Last weekend I participated in (read: presented at) the SDC conference in the Netherlands this fall. All of the volunteers wore fluorescent green shirts. I kept hoping someone would turn off the lights to see if they would glow in the dark.

There were also volunteers for random errands as well and I was very grateful that Mirek picked me up at the airport and delivered me to the hotel so that I didn't have to worry too much about my poor Polish language skills.

The conference was only one day, though I can easily imagine it expanding to two. In addition to hauling me in all the way from the US, there were some amazing speakers that were brought in from elsewhere as well, including the brilliant Ingo Rammer, the equally brilliant Udi Daihan and (I'll assume continuing brilliance in) Alan Mitchell, a SQL guru who came in from the UK. The conference was split into 3 tracks. One room per track. One room was all .NET talks, another SQL Server and the third was Exchange. Some sessions were in English (obviously, in my case) and the rest were in Polish.

As with everywhere I have gone to speak, I always feel like the dull candle surrounded by so many deeply technical people. These folks require 400 level sessions. Anything less, they can learn on their own anyway. With EF, I have the advantage that it is a new technology, so that if I hover between 300-400, it's new and useful for most people.Though one of the tips in my talk, EF Tips and Tricks, got a little criticism for having a tip in their that involved creating a constructor in a partial class since "who doesn't know how to create a constructor." Well, that's for another discussion, but you can see the flavor...

A wonderful impact of the the introduction of the C2C last year was the growth of the community in the time until this year's conference. Many new user groups sprung up. There are some 40 .NET and related user groups in Poland!

As long as I had made the long trip, I allowed myself 2 extra days in Poland before heading home. Again, the conference organizers were very generous in providing a guided tour of Warsaw by the lovely Ganja which ended in a fabulous meal at a Folk Restaurant where we found ourselves best not to ask what was in each dish until we had determined whether or not we found it pleasing to our palates. On Monday, I was taken to a unique place in Poland which is actually unique in the world and a true treasure - Bialowieski National Park, an ancient forest which has been set aside and preserved for so many hundreds of years that you can witness nature in its true balance, with no interference from man. As an example, Elm trees thrive there because the natural balance prevents Dutch Elm disease from taking hold.

All in all, I am honored and grateful to have been included in this event and to the sponsors who enabled the organizes to cover my travel expenses. The attendees and volunteers were all so friendly and even laughed at all of my jokes. :-) (Now that's what I call hospitality!) I hope I was able to bring as much to the event as I took away on a professional and personal level.