I tried to keep it briefly... but ended up making a longer post. Well... most just look at the pictures, right?
Getting up early again
I woke up before my alarm went off. Nice. Day 1 was awesome. I was looking forward to hearing more about projects, and taking more photographs of HiveFest. There were a few on the list that I wanted to hear about, like PeakD's presentation of the course. I mean... @Jarvie and @Sjarvie kicked our asses last night, so I had to hear what he had to say about that in his presentation of course :p. Was great getting to hang out for a bit.
Day 2 was being hosted in the Zuiderkerk in Amsterdam. You can rent this church, and the money goes to restoration. The church has is built between 1603 and 1611, which makes this venue over 400 years old. The renaissance style surely made this venue another awesome place to host an event. I think they usually rent it out for 2 hours or so. While getting some Sun outside, I saw a few tourists wanting to enter the church until they realized it was a private event. At the very end (when we were supposed to leave the church), I sneaked two tourists in that was very surprised at what the Church looked like from the inside. "It's not a church anymore?". Ha.
© Ruben Cress
Summary
The whole experience of going to HiveFest for the first time has been an awesome thing. At first, I thought, 500 HBD for a ticket would be quite expensive to attend, but really, it's a good deal(!). I'm not saying this because I won a ticket, or simply because I've attended. Roeland has put a lot of time into organizing, making sure everyone had a great time, even though he had like 2-3 hours of sleep every day. I, for sure didn't even notice and at first assumed he just had a good night's rest like most of us.
Looking back at the Live conference on YouTube, I can tell you that there is so much more going on than all the presentations. I mean, we can all look at the presentations and have our opinions about them. But being able to ask live questions, or brainstorm with users after, before, or during is quite valuable in my opinion. It's always a great thing for people to meet eye in eye, and understand each other a bit better, or share your ideas and thoughts. I thought I was 'long' enough on Hive to know most of them, as far as it goes to the speakers, yes, I knew most of them, but had no clue what they look like or how they sound like. But, seeing all these unfamiliar usernames showing up at HiveFest made me feel I have just scratched the surface of the userbase of Hive, as I think I only knew 10% of them.
Overall, it was such a great and positive experience for me. Amsterdam was a great location for me to attend, and I'm already looking forward to where the next hosting of HiveFest will take place. I think I'll start putting aside HBD specifically for HiveFest, or other Hive-related meet-ups.
Roeland, once again, thank you very much!
To those who are just tuning in: enjoy!
HiQ Magazine
The very first presentation was about the HiQ Magazine that recently popped up in my feed. It was something I was looking forward to hearing all about. The way how they publish their magazines on the chain is certainly something I can see other publishers follow. Imagine newspapers or other magazines start posting their content on Hive.
In a recent post, I learned that some of their publications reached 12,000 words. That's just insane. 
ps; it would've been EPIC to see NFT releases of these physical magazines! 150 collectible Physical NFTs... imagine.
OCD
The very first moment when I joined Hive, I was thrown into the OCD group channel. I had no idea what I got myself into, but it became my home since that day. I've been trying to support OCD with motion graphics/gifs, to spice things up along the way. I also missed the point where they changed their community rules, as I usually always posted there as I see it to be part of my home. Oh well! Almost got myself burned. 
PeakD Open Projects
@Jarvie my man, the guy who kicked our asses during HiveFest; Balls of Steel. I'm glad to see you guys on that stage taking the first price, so I feel less ashamed of myself. I loved your presentation, and you were just super lucky with the light. Glad that we had a short talk during the activities and presentations.
Portraying: 
A few days before HiveFest Howo contacted me and was wondering if he could commission me to take portraits of him while he is in Amsterdam. He shared with me that he needed new photographs as the ones that he has currently been using were a bit outdated. Howo is also one of the first Hivers that I've met. It was nice to finally meet Howo.
So, we went outside, and surprisingly, it was his first photoshoot ever. I really did not see that one coming... Lol. Howo is a natural in front of the camera, which made my job much easier! I feel honored that he trusts me to take photographs of him. The weather was also perfect as the Sun started to shine. Great timing!
Thank you so much Howo for the job! Awesome!
LunchBREAKING Cold Beetroot Soup
The guys from 
We already talking about a meetup in Den Haag with @Blind-spot, which would be pretty cool. Let's hope
SO, GUYS, you've been waiting for these photographs. I would've published this article yesterday, but I had some quality time with my father, who I recently reconnected with again after 4 years.
Guys, this was delicious! I'm going to make this back at home with
After learning you guys have been volunteering and were asking for donations, I was more than happy to take some extra time and take these photographs. Hopefully, they will help you remember this awesome day!
Lightning Strikes Hive / Podping
I've heard 
JukeBells
One of the most GENIUS things I've ever experienced in Amsterdam must have been the JukeBells. I did not even KNOW this was a thing. It reminds me of playing Spotify back at home, while I wasn't even at home, just to annoy my neighbors, as they were blasting music whenever I was trying to sleep and/or work.
JUST imagine, walking through Amsterdam, and at some point, you hear these church bells playing a song that sounds... quite... familiar. Is this... R Kelly, I believe I can fly?
Well done Roeland!
Pinmapple got hacked!
Did you know you can recognize specific shouts and cheers? For example, there is this one cheer that indicated that money has been won. It was different from when the national soccer team is playing and scoring. The cheering from -I don't know who did all of the cheerings- was exactly like that. I immediately grabbed my camera and moved my way to take some photographs of the brief moment that I was able to catch.
So, what happened? @Martibis, from Pinmapple, hosted a treasure hunt where people that could crack the code win over 1000 Hive! In the Goodie bag, there was a card with a hint with an anagram. At the time when I tried to solve it, I didn't get further than DRONKFEST, and I might have been accidentally motivating myself to get myself some more beers.
Closing time
I thought this would be a good time for me to put away my camera. I've been taking a lot of photographs during the event, and I'm quite happy with how they all turned out. I've been spending some time on my PKM to implement all my notes and now I can finally visualize my memories.
I've attended #beersaturday, which was hosted by 
Making Celestal try some typical Dutch food
On the last day,
But before all of that, we really required some food, so we went on a hunt to acquire something to feed our bellies... I went to Box Sociaal, someplace close to the Zoo of Amsterdam. Lel... You had to make a reservation if you would like to eat. Man, there were 6-8 people outside, waiting in the rain, to eat a disgusting pancake (I felt so bad afterward, it still boils some stuff in my stomach when I think about the taste).
We ended up waiting 1 hour + to have some lunch at a place. I had a pancake with Strawberry, lemon ricotta and... PESTO. wtf. WTF. Should've taken the stuff the guy next to us had. Hahaha. Celestal's reaction was so priceless, "it must be a trendy place eh?", ahah... well... usually when I don't like stuff, I just tell the staff when they ask, but I kind of froze and could go as far as "it was unexpected, and... insert pause... good" when the waiter asked me if I liked it. Of course, not soon after, we burst into laughter, because I was really hungry.
HiveFest <3
Thank you all! I'm not going to tag every one of you who've I met, for the love of notifications. Those who I have connected with; you know who you are, and I'm already looking forward to seeing you guys again. But for now... I'm REALLY in need of some sleep. I've been busting my ass trying to edit these photographs as soon as possible, as the memory is still fresh.
What was your legendary moment @ HiveFest?
