Hamburg and Berlin Meetups: beer, friends, and technology

Good vibes from Hamburg and Berlin. My colleagues Barbara May, Lenz Grimmer and Jörg Brühe did an excellent job of organizing the event and beating the drum.
Both events were held at the local Sun offices, where we were received warmly with friendship, food, and beverages.
I noticed a common pattern in both places. The audience looked shy and uncooperative in the beginning, and very few questions were asked during the presentation. Shyness? Language barrier? (I was speaking in English while the other speakers were using the local language) Who knows. But things changed dramatically and for the better after the presentation, when all were ushered to the adjoining room where food and beverages were provided generously. The language barrier, if ever existed, disappeared, and questions rained from everywhere.
Perhaps serving beer before the event (like it happened in Paris) is the right path. We'll keep this in mind for the next acquisition speech. :)
Interesting news were dispatched between morsels of food, while the beer kept flowing. I learned about some juicy pieces of technological news that will be announced during the users conference by MySQL colleagues, partners, community people. I am not at liberty of disclosing any of the above (see what you missed by not coming to the meetup?) but I can tell you that some of these info are worth a trip to California.