My experience at PyCon UK 2018

After meeting Daniele Procida, Vincent Knight, Nikoleta .E. Glynatsi Loek Van Gent, and others at our first Python Conference in 2015, I had a great time chatting with them about their experience of different PyCon around the world. I decided to expand the borders of my experience by participating in an international conference. I submitted my talk to PyCon UK 2018, and it was accepted. Everything went smoothly after the acceptance, I just needed to take my laptop and go to the airport since Namibians don’t need VISA when visiting the UK.

On the 12th of September, I traveled to Wales to attend PyCon UK from the 15th to the 19th of September.

I reached Hosea Kutako International Airport 30 minutes before the scheduled flight time. I had to complete some customs and other formalities quickly before going to the plane. My plane was ready for flight. It was a very big KLM, a Dutch airline with luxurious seats. It looked so royal, impressive, and wonderful. Likewise, it was the first time that I had to touch and sit on an aeroplane. I was really excited and full of many expectations. I had got a window seat, which gave me a fine view of the outside world. It was so cool as we were taking off. I had an amazing time in the sky, enjoying the first flight of my life.

Between the clouds

Pythonista landed in Cardiff

Upon arrival at Cardiff Airport, I met with Daniele Procida (PyCon UK director) and an active member of the international PyCon community) who drove me to the city. I was staying at the Mrs. Potts Hostel at St Mary Street, Cardiff not far from Cardiff Market which gave me the opportunity to explore the city center. Evening time, we went to a local restaurant where we had a delicious meal at an Italian restaurant closer to my hostel. Thanks, Daniele and others for the wonderful gesture.

At City Hall (Conference Venue)

The annual PyCon UK took place in Cardiff’s City Hall from Saturday the 15th to Wednesday the 19th of September 2018. The conference included five days of talks, workshops, and collaboration. My friend Nikoleta Glynatsi was one of the four keynote speakers and I had the opportunity to attend her talk. Also, I met Tania Allard who received the John Pinner Award (a UK Python Association community award) this year. Both Tania and Nikoleta coached at the Django Girls UK workshop, where a total of 53 women were introduced to programming.

There were different amazing talks that I enjoyed listening to, and I attended some robotics workshop that was so amazing too. The conference is a great place to meet new people and become a friend.
I had the pleasure of meeting some amazing participants and speakers like Adam Johnson, James King, Ben Nuttall, Vincent Knight,Mark Smith and Ania Kapuścińska.

Day of my talk

The day of my talk finally came. I was a bit nervous because I wanted to be perfect. My talk was about “What Python means in Namibia”. Twenty minutes before my talk, I had a big fight with my laptop that was freezing and restarting all the time. The PC disappointed me in front of everyone. I had gone from one corner to corner waiting for the laptop to cool down. The feelings of anxiety, stress, and worry at this moment were actually beyond my levels and that’s a day I almost forgot my English that I came with. Imagine talking to Native English speakers with stress, not easy at all. Fortunately, Daniele came to my rescue and everything got sorted a few minutes before the presentation and the talk went better than initially planned. After the talk, everyone congratulated me, and we exchanged emails. I moved to Linux, I don’t want further disappointment with Windows OS.

The Beautiful Cardiff city

Outside the conference, I had great opportunities to see the city. I walked around the city to see its architecture. There are a lot of parks, shops, bars, cafés, and beautiful castles all around. Cardiff is small, so it’s easy to get around quickly. I had observed there aren’t that many big roads going through the center of town, so it was easy for me to walk around from one shopping mall to another. The food was nice, I never experience any problem with food in Cardiff, the only thing that was strange to me was a strong COFFEE without Sugar. I didn’t understand why they were drinking coffee without sugar. In Namibia, we use sugar in coffee.

Cardiff has pretty good air quality and not much pollution and the center of town was cleaned and that was my first judgment of Cardiff city since I came from one of the cleanest cities in Africa (Windhoek). I have had a lot of memorable times in my life, but this was probably one of the most memorable times in my life.

To conclude, the experience was amazing, and I can’t wait to visit Cardiff again. Hopefully, I would get the opportunity to visit other cities in Wales and many other tourist attractions that missed out on during this trip.

Bye Cardiff