First part: Luck

This story begins on December 21, 2017. It had been a strange morning and that day we had the business lunch that we always celebrate for Christmas. As always before an event of this kind, Murphy has to come and see us and there for there was problem with a client, and this day it was Dufry’s turn. Everything seemed to be a matter of systems, but as always when the client needs it, rainning or shinning, Interactiv4 will be there. Finally the problem was corrected and we went to enjoy our party. After a few snacks and then a “Cocido Madrileño” we went to the after-dinner. Exchange of invisible friend’s gifts entertained by Raúl, a speaker without equal a magician who offers us a good show, and gifts from the company.

This year the raffle is partly chance and skill. It consists on introducing a ping pong ball into some glasses placed on a table, but previously it must bounce in another. In each of the glasses there was a prize. Start the game, and I stand in line to wait for my turn to roll and when it arrives, I place myself at the indicated point and made a masterful throw. Zasca, the first! The LUCK wanted that under my glass was a trip to Meet Magento Italy that this year will be in Venice.

Second part: The Error

There were still 5 months left for the event, the wait was going to be endless. While returning home after the party, I thought about the possibility of going with my wife and enjoy a few days of tranquility, and romanticism taking advantage of the fact that the event was close to the weekend.

The next day with great joy I told my wife about the prize and my intentions, but I made the mistake of talking about it with my children and what was going to be a romantic trip for two, had become “La Familia Blasco in Venice”. They did not want to stay without traveling this time. The only advantage? to have a weapon against bad behavior “If you do it again, you wont come to Venice!” There were 5 months of continuous repetition of the phrase, and of ‘No dad, I really do not do it again’. I think one day I will fulfill some of my threats, but I do not see myself.

Third part: The Trip

May 23 began very early. The flight took off at 7:30 and we had to be at the airport soon, so at 4:30 we were all standing, at 5:15 all in the car, and at 6:15 p.m. waiting at the boarding gate. Incredibly the flight was very punctual, both its takeoff and landing, and very quiet. Accompanied by two dwarfs excited for their first flight, the trip passed quickly, with some neck pain, look at this and look at that.
After landing, we looked for transportation to get to Mestre, which is where we were going to stay, and quickly leave things at the hotel and start enjoying THE TRIP.

We got a bus ticket and headed towards Venice. Once in the city, we got lost in the streets towards the Plaza de San Marcos. Hundreds of narrow streets, looking for the next bridge to cross the channel and find the right path. You can not walk in any way, you have to look for the bridges that cross each of the channels.

From the Great Plaza of Rome, we went to the Dorsoduro neighborhood. After a stop for lunch, and the directions of the restaurant staff, we arrived at the neighborhood of San Marco crossing the bridge of the Academy. From that moment, there were indications everywhere that took us to the Plaza de San Marcos, one of the most beautiful squares I’ve seen in my life, and especially the views from the balcony of the Cathedral and on the Ducal Palace.

We decided to finish the visit soon. The day had started very early and we still had to rewalk our steps to the Piazza di Roma to take the bus back.

Fourth part: The Event

First day of Meet Magento Italy

On the 24th, at 9:30 am, I showed up at the NH Venezia Laguna Palace. The organization of the event was well planned, and we did not have to wait to be accredited, I already had my shirt!
The event started with some delay, and the first talks, for someone who was looking for some technical wisdom, do not add much value.

In the presentation talk, as expected, allusions to the purchase of Magento by Adobe and then a talk by the Italian journalist Alan Friedman on world politics and influence on the economy especially Italian.
Before starting the day in the technical room, a nice coffee with pastries.
The first talk by Volodymyr Kublytskyi where he urges us to use the SOLID principles in the development of our modules to have easier maintenance of our systems.

Later, Vinai Kopp showed us scary numbers, indicating the large number of open incidents in magento: 1200, a total of 200 PR’s without accepting, I think that the people of Magento are trying to tell them that it’s okay for people to contribute, but that they too must do their job. Later he gave us a practical talk about how he works on developing Magento 2 modules, looking at some of the tools he uses and that I’m looking forward to the video to be able to review, because some of them I found interesting.

After these two technical talks, stop to regain strength. Varied and enough buffet watered with some wine and water
The afternoon arrives and in the technical room Miguel Balparda takes the word, or so they said, because the picture of the program did not look like the person who was speaking :). He told us about what life is like in support, the valid answers to give to the client, and the importance of being decisive in this often unpleasant world.

Next, Nicola Della Marina, who was being the presenter of the previous talks, takes the floor to explain how to reduce the dead times of development of magento waiting to compile, delete caches and other issues that we repeat every day again and again.

Before making a new break, Jisse Reitsma shows us the importance of JavaScript is taking in Magento 2, and teaches us that possible test tools can be used to trace and test our JavaScript code. Jasmine + Karma, Mocha, Chai, Tape … By God, who gives the names to these tools.

Three intense talks require a coffee to be able to rest from ideas and rest the mind a little. At that moment I see my dear boss Nacho or what is left of him after a week of travel. We greet each other, but as always, I’m still exhausted, it’s focused on the Magento world, and I let him talk with Max Yekaterynenko, I understand that about what comes to people inside Magento after buying Adobe, so I continue my life In solitary.

The last section of talks begins with a demonstration in numbers of the importance of a PHP code with a good performance, avoiding that the time of page transactions causes a final customer to abandon the cart due to boredom.

The talk that closes the day in the technical room is in charge of Talesh Seeparsan with whom I have had the pleasure of working even if it was only a few months. Talesh talks to us about how to keep our Magento site safe and free of malware.

The talks end and there is still an hour for the after party. People meet to exchange opinions and opinions, and even some of us check the mail to update our issues while we wait.

After Show Party

At 6:30 pm I approach the after party. They had given me a ticket to have a drink and there was a buffet to snack on something. The truth, I did not understand about a drink since during the whole day we could have consumed freely, but finally their motives will have.

I spent a while talking to Nacho while we were having a drink, and we even took a photo to show that we had seen each other, but in the impossibility of getting more drink tickets and that the party was not much to my liking, I decided to return to the hotel.

Second day of event

We started the morning with a talk by James Zetlen on Integration of PWA studio. It is something of the future, still to finish making and as always, the personnel of Magento tells us how to contribute in this project.
After a coffee we attended this morning to an interesting practical talk by Riccardo Tempesta about security in Magento 2 that I am also waiting for the release of the videos of the MEET to be able to review it.
We continue with a talk about scaled deployment of magento with Kubernetes. How to deploy Magento 2 with containers like Docker and how to do an efficient autoscaling.

To finish the morning, Max Yekaterynenko Director of Magento’s Community Engineerin tells us how his team works and talks about the good thing about being a Magento collaborator. Because it would not occur to me to set up a company in which most of the technical work was done by external people by the face. So are the open source communities, but to my way of thinking, Magento makes too many mistakes in their developments that are then corrected by the community and are taken advantage of by them.

After the meal, honestly, I was not feeling very well, I thought that my head was going to explode, so I decided to leave and see the following talks when the EVENT videos came out.

Fifth part: The City

We had time until Sunday afternoon which is when we had established the trip back to Madrid, so we had Saturday and Sunday morning to continue enjoying the city. On Saturday morning we took a vaporetto to the Venetian Gardens in the neighborhood of Castello and see another side of the city. Each neighborhood has different characteristics and that of this is the amplitude and light.

We took a wide street that was full of stalls and terraces, to finish on the shore of the San Marcos canal and decide to turn back inland towards the Great Darsena and the Arsenal. We surround the dock on the right and we enter an incredibly quiet area. There was not much trace of tourists, only from time to time some local inhabitant. In the area we found another curiosity, some lockers in front of some bridges that crossed a canal, and behind the canal, the Pier Luigi Penzo Soccer Stadium, on the Island of Sta Elena.

We returned through Giardini to look for the terraced area and rest while we ate and decide the next steps.
After a bit of pasta, what if I’m not in Italy? We take San Marcos direction and once there, take the alleys that start on the opposite side of the canal, visiting a lot of churches that more than that looked like museums since they were full of frescoes and paintings more than hundreds of years old. It was necessary to return, that night the Madrid would make history again. European Champion for the thirteenth time, and as my eldest son wrote ‘this happens and I in Venice’. The plan for Sunday, go to visit the old Jewish ghetto. We enter the neighborhood of Cannargio, which is the Ghetto, a small set of streets with buildings higher than normal, apparently because they could not expand, they had to build up.

We continue on this bridge on the way to the famous Rialto Bridge. From the top of it, a beautiful view of the Grand Canal.
We take direction Plaza de Roma through the neighborhoods of San Polo and Santa. Croce, you had to go back to collect your luggage and go to the airport. We had toured all the neighborhoods of THE CITY.

Sixth part: Back

We arrived at the airport soon. The flight left at 7:30 p.m. but I like to be with time in the places and avoid problems.
The airport terminal is quite small, so it was easy to find the boarding area. Again there were no problems with boarding delays, and at 19:30 sharp the plane started to move.

When arriving in Madrid, we had some rain waiting for us, and some delay when we landed, but no problem.
It had been an unforgettable trip in an unforgettable place and a phrase in our minds. Someday we have to RETURN
If you want to know how the Meet Magento Netherlands was, click here