems to stampeed to the restaurant to get a hearty meal.

AceCostaRica and The Girl With No Twitter

The conversation this time was different, and so was the environment. The group hardly broke into sub-groups, and I've got the chance to learn my companions a bit better. The girl of the group (I consider myself a "woman" because I feel too old to be a "girl", but she looks young, so I refer to her as "girl"), whose name still escapes my memory (shame on me), was ever so quiet, ever so silent and did seemed to me bored. As I watched her silently, I wondered whether she had been feeling the same way the last time. Her pretty deer eyes wondered through space as if looking for something interesting to engage with. I tried to imagine why did she attended to these activities if they held no particular interest for her. Silent and lady like, she was the image of something I can hardly fanthom. I did try to engage her in small talk and we managed to hold up smiley conversations for brief periods of time, but the high tech tone of the meeting rolled more than one yawn down her slim throat.

It was somewhat strange to realize that I could actually be engaged in a conversation where I simply listen, from which I don't really know much, of which I don't understand much, and yet I find it interesting. Then again, it's me, and maybe it was the "magic" of Shimmy Gin, whom many find boresome due to his long speeches, and yet I find tremendously interesting and refreshing.

AceCostaRica by himself, undiluded in a big crowd is an interesting character, with a very humanistic, very aproachable being. Calm, gathered, eloquent, set on certain firm ideas without rushing into quixotic fencing when one tramples over his views (which I did by pretty much shedding a veiled light on the fact that I'm somewhat of a "red" or a "lefty", or so was my impression). He's not a passive listener, but rather an active, constructive dialogue partner that builds up conversation, self assured enough not to fear for the reaction to his comments, but strong in message, while open to all reactions to them. A good leader or at least "second in command" material.

José González I met today, and I believe this small gathering was perfect to get a better image of him I'd hardly get any other way. High Tech enthusiast, well articulated, engaging speaker, easy smile and fun attitude without being a comic, but rather achieved by simply being casual and easygoing, I found his approach to life also quite humane, and open with formed opinions, an approach of life formed from within rather than inherited or stamped on, with a very appealing social orientation to learn, to know, to share rather than "convert". I was hooked.

This breakfasttour was seasoned with a good Americana food, with cups after cups of coffee, good conversation, laugher, politics, high tech and weird encounters. Oh yes, we had an Encounter of the Third Class. Some sort of microfiber or nylon yellow-and-red bubble-like monstrousity came out of the kitchen helped by two employees and conducted to somewhere else. We stared all at the strange entity invading the place, walking with difficulty, while we tried to understand what the Hell was that hideous thing doing there. I believe that creature must be the "brilliant idea" of some dunderhead who believes kids like deformed, bright coloured monster. (Like the one who created Barney.) The monstrousity walked behind us, and so I took a picture of it for posterity. The thing was something like a snail that exchanged its house for a disposable cup (was the snail evicted from its home? Suffered in the waves of foreclosure? Took a subprime mortgage?) and got some astronaut-like things attached to its back (a classical case of "Pimp My Cup-House"). I seriously fear the mental health of the children exposed to the creature.

Later on, the Evicted Snail Living in a Pimped Up Cup came back flattened and under someone's arm. A bright green shirted skinny guy seemed to be the "filling" of the monster. Well, I don't know what to think of it, though someone did comment that it was amazing how low people would slip in times of crisis.

Naturally, our small team wasn't much interested in the monster, or at least not as hooked as I was, holding up the thought for quiet mulling in moments of silence. A larger crowd, with fractioned conversations, breaking like a flat bread too big to hold its weight, perhaps would have given me longer lapses to ponder the irrational existence of the Evicted Snail From Tha Hood, perhaps yearn again for a moment to sneak out my journal and scribble in it cloaked by teh anonymacy of being a "fairly unknown twitter", slipping between the cracks of the conversation. However, our small, friendly gathering proved to be a frame that held us, participating or not, in the loop of it. Held us, but Deer Eyes, the Mystery Child. That girl does manage to kidnap ones thoughts away.

This was my last Twitter Gathering of the year, but it was wonderful. Thank You guys!!!!!