Social activities

The Paris-Dakar scavenger hunt (Thursday 20:30)

Background: The Santiago Paris-Dakar Rally

In the 1990´s, a group of college students created a mythical pub crawl in Santiago that would begin at the Paris bar and end at… yes, you have guessed, the Dakar bar. In between, literally dozens of drinking holes. Two items helped participants stay on foot: “tapas”, that soak alcohol, and “cortos”, a small, German baby-size glass of beer that you can order instead of a full glass. One could even get a card stamped at every bar visited. This college town tradition has faded away: the last more or less worthy Paris-Dakar rally remembered took place in November of 2012, when Ester Fernández celebrated her graduation with members of her Committee: Witold “Żubrówka” Surewicz and Joaquin “Txikitoman” Castilla, together with Histology Girl and members of the Jesús “Converter” Requena PrionLab. The XII Iberian Prion Conference now revives the rally in a sanitized, politically correct version, as the “Paris-Dakar Scavenger Hunt”…

Rationale

The purpose of the “Paris-Dakar Scavenger Hunt” is to hop from bar to bar in the Franco-Raiña street axis and adjacent areas to solve a number of charades. Each charade refers to a bar or, less likely, a physical place in that area, and a drink (not necessarily alcoholic) or food item. Teams are supposed to find the place and edible/potable item, take pictures and submit them to the Paris-Dakar whattsapp group as a proof of “mission accomplished”. Then, go for the next challenge…

An example: “King Kong fights Godzilla while the Big Ape´s little son watches”

King Kong fights Godzilla… everyone knows that this always happens in Tokyo. This is a reference to Bar Tokyo. The Big Ape´s little son is therefore a reference to the edible/potable item. Every Spaniard knows that it refers to “Anís del Mono” (“Monkey” anisette). So the proof would be a selfie with the Tokyo bar as background and another one with somebody from the team having a glass of Anís del Mono (the bottle should be visible on the counter). Plus a group picture (see below).

Given that charades will be written in different languages and will contain references to different cultural traditions, multinational teams are encouraged.

Besides contributing to Teambuilding (????), this will be an opportunity to learn useless fun things and trivia about Santiago that do not appear in the tourist guides, and to experience the Santiago tapeo & chateo culture.

Game development & rules

  1. Those wishing to participate should join the Paris-Dakar Whatasapp Group by sending a request to 34-605566264 before Thursday 23.
  2. Teams of ~7 members will be created ad hoc on the evening of Thursday 23. Each team will choose a city name, i.e, Berlin, Tokyo, Denver, Moscow… as their team name and a Captain.
  3. At 20:30, teams will scatter throughout the Franco/Raíña area and will choose their headquarters (a particular bar). They will order a first round of drinks and their Captain will send a message to the Whattsapp group indicating their name, Captain, headquarters and that they are on their marks (with a group selfie).
  4. Once all teams are on their marks, “The Professors” (the shadowy group that controls the game) will post the list of charades.
  5. The teams will have 15 minutes to read the charades, do a quick brainstorming session, and decide which one they will be going after. There is no guarantee that they will be the only team after that particular one. They can decide to make their target public to discourage other teams, or not.
  6. Once they think they have resolved the charade, they will send a message with their proofs (see above) including a group picture showing that they have ordered a round of drinks (once again, not necessarily alcoholic), taken by a stranger.
  7. If correct, The Professors will acknowledge their scoring, and will post a modified list of charades in which that one will have been eliminated and replaced by new ones. At this point the team will be able to go for a new charade.
  8. The Professors might provide extra clues if they see that one particular charade sems to be unsolvable.
  9. Members of a team can change their objective at any time if they see they are stuck.
  10. Teams can send spies around to find out what other teams are doing.
  11. People not participating “officially”, i.e., not having registered as a member of any team, can still try to solve the charades and “sell” the information to a team, for a drink/tapa invitation.
  12. Once all charades have been solved, or it is late…the game will end and the champions (i.e., the team having solved the highest number of charades) will be proclaimed by The Professors.

Symposium: networking with food (Friday 21:00)

We will convene at a location very near the venue to be announced, at 20:30, and buses will take us to Reina Lupa restaurant (42.7863° N, 8.6496° W) were we have reserved a room for a soireé of social networking & brainstorming. A simple Galician-style dinner will be served. Buses will take us back to Santiago at 1:30 a.m. Those wishing to leave earlier will find it easy to order cabs, Reina Lupa is located at 14 kms from the center of Santiago.

Dress code (strictly enforced): The Eighties (the rationale for this to be explained).