@OUGN Impressions

It became usual for me to write post blog posts long after the events. Shame on me, I need to be more careful.
It all started bad but continued and ended as much great as can be. I had my last tweets at the aircraft until I heard captain saying that “we have a valve problem and trying to sort it out”. After restarting the aircraft for a couple of times, we again heard his announce saying “we’re changing the aircraft”. That was great.! Headed back to airport and waited for new aircraft to be ready and after a delay of 2 hours and 10 minutes, we were on the way to Oslo.

About to land to Oslo, looks still snowy

But no, it wasn’t the first disaster that happens to me. I saw Jan Karremans and we waited for Luis Marques at the airport (of course see good friends upon landing is not the disaster 🙂 ), then we headed to train and headed to Oslo city center. Train was amazing with WiFi and electric sockets near the seats.
We started walking to our hotels (it looked like our hotels were nearby) and I hit the rock again. I found the one of the six of Radisson Blu Hotels, where my reservation was not there and need to go back all the way to central station. So I took bus to get my Radisson Blu Plaza back. 🙂

I liked Oslo a lot. Everywhere is clean, nightlights, people are friendly, helpful, great buildings (with all statues on the walls and at the entrances).

Panoramic view from my hotel room

I met with some speakers (including Øyvind Isene, president of OUGN) at the lobby at Radisson Blu Plaza and had a walking city tour to speaker dinner.

Woke up early, had breakfast and started to walk to boat with some guys to stretch our legs. The first thing I’ve noticed on the boat was there were no North indicators in all compasses. The North symbol memorized me of New Orleans where I was there for KScope13.

Compass with no “North”.

After checking in, I found my room which was in an endless narrow corridor, which reminded me that I was in a horror video game, expecting bad guys coming out in any of the doors. 🙂
Finally a great surprise was waiting for me in the room. Thank you OUGN for making me feel special.

Speaker gift waiting in the room #FeelingSpecial

Then keynote presentations started, there were enormous crowd (more than 350 people in the session), but to tell you the truth I didn’t understand anything (it was Norwegian), but tweeted about some good pictures. Then I had my first session (5:00pm) at the end of the day.

My session at OUGN15

Keynote session

 

And here are some good pictures from the different decks from the boat.

Sunset #1

Sunset #2

Sunset#3

We had a great time in the evening (here’s a quick memorable tweet from my friend Brendan about what Oracle ACE Directors are doing on the boat #AtTheNightClub). I saw all the other pictures but don’t worry they are all #secret.
Next day started with a good breakfast and sessions on the 12th deck. I delivered my session session about “How to Solve Complex Business Requirements with ODI” and it was nice to see Mark Rittman sitting there, listening to me and giving great feedback for my presentation.
I’ve been into some sessions (big data, ODI, development related) and learnt many things and I saw land outside, it is now time to get off the boat and have a small tour for Kiel. But, somebody said “no, you can’t”. Bjoern and his wife was outside with some sandwiches, beer and gin & tonic. That was a great surprise.

Meeting with Bjoern in Kiel outside the boat

We had a small talk with different kinds of Gin & Tonic and walked to a shopping mall to buy Lego for my son (and Heli bought something for his son). It was so cheap and I got my tax  back and bought 6 boxes of Lego (he’s very lucky). And returned back to boat. We had a great conversation with Brendan Tierney, Heli Helskyaho and Philippe Fierens. And now it is time to draw as usual at the end of the conference.
First, somebody right in front of me won Apple TV, then the guy behind me won an Apple IPad Air2, then it was time for Heli left next to me win an Apple watch. Then Debra right next to me won the Apple IPhone 6. I was just shouting that everybody around me are winning something, so I moved to other side of the audience, then the guy next to me won an drone with camera. I was “that” lucky, charming my luck to everyone next to me.
Next day at noon we reached to Oslo, I checked in the same (this time correct) Radisson Blue Plaza Hotel and had a wonderful city walk. Here are some pictures of Oslo.

Oslo City Hall

 

Nice building in Oslo

 

University entrance at Oslo

It was a great time I spent in Oslo and of course Oracle User Group Norway 2015 conference. I enjoyed it a lot and thanks to initially Øyvind Isene, all board members, staff and everybody who involved this conference and made this conference amazing.