[wccrawford]

I have some foreign language partners, and when I tell them I'm going to a programming conference they always ask if my co-workers are going, and each time I have to explain that I'm going for fun, not for work. (Of course, I program at work, but sometimes the conference isn't applicable to my job.)

To be fair, I'm pretty sure US-based friends would ask the same except that most of them are technically inclined, so it's not usually necessary.