My Experience as a Speaker at NDC Oslo 🎤 & Going back to offline events?! 😥 [Vlog]

Hello dear readers, in this article I’ll describe my last 4-5 days traveling in Oslo, Norway, and attending as a speaker NDC Oslo, a tech conference covering all topics interesting to developers. While we progress I'll share what I did (tech and non-tech wise) as well as some new experiences!

Let the journey begin...

P.S. If you are not feeling like reading, you can watch the video version 😉.

Day 0 - Preparations 🏠

These days in order to travel you may need to do a covid test or fill up some papers regarding where you'll be staying, etc. Traveling to Oslo was fairly easy, no test was required and only a form needed to be submitted. One day before my flight, I simply prepared my suitcase, checked the airplane and train timesheet and I was ready to go!

Day 1 - Greece to Norway and Dinner Party

Alt text That day I woke up quite early as I wanted to work for a few hours before my flights. And yes, flights, plural, I had 3 of them 😮.

Skg to Ath (Greece)
Ath to CPH (Denmark)
CPH to BGO (Norway)

I was traveling from 10:30 AM to 6:30 PM. When I arrive at the BGO airport at Oslo I was feeling so tired... yet my day hadn't finished! I took the train from the airport to the central station where my hotel was located, the ride is about 22 minutes. I arrived at about 7 PM, and at the same time, we had the Dinner Party.

The dinner party was held in a traditional restaurant just outside of Oslo, we went there by bus, which meant I only had time to check-in in the hotel and I immediately left to catch the bus! Anyway..! As soon as I arrived at the restaurant I realized there were so many speakers, I had no idea NDC conferences are so huge!! I met with a few people and had a lovely evening with a traditional Christmas Norwegian dinner! If I'm not mistaken we had Pinnekjøtt – Dried Lamb Ribs (source).

Day 2 - NDC Conference and the day of my talk

Alt text

The next day I woke up pretty early to work for a few hours before heading to the conference. Conveniently enough the conference with the hotel was almost next to each other so I didn't have to uber or walk-in -6Celcious!

My talk was at 10:30 AM and to my surprise, the room was full of people. It was surprising because simultaneously there were 6 more talks in other rooms (shocking right😮?! I'm telling you the conference was huge!). There were even people standing up for about 45' and listening to me (if you were one of those people, thank you, I appreciate you!!).

After my talk I spend my time strolling around to the expo, catching up with people, attending other talks, and having nice food!

Alt text

In the afternoon I returned back to my hotel room as I had a meeting with my team (Hello HashnodeTeam! 🙋‍♀️), I worked for a few more hours and then I returned back to the conference for the after-party. I didn't stay much there as I wanted to explore the city. And although my plan was to explore the cold yet beautiful Oslo, when I started strolling around my phone battery died and I decided to return to the hotel... (I was using the maps on my phone and without it I always feel kinda lost). Back in the hotel, I hit the gym, had a lovely workout session, took a shower and got ready for the next day!

Day 3 - NDC Conference and... going back to offline?!

On the last day of the conference the plans ~unfortunately~ changed... Going to conferences, speaking with people, exploring the expo area... Norway was now under new covid regulations. In one night everything had to change and be re-organized. Kudos to the organizers for coming up with a plan so fast. Basically what happened was that not a lot of people were allowed to be at the same time in the same space, so we were separated in groups and each group could watch specific talks and attend specific times the expo area. If someone wanted to watch another talk, there was always the streaming option!

So that day, I went to the conference in the morning, stayed for a few hours and then went back to the hotel...

On the positive side, everyone was safe, and I had more time to work and see the city!

Day 4 - Going back home!

Day 4 was the last day in Oslo. It was Saturday which meant I didn't have work and my flight was only at midday. In the morning, I had a lovely breakfast at the hotel, then did some shopping and bought souvenirs for my family, I also even managed to have a quick workout session and finally took the train to catch my flight(s).

My flight had a delay... and because I had to catch 2 more flights I was a bit nervous...

This time I was traveling to:

BGO to FRA (Germany)
FRA to ATH (Greece)
ATH to SKG (Greece)

Eventually, I was on time for all flights and at 00:45 AM (technically the next day) I was back at home!

Conclusion and future plans 🔮

I had a lovely time at the conference, meeting new people and exchanging ideas! I'm looking forward to traveling more and gaining new knowledge on a technical and personal level. I believe these two are connected. When we grow in one area it's easier to grow in the other one too.

In my previous article I wrote "If everything goes according to the plan, you'll see more vlogs and similar articles in the upcoming weeks!", well, I'm afraid that that's not going to happen very soon 😥. Again, due to covid regulations many conferences are canceling or switching to online. My plans for December and January have changed... Let's see if we can do this in February?!

Do you plan to travel anywhere at Christmas or is it too early to ask? 🎅

The Vlog ⬇

👋 Hello, I'm Eleftheria, Community Manager at Hashnode, developer, public speaker, and chocolate lover.

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