Day two - four

Written by:Matsimitsu(Robert Beekman)MatsimitsuRobert Beekman

The day started with a bit of jet lag, meaning most of us were up at six in the morning. We wandered over to a Taiwanese breakfast place serving egg crepe rolls and radish cakes, and we arrived at the opening time of 07:00 in the morning.

The rest of the morning was spent preparing for the conference and, in my case, deploying some new features to production.

Around lunchtime, we headed to Zaad, a Mediterranean restaurant where I got delicious Falafel.

It was time to head to the conference venue to prepare for the next two days. They were building up the stand, and we had to fold hundreds of T-shirts so they fit our display crates.

I thought everyone had the Japanese T-shirt folding technique, so they all looked the same, and we could be done before the end of the century ;).

Other preparations included setting up the Sjoelbakken and ensuring all the other swag was there and stored in a way to survive the night. (Our stand was at the edge of the canopy, and condensation was dripping from the steel beams onto the boxes and tables.)

At this point, we were done with our preparations, and we headed back to the city. The travel times between the venues differ wildly depending on traffic; it could be 30 minutes or an hour away, and it is quite annoying to plan around.

Our hotel was also the pre-registration site, so we picked up our badges, had a nice drink, and met some amazing customers.

Some of my colleagues headed to speaker dinners or even a concert. The remaining crew headed to one of the best vegan places I've been to in my life, PLANTA. Both the food and the mocktails were delicious!

Thanks to jet lag, everyone was up on time; we had to leave the hotel at 07:30 in the morning to get to the venue on time and set up the stand.

The life of operating a stand at a conference is less glamorous than it seems. Yes, you fly halfway across the world fully paid, but you can't really attend the talks because people must be at the booth, talking to customers, attending the Sjoelbakken, or refilling the swag. It's quite hard work, especially for introverted people.

Talking to customers was fun, though! Helping them discover new features or explaining how to solve certain scenarios.

Or even demo-ing the product to prospective customers and taking feature requests (and making promises on when they are done, despite explicitly being told not to :P)

The venue was amazing, by the way! It’s located at an old brick factory and the surrounding landscape was a delight to walk around.

After the conference, we headed back to the hotel, exhausted, and headed to a bar near the hotel to meet up with customers for our sponsored drinks.

We made a plan to split up the team so one half could stay late for more drinks while the other half manned the booth in the morning the next day. I was on the morning shift and headed to the hotel around nine for a good night's sleep, or so I thought. I don't know if it was jetlag or something else, but I just couldn't sleep, being either super cold or way too hot, and I just saw the hours pass by.

At 11:00, you think, oh, still lots of time left for a good night's rest, but as the hours passed to 05:00 in the morning, I accepted defeat and told the rest I wouldn't be attending the next day.

Luckily, the second day is usually a bit less busy, as most people have already picked up the swag, asked their questions, and had a go at Sjoelen.

I finally spent most of the morning asleep and felt much better afterward, even venturing out for some delicious Bahn Mi for brunch.

That evening, we had amazing Indian food nearby and called it an early night.

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