The italian man who went to malta part 2

#THE ITALIAN MAN WHO WENT TO MALTA PART 2 PLUS#

My bike served me well to easily access spots in the city center.

Obviously, again in my car with my bicycle on its back.ДЄnd it was conference time. Because I drove again from The Netherlands to Florence a week before the event, all goodies were needed to come in either at my home weeks before or at the venue itself in the last week, which took quite some pushing and planning.Д«ut in the end, my car was packed and I drove - end of February, a week before the conference - for the second time to Florence. The communication with the after-party venue was a bit slow, so we didn't know for sure whether that venue was doable. Most attendees came from abroad and we tried to push promotion for MageTestFest to get more Super Mario brothers. The real thing: Conference time!Д®ven if you are well-prepared, there is always the last phase of a conference, which is stressful, no matter what. It is cool to do this in a country that is not yours. I drove to Perugia for a day with Marco and other MageSpecialist friends. I had meet & greets with various people, including Andra from BitBul and Sander (who by-the-by is in love with Andra and was working at THC) and Maria from THC itself. I visited the local police to inform about a permit for accessing the restricted city center by car. It still was winter in Florence as well (duh, December) but there was only a little bit of rain, not too cold and my bicycle served me well: I was able to drive around town easily, visiting the main venue (Odeon Theater), the venue for the workshops (The Student Hotel), restaurants and bars for an after-party. And it felt kind of weird: I brought my bicycle with me as if I would cycle around in the snow.Д«ut as soon as I hit Italy, the weather was perfect. Early in the morning of the second day of driving, I drove off with huge snow - about half a meter fell in a few hours. In December 2018, about four months before the actual conference, I drove to Italy: About 14 hours drive by car, with a stop-over in Switzerland. And in March, luckily the tourist masses would not have arrived yet. However, for foreigners, Florence had to offer things that make an international conference successful: Charisma, sightseeing options, close to an airport, many bars and restaurants. A place that many Italians despise, not because of the city itself but because of the hordes of tourists that spoil the city for the majority of the year. The tough cut took place and we picked Florence instead.ДЇlorence, touristy Florence. One of the cooler alternatives was the Porsche Museum in Bologna: A great venue but harder to travel to and not that well-known to foreigners. We looked at various other venues before settling for Florence. Marco and I met up at difference conferences, had skype calls, tuned in on each other (even though we were already drinking buddies at parties) and slowly drafted up the whole conference.

#THE ITALIAN MAN WHO WENT TO MALTA PART 2 PLUS#

The first steps towards the conference were to hook up with Marco Giorgetti from MageSpecialist who helped us to find a venue plus catering options. I felt a little bit like A Dutchman went to Italy. I'm not sure if you know the funny Youtube hit An Italian man went to Malta: I always have a huge laugh when I watch it, so make sure to watch it before continuing with this blog. And I anticipated the language confusion, cultural differences and a lot of waving with hands. The main reason why I decided to organize a conference in Italy was that Marco and Riccardo of MageSpecialist (aka Skeeller) simply convinced to me do it: Other countries in Europe had seen already numerous developer events and, while MeetMagento Italy (organized by WebFormat) attracted a lot of merchants and solution partners, it would be cool to have a real dev event in Italy as well. Especially, drinking Italian wine with Italian people. This is not a technical blog, it is a personal view on how I - a Dutch guy - organized a Magento developer conference in the middle of Italy.

How a Dutch guy organized a Magento conference in Italy Still, I enjoyed this wonderful conference so much that this blog needed to come, even though it is late.

Life has been interesting and busy since. This blog comes far too late, but I still wanted to write about this: MageTestFest 2019 took place from March 5th to 8th 2019 (which is now four months ago) in Florence, Italy.

The italian man who went to malta part 2