JavaOne 2014 is coming up. First8 has to be there. Bram Patelski and I, Mark Stoetzer have the privilege of going to javaone this year. Coming days we will write about our experiences in San Francisco.
Before you can get there you have to do some preparations. Traveling to the USA seems simple enough: Get on a plane in Amsterdam and get off the plane in San Francisco. However, you need a so called ESTA approval to be able to travel to the USA. Furthermore you should not forget to reserve some seats on the plane such that you can sit next to each other (or take care of any other wishes you could have concerning seating). If you have any dietary eating restrictions, you should adjust your plane meals beforehand. In my case I have food allergy for eggs. Previous plane meal experiences like fruit only didn’t work for me, so this time I am trying the vegan meal.
Of course the above is not the only thing that is important. Your bags have to be packed with all the things you would normally bring with you on a holiday. When traveling with a laptop or any other device take care that you can actually plug it in on the other side of the ocean. It would be rather disappointing (if not costly) if you could not use those devices when you are there.
To make the most of JavaOne itself, it is crucial that you reserve a seat for the sessions that you want to attend. If you don’t do so and all the seats are reserved for the session, you have to wait in a line and hope that people that have reserved seats are absent. When you aren’t at the session 10 minutes before the start, the reservation is cancelled.
Considering the consequences, we created a schedule on the JavaOne site reserving seats for the sessions we would like to go to. For me personally, there were some sessions of which all seats are already reserved, so let’s hope I can get in. The only thing we have to keep in mind during JavaOne is to be on time at the sessions. Departure time! Off we go to San Francisco (SF).
