Pgconf Europe 2023 An Unforgettable Journey Part I
PgConf Europe 2023: An Unforgettable journey — Part I
PgConf Europe 2023: An Unforgettable journey — Part I
Hello folks! Long time no see.
PgConf Europe 2023: An Unforgettable journey — Part I
Hello folks! Long time no see.
The last time I was active on this platform, I was mostly discussing about what all I did on a biweekly basis in my Google Summer Of Code 2023 project at PostgreSQL. If you haven’t read those blogs yet go check them out!
I was discussing about how I was handling each and every part of the testing harness, the way everything was being designed, what we ended up removing from or adding to the project and so on and so forth but never did I imagine in my wildest dreams that I will be actually speaking about those things at a PostgreSQL conference!
The Initiation
When my Google Summer Of Code timeline ended my mentors told me that they were happy with the work that I had done and that there was a PostgreSQL conference in Europe which is currently accepting CFP’s(Call for Papers) for speakers and that I should I submit a talk about the project there. At that time I was not aware that this conference that was happening in Prague, Czechia was one of the major events in the PostgreSQL community.
So without expecting anything I prepared a small abstract for the talk and submitted it. I seriously did not expect a talk by a student and that too on a project that was not directly related to the internals of the database to be selected. On top of that I also had my End Semester Examinations during the conference dates which were(12th December to 15th December), so it would’ve been impossible for me to attend, but miracles happen and to my surprise my talk got selected for the conference in September.
The Prerequisites
Well I was obviously surprised by the news that my talk had been accepted but one of the major fears was that will I be able to go? There was a lot that had to be done within a span of almost 3 months. I had to find a way to not lose in terms of academics by missing the exams, I had to arrange for getting a visa, look for an optimal way to reach the conference in time and also prepare the presentation as it was my first time speaking at such a big stage.
The Adaptation & Acquisition Saga
This was the first time I was stuck in a situation where I had to estimate A LOT. I had received the choice of attending the event even before my Mid Semester Exams’ Date sheet had been released and I had to plan and estimate that how would I compensate for the End Semester exams that I would be missing. This was a really big challenge.
One of my professors at college encouraged me to attend by highlighting the fact that our college allows us to give our exams if we miss any of them in case of any valid emergency. It was completely valid in my case and after making multiple rounds from the printing shop to the dean and faculty offices everything worked out fine. This seemed an easy task on surface but you would not believe that it took me almost half of September and almost the entire month of October to get the approval. Along with this I applied for a Visa ASAP, made a short one day back and forth trip to Delhi and completed some other formalities that were required.
The tickets had been booked and I started to wait anxiously for the day..
The Preperation
Well since this was my first conference I had no idea on how to actually present in a proper way. The ultimate goal of this slide was to persuade all the attendees to come and contribute to our new initiative for pgweb. Even after giving multiple presentations I ultimately had to google about “How to give effective presentations?”. I came up with a not so impressive set of slides. This is where my Google Summer Of Code Mentor, Ilaria Battiston came to my help!
She helped me out in determining how I should arrange my slides, what all should I keep in my mind with respect to styling and even conducted a mock presentation with me to fix any issues that I might face while presenting to the audience. Thanks to her I was able to prepare the presentation.
With all of this set, only one week was left in which I had to give my examinations and then proceed with the upcoming journey.
The Onboarding
So I left Patiala(Where my college is located) after giving my Network Programming Examination(which actually went well) for Vrindavan for a small one day trip to visit Shri Banke Bihariji. This was an impromptu plan and everything worked out on its own. I met my parents in Vrindavan and from there we left for Delhi on 11th December. I arranged my clothes and documents accordingly and out of all the travel anxiety for my first International Trip I reached the airport at 1 am on 12th December while my flight was scheduled for 6:10 am.
Everything seemed to be fine, I went through all the checks within an hour, met up with my fellow GSoC Contributor Rajiv Harlalka and we both were near the Boarding Gate waiting for the journey to start. BUT little did we know what was ahead of us and this entire experience single handedly destroyed my love for flying.
The flight got delayed by 1hr which we assumed was fine, after all we had a 3 hr layover at Istanbul, maybe this would shorten the time but slowly the delay extended from 1 hrs to over 4hrs and ultimately the flight got cancelled! This was devastating for both of us, my colleague had traveled all the way from Ranchi to catch this flight and I was missing my exams for the sake of this conference. To add fuel to this already sizzling hot fire, the Indigo airline crew had no idea what they were doing and even entertained all the passengers rudely, telling them that complete refund was not an option and that if they wish they could rush back home. The flight schedule was from Delhi to Istanbul and from Istanbul to Prague via Turkish Airlines but for some unknown reason Indigo had no direct support line to Turkish Airlines and the Indigo staff was calling its own Customer Care Service!! Talk about a well established Damage Control system :).
My parents constantly supported me in this situation and they even stayed back in Delhi for another day with my father missing out on a conference of his own.
I’ll need a separate blog to rant about IndiGo and the entire delay/cancellation story but to summarize it we were supposed to be sent to Mumbai but that got delayed for over 4+hrs and then at Mumbai the flight to Istanbul repeated the same story that we saw in Delhi and we were on the verge of cancelling the entire thing but with God’s Blessings we were ultimately able to make it to Prague on 13th December.
The Descent
The conference had started from 13th December and we reached around 6pm on that day. On a side note I have to admit that the public transport system in Prague is amazing and really easy to use. We were able to reach the hotel easily under an hour by just using public transport!
We missed the entire first day but nonetheless we were happy that we made it. We met with the Conference Organizers who had actually been keeping track of our flight and were worried about our situation too. That was the first glimpse that I got into the love that each and every PostgreSQL community member carries for one another!
After resting for a bit I along with my colleague got down to attend the conference reception where I finally met one of my mentors Stephen Frost for the first time in person. I also got to meet multiple members of the PostgreSQL community like Boriss Mejías, Jimmy Angelakos, Pavlo Golub, Andreas Scherbaum, Floor Drees, Francesco Tisiot and many more!
Boriss helped me and Rajiv a lot in interacting with all the community members and also alongwith Andreas informed us about our volunteering duties, which we had signed up for earlier. As a matter of fact we had volunteering duties on 13th as well but missed out on them because of the flight fiasco.
To wrap it up, after all the hurdles we were finally able to make it to the conference and it was all that mattered in the end. I’ll cover more about the conference in my upcoming blogs(No mishaps from now on ;)) as this one has already gotten pretty long!
Soooo Stay Tuned!
And if you made it till here thanks for reading!!
By Akshat Jaimini on December 22, 2023.
Exported from Medium on March 25, 2025.