#OTNEMEATour Fifth Leg Düsseldorf

After a early flight again (woke up at 3:30am to catch the 6:50am flight), I landed to Düsseldorf and went to my hotel with one single train and admired the state of public transportation in Düsseldorf.

Gladly, my room was ready and I am off to see the city and attend the speakers’ dinner afterwards. below are some good sightseeings which represents Düsseldorf city.

Düsseldorf City Tour – Towers

Düsseldorf City Tour – Highlights

Funny thing happened when I arrived early to the “Im Goldenen Ring”, where the dinner will take place. I asked the waiters and they showed me a place to sit, and there were nobody there although it was 8:15pm (dinner should start at 8pm). This was so unusual and I stepped out to catch a WiFi signal to tweet (I did) and saw Andy Mendelsohn sitting there. Then, after waiting behind the trees for approximately 30 mins (there were nobody there since trees didn’t let me to see, I was totally blind for that area), I found all of  6-7 tables other speakers were sitting (and I was having a tweet blast that time). Dinner was great, meeting with old friends and meeting with new ones, as well as sharing experiences and drinking local beers was amazing. Then walked back to hotel with my watch told me that I now have a career record for active energy which is 1.223kcal with 30.798 steps. It was about 35C and this made me sweat a lot.

Back to the roots. I, again, used train from hotel to Derendorf, bus to Hülserhof, walking 300m to conference venue (Van Der Valk Airport Hotel) and giant DOAG flags were welcoming us.

I wasn’t expecting Andy Mendelsohn to make an announcement, but he announced that release model for Oracle Database is changing. You may find the related tweets here and here.

I attended sessions of Toon Koppelaars, Bjöern Rost, Joël Cattin, Martin Bach, Frank Dernoncourt, Robert Marz, Martin Klier, Franck Pachot, Keith Laker, Nigel Bayliss, Timo Giese  and Uwe Hesse.

I wish to thank Lothar Flatz because of tweet to remind people before entering. And to confess, this was my first time, I started to jabber as I started to think of words, trying to find English translation for the perfect word. This is because, Uwe was sitting in the front line, looking as “I will ask question anytime, what is this guy talking about”. I don’t why, but I felt nervous after years and I liked that.

As I tweeted here, everybody is over disciplined. All sessions start at the right time and end on the right time. No breakdowns, no overtimes, nothing at all. I intentionally started my second presentation after waiting for 1-2 minutes and saw my attendee’s eyes asking that “when will he start”.

Having dinner with company of Nigel Bayliss, Toon Koppelaars, Frank Dernoncourt and Timo Gie was very enjoyable.

DOAG Datenbank Conference

It was a great conference with great memories. Thanks to all who attended my sessions, thanks to Oracle Technology Network and Oracle ACE Program for supporting me to get here.

One last thing (one more confession), restrooms at Van Der Valk hotel was incredible. As I tweeted here, it was unpleasant to perform what you have to do, when there were ladies looking at you. This may sound like a joke. But, when I saw a “female” housekeeper (this was my first time seeing a woman in men’s room) cleaning the restroom and the pisuars, I couldn’t do what I should do and waited for her to finish her job and leave (I thought of going into the door but wondered whether she’ll come inside to clean).