Hello,

the T3CON08 is over and I thought I should write some lines about the event. Don't expect a well researched article about all the talks and what decisions where felt. It's just some kind of personal travel report. :-)

I went to Berlin with my girlfriend on thursday morning. We arrived very well in Berlin and the first thing I did was check in to the hotel and than go to the conference. I have to mention, that I was not in the official conference hotel. The reason is simple... it was just too expensive. Because I had no room mate I would have to pay a single room and they where somewhere around 150EUR. Anyway, I was in smaller hotel which was only 5 minutes away. Very easy to reach and pretty silent.

After I have registered for the conference I net some people and spend the rest of the day with doing not soo much. :-) In the evening we went to an indian restaurant with some people. It was okay but unfortunately I ordered something I didn't like that much. We went to bed very early and so the first day ends without any specialities.

Day two started with a small breakfast. At around 9 am I arrived at "Hotel Berlin, Berlin". Because I had some coding to do for Robert I missed the chance to watch any talks. That was not too bad. But what was really not so nice was, that I forgot the lunch over work. Something that happens not very often. ;-)

Due to the missed lunch I was really knocked out in the evening. I was soo happy when the social event starts. After to plates of fine Chilli, some bread I was regenerated I could start with the free beer (In the meaning of free beer).

The evening was very nice. A lot of funny and some serious talks. Around 0:30 the remaining people where more or less throw out and so we stand for other two hours before the hotel and talked. At 3am I was in bed and I slept very well. (Not like in the first night what was the worst night I had for a long time)

Saturday morning was a bit exhausting but I guess I was not the only one who felt that way. I was at the conference location at 8:30 because Robert had the brilliant idea to swap is talk with Karstens and so he started at 9:15 with the "Hitchiker's guide to FLOW3". Because of the project we started on Friday I had to be there. Even if it was pretty early more than 10 people found their way to the talk. Robert talked 90 minutes and at the end we presented the "one more thing" I wrote the day before. I'm not sure wether the people where just tired or didn't got the joke. But the reactions where not what I expected. Anyway, it was fun to do and so the silent crowd was ok.

Before I forget... The "one more thing" was an iPhone application that represents the backend of TYPO3 5.0. Well, it don't do very much now. But it shows that the new REST interface is a good starting point for bringing the backend to a new level.

The rest of the day I listend to some talks and met my girlfriend, her sister and mother and talked to some people.

I think it was at 4 pm when the "best paper award" started. Mario announced the winners and after that the conference was officially over.

The next 3 hours we relaxed at the hotel bar until we went with around 25 people to the city. It's a bit complicated to buy subway tickets for that amount of people by the way. But it's not as tricky as finding a proper restaurant that have place for so many geeks.

We ended up in a nice backyard  of a cafe where we socialized with some beer and really slow food. For my surprise more and more conference attendees found as at that place. And around 11 pm we went to the next location. We all followed Robert and ended up at a bar. I didn't went in because I was really tired and they wanted a admission of 12EUR. Way to much for me that night and so I decided to went back to the hotel. Christian from the network team also came with me and so we bought a beer for the way and went back to the hotel.

The next day I was picked up by my girlfriend at 7:30 and we drove back to Hamburg.

After all I can say, that this conference had a really nice spirit. I was some kind of disappointed from the last conferences. Not because they where not fun but I just didn't had this special feeling of such a meeting. This one was different. I would not say, that I regained a lot of motivation but yesterday I find myself checking the bugtracker for things I could do. ^^Amazing what a simple meeting can achieve.

We will see how all this goes on in the future. I really hope that some problems could be solved in Berlin. And what I heard so far sounds promising.

Greets,
Thomas