Devoxx08 - day 1

Pheww this first conference day started early for me: I got up at 4am (actually even woke up earlier) and left Stuttgart with the train at 5:51am. I had to change trains in Cologne and Brussels and finally arrived in Antwerp around noon. Antwerp has a great main station that goes over several levels and where a modern station has been integrated in the historical one:

Made a quick stroll to the hotel to drop my stuff and headed to Metropolis. Before doing that, I walked under the Schelde river - there is a pedestrian tunnel starting right in front of my hotel. To get down into the tunnel you can take the elevator (meant for cycles) or alternatively an escalator with wooden stairs. Way cool.

There is a tram going directly to the front door of Metropolis; tram tickets are actually quite cheap over here -- 15 € for a 5 days ticket for all of Antwerp.

After registration (which was quick) I went to our booth, which Noel and Tobias were just building. A few other colleagues also joined later - most notably the JBoss.org team, Sacha and Emmanuel Bernard.

I've been in Emmanuel and Max' talks and it is really impressing when you see them talking in front of the big screens and the huge audience (the rooms have 400 seats ..)