ApacheCon Europe Trip Reviews
Whew, finally some time to talk about ApacheCon Europe, which happened two weeks ago in Amsterdam, Netherlands.
First off, the trip started off on a bad foot when our flight to Paris, France got canceled due to bad weather in Newark. Unfortunately, we didn’t get the message from the airline in the morning because we were out running errands, so we didn’t have time to get rerouted. Since we were only planning on being in Paris for 2.5 days, we ended up canceling that part of the trip and focused in on Amsterdam.
We arrived in Amsterdam at Schipol on Sunday, April 29th and proceeded to figure out how to get to Volendam, NL (about 20 k north of Amsterdam) via a combination of train and bus. We picked Volendam as a last minute replacement for Paris, so you can guess that it didn’t live up to our expectations! Not to say it wasn’t nice, just a bit touristy for our tastes. Add in the jet lag factor and a biting wind and you can guess that it wasn’t much fun. The Hotel Spaander was very nice, except for the actual bed and pillows, which were very lumpy.
The next day we headed back to Amsterdam via taxi and bus due to the craziness of Queen’s Day. Word of warning, you had better be pretty savvy if you plan on traveling in or to Amsterdam on Queen’s Day. It is a zoo. Most public transportation is non-existent. Thus, we had to walk from Centraal Station to the Movenpick hotel (about 10 minutes) whereupon we settled in for an hour or so before heading out to investigate the city and enjoy Queen’s Day. Walking the town and enjoying the food and people was awesome. Picture 40-60 city blocks shut down to all non-foot traffic and filled with people partying (estimated # of people is 2-4 million). Unfortunately, I had to “work” the next day, doing my all day training in Lucene, so I couldn’t fully enjoy the day. Yet, the Westmalle beer never tasted better. I highly recommend visiting Amsterdam for Queen’s Day.
The Movenpick was quite nice, having all the amenities of a modern hotel, and the design to boot. My only nit was that in some areas the design overshadowed comfort. For instance, the bathroom door was this frosted glass. Looks great, but when you have to be up early and your wife is trying to sleep, having light pouring out into the room isn’t exactly pleasant. I did like the eco-sensibility built into the rooms, including dual-flush toilets and the requirement that you put your key into a receptacle in order to turn on the power. Thus, when you leave the room and take your key with you, you can be assured that all lights, etc. are turned off. If only US hotels did these kinds of things. Not only would it save them money, but it would reduce pollution too.
The next day was my all day training on Lucene at the actual conference. I had 22 or so attendees in the class. After some early morning glitches due to IDE setup, I think things went quite well, and I have already fixed the issues for future trainings (if you are interested in Lucene training, contact me at gsingers@syr.edu. Wednesday brought my talk on Advanced Lucene, which I thought went pretty well (at least from my perspective, but hey, I’m biased.) Thursday I went to several talks, the two main ones I enjoyed being about Hadoop and Solr. Friday I attended some early morning talks while my wife got ready and then we headed to Lisse and the Keukenhof gardens. These gardens are pretty amazing and I would rate them as a must see if you are in the area in spring.
In the end, I love the bike culture in the Netherlands and I really enjoyed the city. Wish I had more time to explore the outer parts of the city, beyond Jordaan area and the main tourist part of the city. Getting around on the tram was a piece of cake, especially since everyone speaks English. Also would have liked more time to visit some of the museums, but in the end, I feel I really got to know a good chunk of Amsterdam. My favorite part was walking around the Jordaan district, taking in the sights and sounds and eating at a little hole-in-the-wall cafe called the Bolhoed.
Pictures of all this can be seen here.
