One full week since HiveFest ended, that's my story

''Oh wow, it has already been a week, I should be writing that post which I've been procrastinating about soon...''

And here I am! Probably one of the hardest posts of my entire life on the chain.
Why? Because I'm talking mainly about feelings, not finance... which is my confort zone.

Our trip started with the illussion to attend, in late June when @queengaga (yes, she's my partner) and I took the tickets and started booking hotels, saving dates, etc.

Mention that we didn't only stayed in Amsterdam between the 15 and the 19, we traveled to Delft in order to meet with an old friend of mine who already stablished there and this was one of the rare opportunities where we are able to met.

Day 1 - The arrival

We took the plane from Barcelona el Prat in the morning, landed in Schiphol around 14:00 pm after a few delays and after some stress (damn I hate airports) we were doing the regular cigarrete at the door of the Volkshotel. We left our suitcases on our room and took our pendants with our usernames as we admired the main hall of the hotel.

''What an amazing piece of place they have! In Spain we only have stables!...''

We were hungry asf so we decided to take a pizza while we wait since we were a bit early to the event. Not much later, with a slightly fuller stomach and with a mix of contained expectations, we stepped into the hall where the first Hivers started to congregate.

That's where the first connections started being made.

''F_ck I'm a bit nervous!''

The first person I spoke to was @xrayman and the connection was instant, we started talking about everything Hive and soon other hivers started surrounding us. Among other things, I got very excited to meet in person @arcange, Mr. Badges as I like to call him amicably. Hivebuzz has been a constant engagement input all these years.

That's one of the greatest things of this type of events, imagine that you spent the previous 4 years interacting (almost) daily in a game with other players behind an username. Then a day comes where you put a face and a voice to all this usernames and inputs. It's shocking, damn.

It also happened with Dan (blocktrades), although I didn't find the right moment to approach him and say a few words (I'm somewhat shy, I confess). It's a figure which I respect a lot for all what he's doing regarding core development of the chain. It was truly showing to saw him there, chilling with a beer/soft drink.

HiveFest is the outlet for many of these emotions.

It also happens that you imagine certain people in a certain way, and that's something which also happened to @alexvan with me. He said something like:

''I imagined you smaller and thinner...''

LOL. I couldn't stop myself when I saw him at the hall, and had to greet him warmly. We spent a great days together, what a f*cker.

Later on I meet @pardinus (which btw sent me greetings from @cmmemes, so I'm greeting you back). Another individual with whom I connected quickly. So much, that after a few drinks, we decided to go for more food. (I said before that my stomach was slighty fuller right?)

pardinus, xray, queen and I, all ready to taste a bit of Tika massala. Yummy!

After that, I was frankly tired, alex invited us to some party (party!party!) but I had to refuse peacefully. We had to wake up early the day after!

Day 2 & 3 - Full into conference mode

Both days were full of presentations and to say it was mentally exhausting is not enough.

Here roelandp guiding the show.

As far as I know all the presentations have been recorded and you can watch them there.

My favourites (in order of presentation):

• Hive.io coredev with howo & blocktrades
• NFT's for peace with zirochka & arcange
• Freechain movie with lordbutterfly & little.lamb
• Hive marketing with behilarious

and from day 2

• OCD with livinguktaiwan
• Peakd Open Projects with jarvie
• SPK.network with starkerz
• Lighting strikes Hive with brianoflondon

Without forgetting the beetroot soup!

And what a surprise TDC tunes was! Frankly unexpected and unique performance.
I don't think it's worth to comment much on presentations, just watch them if you're interested. One were (much) better than others, but there was available foods and drinks on breaks, overall very well organized.

We had this amazing sights on day 1.

Night & fun on Hivefest

The activities after the conference mode were not behind at all, after the presentations at the Eye Museum on day 1, we enjoyed an amazing boat trip around the canals of the city, which carried us all to our next destination where we played with balls of steel, yes, you know what I'm talking about... petanque.

Frankly surprised me how active people is during daylight hours, the opposite of Spain, where people tend to avoid the sun in summers since is suffocating. It's like people hurry up to get the most of every sunlight.

Random pic of a mill.

21:00 pm in Amsterdam is like 23:00 pm in Spain in that sense. Surprisingly crowded for what I call 'early'.

I got a misterious token from @elmerlin, I still have to unveil it's content... He said it was something exclusive only to Hivefest attendees. The Casino chip feels great and it's a great souvenir so many thx for that!

On Day 2 I chose Beerfest, where @detlev carried a group of people to a couple of cozy pubs.

This night flew away talking with alex and @revisesociology, which I had the pleasure to meet the day before. It is always interesting to exchange first-hand opinions on everything Hive, especially Splinterlands, Leofinance and the current state of the base layer of the chain.

Day 4 - Exploring day and Closing Dinner

The 'last' day of the even was a free day where each decided to explore a bit more the city on it's own terms, a bit of shopping here, let's drink there, let me buy that souvenir, you get that.

The closing dinner was also other of these emotional events. Specially when arcange used the word 'Family' as the most accurate word to describe the event (again with amazing sights).

Hey, we don't have a clear leader (in fact we broke away from that), the VC's of Solana or the social reach of other (funded) groups, but we have a lot of personality as a community, and a lot of human talent. We don't owe nothing to anyone and we can build this chain as we feel pleased. And there's not only one direction.

Hive is truly amazing.

a little anecdote of something that happened to me last night on the terrace;

It was like 1:00 am or so, I already had like 4-5 wine glasses (at least, dunno), everyone was chilling.
I went outside (to the terrace) to breathe some fresh air, I walked a bit, I took a sip from my glass... and it went the other way.

And you know, I started coughing desperately, almost crying damn... you know how annoying can be when it happens.

Then @starkerz (who saw all of my shit) asked me ''you're ok man?'' (thinking I was drunk as hell, tho), and holy f I thought to myself (YES I GOT ALL MY LARYNX STAKED!!).

Then we sit together and we exchanged some thoughts about SPK and other stuff (later came howo with all of his black magic). Good times! If you're reading this I salute you sir!

After that moment and a few farewells, some hugs around and went to bed. This is how the last night at Hivefest ended.

Closing thoughts and my personal list of 'missing people'.

Even in the next morning we still managed to keep meeting people, We said goodbye to fellow new frens and had an interesting talk with @s0u1 and @michelle.gent about a bit of everything, queengaga loved that she (mich) was a writer and that she wrote Horror stories in the past.

Pretty nice to be able to keep interacting until literally the last minute... although everything has to come to an end. This how I this is how I experienced it from my perspective. I missed a few names though:

@trumpman. King of gayness was a very big one missing. Would have been great to meet him.

Also @resiliencia and @toofasteddie, my beloved ones from my land.

@khaleelkazi being the mastermind behind Leofinance, I really missed meeting him in person, I guess being at the other side of the ocean doesn't really help, same with @theycallmedan from SPK.network or @edicted, of whom I must say I am 'eddicted' to their blog (u didn't read that lmao, sorry for the bad joke).

I also missed a bit more of 'spanish community' as a whole, I know a lot of latin people use Hive and speak spanish, but unfortunately not so many (as it appears to be) around Spain or other european countries. I consider @eddiespino as one of the leaders from the spanish comm. Some day, hopefully.

Also @belemo, my beloved nigerian prince, hope he makes it and manages to be able to restart his life in the UK soon. And @acesontop, fighting day after day onchain. I almost forgot about @dalz and his stats, damn!

Probably I'm missing more people, but whatever, thanks to make the overall experience amazing.

Thank you for this Hivefest!

Posted Using LeoFinance ^Beta