My first conference #

Finally, it was the day of my trip to Amsterdam for my first developer conference. And it was quite an experience. Challenging Deutsche Bahn, taking a flight to Amsterdam and exploring it, as well as attending the actual conference—everything was a great pleasure. In this post, I will go through the journey chronologically and want to take you with me. Don't expect that I go in depth into the talks, as these are available on JSWorld Conf.

Getting to Amsterdam #

I started my journey by taking a train to Munich. I still had an appointment at the Apple Store to change my AirPods. I was pleased to not get any delays on the train, neither going to Amsterdam nor on the way home. So after a quick check-in and flight, I arrived in Amsterdam.

On the first day, I had much free time to explore the city and meet up with my colleagues. It felt like pre-Corona; there were no masks anywhere. And it was great to stroll through the streets and over the canals. The architecture of the row homes and all these little shops had something whimsical. Combine that with all the bicycles that drive like scooters in Vietnam.

One of the little pleasures was that you had to check in and out of trains and buses. It may sound like an annoyance, but it was actually a bit funny to actually use tickets. All in all, I fell in love with the city. No annoying people, not many cars, no stress. Could be because of all the coffee and smartshops, but who knows? Apparently, smoking in public will be forbidden anyway.

The days of the conference #

The next day, we walked to the conference at 8:00 a.m.It took place at the Amsterdam Theatre, which is located near some docks. I was amazed by the building; it looked so open and inviting.

And boy, they did come. We saw so many people inside who had checked in. All over the place were booths of the sponsors, like StoryBlocks, SauceLabs, and others. You could play games for prizes, do raffles, talk about developer stuff, or literally anything. I wanted to play speed tetris so bad because you could win an awesome keyboard. But there was so much to see that I didn't get to it. There were also 3D printers and gaming consoles to relax with on the first floor, as well as coffee and breakfast in the room behind the stage. We grabbed some coffee and waited for it to begin.

At 9:00am, the huge wall opened up and revealed a red cinema hall. We went through what was on the canvas and took our seats. The show began with some impressive visual and musical introductions. The Master of Ceremonies greeted us and introduced us to two awesome podcasters. Shortly after the talks began. This day was all about React. Joe Hart showed how he ported Age of Empires 2 to the browser and Elian introduced me to Astro. I was thrilled about all the cool stuff and new things I could learn here. Each talk was fascinating, some more, some less. But all speakers taught me something.

At noon, there were all kinds of foods. Noodles, curry, burgers, hotdogs and some döner-like breads Honestly, it was good but also a bit sparse. On the evening there was the premiere of the React documentary, and for this reason Honeypot sponsored pizza, popcorn, and beer! Well, I got one (in numbers 1) slice of pizza and no popcorn, so I got me some Heineken. The documentary was really awesome. It's so nice to see how a framework was born and how it evolved. Also that people thought it was worse than blasphemy. But well, new things need time to mature. At the end, Dan Abramov and Shane O'Sullivan stepped on the stage for an interview round and it was like some celebrities were in front of us.

The other days also had really interesting talks. Tim Benniks woke everyone up with his fantastic live performance, mixed by the MIDI API. Anthony Fu flashed the whole audience with his Nuxt DevTools and his slideshow. When Evan You stepped on the stage, I was in awe. It was like having a meet-and-greet with a rock star. I learned so much from the talks, especially those regarding testing.

But visiting a (mostly) Vue conference was a blessing and a curse. We got hooked on Vue, and it was almost embarrassing when we told other people that we still use Backbone. Or that we were like the only three people in the audience who were not using TypeScript. At least it ignited the spark to bring Vue to our team.

On the last evening, there was supposed to be a pizza party with drinks. Well, there was one slice of frozen pizza and two coupons for beer or wine per person. Fortunately, we managed to get like 15 coupons by getting in line like four times. We also learned our lesson and grabbed two pieces of pizza. So we made our own party with more than 0.4 liters of beer per person.

Getting a taste of Amsterdam #

On the evenings, we went to eat out or for drinks. One day we ate at an African restaurant in a back alley. It wasn't easy to find a restaurant with space for six people at 8 p.m. and vegan options. But the food was delicious. It was spicy and tasty; you had to eat it with your fingers and it was great.

The other time we got drinks at REM, a bar that looked like an offshore platform. Nice ambience, fancy drinks and a fantastic view. Or the Rum Barrel, with something like over 100 different brands of rum. The German bartender really showed off his skills; he flipped shakers and bottles like it was nothing.

Before going to bed, I sat at the hotel bar and tasted various beers. The barkeeper there, Luca from Croatia, was a hilarious guy. Really funny and nice, and he asked about the conference. He also told me that he wants to change jobs to something in sales, and I really hope he will reach his goal.

Packing it up #

The trip ended as fast as it began. On the last day, we strolled through the city and checked out some tourist spots and the downtown again. Sometimes it was like being in the past and then again in the future. Historic monuments and places, but also self-checkout and 'card only' signs in the supermarket.

Like a colleague said: "It's a punishment to leave this city." And damn, he's right. It was an awesome experience. Not only being abroad for a change but also getting so much input from the tech scene I saw so much, learned much more, and enjoyed every moment of it. Let this be the first of many conferences, and all I have to say is: "Tot ziens, Amsterdam!"