Staromestske namesti, Prague, Czech Republic

THE Staromestske square. Tourists, tourists, tourists. And you don't even need to find a place to sit down to have a drink.

Arden Agopyan - WebSphere Application Infrastructure Tech lead for IBM's CEEMEA region. Armenian origin, bred in Istanbul, French high school, French college, Turkish Tech Blog ardenagopyan.com. Does aggressive inline skating (yes, that's the expression), reads Michael Crichton and used to be Techno DJ. Still going out a lot and will one day have a big boat and travel the world. Tech(no) style.

iNerd alert! One of them is Arden's.

PlaNinata SPA Hotel, Ribaritsa, Bulgaria

PlaNinata SPA Hotel is a great place in Ribaritsa near Teteven, Bulgaria. Check more photos on their website, where also this one was taken. Kudos to Nina.

Ivo Penev - Software Architect at IBM Bulgaria. Used to work for Latona and Prepay Services. Finishing his MBA at City University of Seattle in Sofia. Swimmer, used to do a lot of programming (also in competition), has 2 year old son. Ivo, not Ivaylo.

Colorful program at PlaNinata. Young singer leading the group.

Barbakan, Warsaw, Poland

Barbakan restaurant in Warsaw. Barbakan is actually barbican which is "a semicircular fortified outpost" in Warsaw. Good food, great beer, excellent company. And an appalling picture - rushing to get back inside.

Randolph Moorer - Newly assigned WebSphere Manager for CEEMEA region at IBM. His father was in navy, so he was growing up all over the world. Atlanta college, living in Florida now, not golfer anymore (What free time?), Used to work for CSX and then 25 years of IBM. He's in the Canon side of digital photographers divide with his 40D, travels a lot with his family (14 years old son) and were recently in Peru. Does running and will one day fly to space as a tourist like Dennis Tito, while building orphanages on back on the earth. Quite a vertical span.

Daily servings of Sushi, delivered fresh to IBM Warsaw office. 20 zloti for cold fish delight.

Žabec, Ljubljana, Slovenia

Žabec - (= male frog), a quick business lunch place, well hidden in the cellar of Bežigrajski Dvor. Yes, I did not make this photo(s) - I borrowed it from their web site.

Urška Škraba - Undersecretary at Ministry of the Environment and Spatial Planning. Vodice offspring, Ljubljana raised, Gorenjska-Dolenjska mix. M.A in Social Science/Ethnic studies at FDV, used to teach English in elementary school, before she learned really well to navigate through EU presidency and EU bureaucracy organized chaos. Reading Dan Brown's Lost Symbol, excellent amateur bowler (5 strikes in a row - beat that) and has 12 years of serious dancing behind her. One day she will have a tutoring company, private kinder garden and care service for elderly. Care-o-rama.

Some companies have on-site massage places. IBM in Poland is one of them. Meeting rooms meets Thai pressure pleasures.

Klub Preserne Zdravljice, Ljubljana, Slovenia

Klub Prešerne Zdravljice. Odd ambient, weird name, great food. Home-hom-om-nom-nom.

Gregor Rome - Advisor of director at Eco Fund. Ljubljana bred, worked for ACH, IBM, Electrolux and S&T, innovative carnival mask maker-wearer, avid urban cyclist, blogger, sifting through Vale Novak Montignac book, getting second child in June, works with bikes, pimping them up (see below), learning proper jazz guitar, has recording studio and manga drawing experience.

Pre-pimp-up hot rod as-is.

Post-pimp-up hot rod to-be. Photoshop concept.

Tukan, Sofia, Bulgaria

Tukan. The pizza place. According to Alexander, the best pizza in Bulgaria. Aha. Peshterska is not very recommended. Go for Burgas 63. TheRakiaSite.com agrees. :)

Nedko Petar Kolev - WebSphere sales specialist at IBM in Bulgaria. Sofia native, roots in Haskovo where they make Astika beer, Bocconi graduate and IBMer since. Known as joke dispenser, is reading a book about Bulgarian diplomats eating ducks from Hyde Park in London, is getting info from bg-mamma.com - like millions of Bulgarians. Will have lots of kids, travel and produce movies.

Alexander Madzhirov a.k.a. Sasho - WebSphere BPM Tech Specialist for IBM CEE region. Plovdiv origin, one of the founders of perfumery and cosmetics association in BG, worked also for Center for Democracy studies, Applied research and Communication fund, IDS Scheer and was director of Masters program at New Bulgaria University. Knows the author of the book that Nedko is reading, collects instruments, many sourced from muzikant.org, has 1 year old malek Sashko, shoots rabbits and squirrels with Stoeger X50 air gun, reads Bulgarian chronicles by Tsanev. He will add more fishing, more university and more selective consulting, while watching series like Desperate housewives and movies like Lie to Me. Amen.

Why the long face, Carlos? Hefty.

Žemaičiai, Vilnius, Lithuania

Žemaičiai. The home of Zeppelinos. Old Nom Nom Nom.

Andreas Dax - WebSphere Sales Manager for CEEMEA region. Does not drink beer, Vienna native, his grandmother just turned 95. Up till now IBM-er for life with a brief Telco experience in between. Avid skier, programmed his own bartering exchange Jagooa (svahili origin) and MeetMe.at. Dawkins and Darwin fan, creating and following memes.

Aleksander Oleszkiewicz - WebSphere Technical Sales and Service Manager for IBM in CEE. Likes a little bit of everything, Warsaw born and based, grand-grandfather was from Lithuania, but not from the time of great Polish-Lithuanian commonwealth. Had a company, was programmer and also teacher in Palace of Culture in Warsaw. Six years odl son Leon, is on the Canon side of photo enthusiasts divide, sailing with big boats on great Polish lakes, reading Shock Doctrin - The Rise of Disaster Capitalism and he always wanted to be a policeman. To serve and protect.

Read the menu 5 times really fast. Didžwhat?

Imperio Mexicano, City Park, Ljubljana, Slovenia

Imperio Mexicano in the midst of City Park shopping center. "Decent and good value if not award winning Tex-Mex food" as they would put it In Your Pocket. Colorful Cotrugli MBA Alumni gathering.

Jože Perko - Marketing Manager at Schneider Electric in Slovenia. Born, bred'n'tried in Ljubljana, used to be part of Iskratel team before joined Schneider Electric marketing force in Slovenia. Passionate about his family, regular visitor of Sunny Studio sauna sessions. Cotrugli Alumni. What book? Energy isn't free, but learning to save it is. (S.E.)

Dejan Božič - Treasury Department Manager at ACH, originally from Podnanos, his grandfather was in RAF and brought first English words to the village. He used to work for BDO and Energetski Sistemi - on of predecessors of GEN-I, an electricity marketeer.

Listening to IBM SWG SVP Steve Mills' podcast while driving. Is there a law against it?

Hilton, Budapest, Hungary

Buda castle Hilton - best hotel, best view. Top.

Rade Bogdanovic - Soon to be announced new WebSphere Channel leader for IBM in CEE. Belgrade native, used to live and work in South Africa, magnificent Cape and Jo'burg, among others worked for CA and SUN, has 14 year old son - just kicking in adolescence, reading Fowles' Magus, plays guitar in his band The Spanks - they played at Beer Fest - and will one day fully get back to painting, music and writing. (He)art on!

One Big Gentlemen Company. Blue Martini for Blue Ladies.

Gold Center, Budapest, Hungary

Gold Center - Yoga, Squash, Poker and ... a very good Restaurant! Gold.

Viktor Geczy - Software Group Technical Manager at IBM in Hungary. Originally from Miskolc, plays guitar in his band Superfly and reads Szlenblog - the könyv. One day he will have his own music studio, while still developing business, for fun. You've got to move - by Superfly

Jozsef Holderith - Driving Large Software deals for IBM in CEE region. Budapest native, just finished building his house and very soon expecting his second child. Way to go! Reading The Watchman and eating özgerinc = doe = female deer for all you lay people out there :)

Laszlo Boa - WebSphere Sales Specialist at IBM Hungary. Grew up in Nagykanizsa, just about to be blessed by his second child, passionate photographer with his Nikon firmly in his grip and reading one of the Predators. Great guy to work with.

Find the deer in the central letter forest of gold.

Thai Inn Pub, Ljubljana, Slovenia

Thai Inn Pub - a very nice recently opened Thai place. Very flat fee for very "unflat" curry. Om Nom Nom Nom.

Rok Urbas - zSoftware (runs on IBM system z a.k.a. mainframe) representative at IBM Slovenia. Grew up in Logatec - close to where Čufarji use to dwell, great-grandfather was a captain of a minesweeper ship, FRI graduate with a stint in Student Parliament, presided KLS and worked for Halcom before joining IBM. Used to travel a lot, places like Indonesia and Brazil where he also stayed for a while in "republica house" in Ouro Preto university town. Bixu freshmen need to pour beer all the time to other students there. Reading Getting Things Done and one day he will open ingredients shop/cooking classes place focused on oriental dishes. Smack in the center of Ljubljana on Čopova street. Om Nom Nom Nom.

Slamic KavaCaj, Ljubljana, Slovenia

Slamic (Slamič) KavaČaj - Cafe and Bed&Breakfast on Kersnikova street. Nice place, also a popular student hang out. Rich selection of teas. Many times doubles as working office for non-profits.

Mitja Jurkovnik - Finishing chemistry study at FCCT, founder of Semantik, spent some time at CSIRO research agency in Melbourne, tech freak, NLP trained, passionate about rhetorics, improv fan, active at BEST and Vodstveni Inkubator. Given a lot, he will give a lot - focused on personal and business growth. About to start Toastmasters club in Ljubljana.

Andrej Gregorka (left) - Grew up in Vrhnika, his study at FRI is currently on hold as he is fully engaged in programming for Ixtlan Team. Cycling and poker. Determined to improve speaking skills through participation at (soon) newly founded Toastmasters club in Ljubljana.

Matej Potocan (Potočan) (right) - Maribor native, Medicine student, working at Radio Študent, TEDxLjubljana organizer. Culture would benefit, if he would. About to start Toastmasters club in Ljubljana.

(Matjaž) Matjaz Bergant (left) - Lives near Stari Vrh, but does not and will not ski. Period. FOV graduate, IEDC EMBA alumni, grew up with livestock, avid traveler, packaging entrepreneur with his Siscor company, hunter with particular passion for moose. His full openness revealed at his domain. About to start Toastmasters club in Ljubljana.

Rok Mihevc (right) - Logatec indigenous tribe member. Physics student at FMF, programmer and web developer, soft skills trainer, disciple of Aikido master Danč, BEST member, TEDxLjubljana organizer, travel, travel, travel. About to start Toastmasters club in Ljubljana.

(Matjaž) Matjaz Pecan (Pečan) - Koper born, Izola raised, related to mayor, FE student, IAESTE member, writer, one day he will cycle around the world - or at least to Nordkapp. About to start Toastmasters club in Ljubljana.

Tretter's Club, Prague, Czech Republic

Tretter's - THE expats place in Prague.

Achal Prakash - WebSphere and Rational Marketing Manager for IBM in CEE. Roots in Uttar Pradesh by his parentage lineage, Lehigh and GWU graduate, recently moved from Atlanta to Prague. Reckitt Benkiser, Capgemini, PriceWaterHouseCoopers and then IBM Global Services. Travels a lot, nuts about German cars, classical music but not smoothjazz.com, avid baseball and soccer spectator, reading book on animal thoughts. One day he will buy Italy and restore Indian continent. BP, NP, EP and SPH.

Ray (Raymond) Petruch - Tivoli Sales Exec for IBM in CEEMEA. Ukraine roots, moved to Nueva Yersey (New Jersey), Austin and recently Prague. NJIT graduate, cigar lover, counts snowboarding, volley ball among his other sins, rides Suzuki M109 (2007 blue one), reading Coelho's Witch of Portobello on Kindle. Future - he will invade Ukraine (everybody does that) and write books.

Trattoria Da Lello, Budapest, Hungary

Trattoria Da Lello in MOM Park. Slightly crammed place. Good food.

Teodor Hellinger, Sales Manager at Qualysoft. Avid cook, likes travelling, loved New York. Recently went on Kirk Franklin concert. Master of Sous-vide.

This can actually happen to Coca-Cola's Naturaqua glass bottle. Somewhere in an office in Budapest.

Hotel Ilica, Zagreb, Croatia

Hotel Ilica - very old fashion type of decoration. Lot's of it. Definitely catering to someone's taste.

Tamara Sisic (Šišić) Kramer - on the left, Product Manager at Abbott, her first employer. Enjoying intensive time at Cotrugli EMBA, has had red hair for quite a while now. Recently married, reading A Whole New Mind and will give back a lot more in the future. Who is going to be on the receiving side?

(Nataša) Natasa Zibelnik - on the right, Market Access Manager at GSK, but first and foremost a devoted music soul. Her roots are in Sentjur and Celje area, likes music and also enjoys her Cotrugli EMBA flow this year. Freak or Frik - not her, but her dog.

Hotel Ilica has, I believe, strong affiliation to Bas restaurant. By decoration for sure.