This June, I had the opportunity to go to one of the famed European Hacker camps.

If you do not know, in Europe, there are a series of hacker camps in the UK, Germany and the Netherlands which sequentially happen on yearly intervals (one year is one event, every year a different event), and are usually very fun to attend.

I had not gone to one of these conferences yet, mainly because I had only gotten into the industry during the COVID-19 pandemic.

When my friend Lennaert suggested I should come up and join, I thought it would be a pretty cool idea.

So I ended up doing the 14+ hour bus drive from Geneva to Amsterdam via Paris, and then taking a train to Amersfoort and switching onto another train to Nijkerk.

At that point, I was picked up by the conference's shuttle service and dropped off at the Zeewolde Scoutinglandgoed, a camping site alongside the Nuldernauw river.

Despite arriving during the setup, most of the tents and had already been set up.

The Entryway Lamp Sign

I joined up with Skelli and Night, and we set up our tents on the outskirts of the DIVD & Zerocopter sponsor area (two entities for which Lennaert works).

Over the course of the event, this led me to meet a lot of interesting people such as Edwin, Chantal, Astrid, Wietse and Célistine, etc, as well as "Robbie the Emu":

As I tend to do, I spent a lot of time volunteering as an Engel (or Angel), specifically helping out on Camera duty, or on Audio or Visual if it was needed.

Although it involved a lot of running around to make it to shifts, it was a fun moment, and the people involved were great fun as well.

All in all, I met a lot of fascinating people and had some fantastic experiences.