Drupalcon Szeged was my first Drupal convention and community experience. I really enjoyed meeting and experiencing the community. This is where I fell in love with everything Drupal. I really felt accepted by the community and after having created a few Drupal sites that year, I was ready for some serious learning. Like a sponge I not only soaked up what I did not know but I learned where to get the information and the support I would need begin my path to becoming a Drupal ninja. I learned which books to purchase, which theme frameworks to learn, the cool APIs to study and I got a feel for the direction that Drupal was heading and how to utilize the CMS framework for what I do best, build web sites.
The conference was held at a convention center that contained a large library. The venue and the library was absolutely awesome. We gathered outside in the grass for lunch and collected sun while discussing all things Drupal.
I drank the Drupal sauce and I was hooked. The traditional way of coding web sites has changed and Drupal was a great path forward. It was the perfect combination for everything I have studied. It felt like I had trained my whole life to work with Drupal.
I made new friends in Szeged and it was awesome. People that I really had a lot in common with where all around me and everyone was working together with energy and excitement.
Szeged the town and the Hungarian people are really great. Everyone seems so happy and healthy. People would walk by the river in the evenings eating ice cream and sharing conversation. My impression is that Hungarians are especially well educated, mannered and in really good physical condition. The quality of the food and the wide variety of cuisine was impressive. It felt like there was a bookstore on every corner. Szeged is home to several major Universities but I quickly realized that Hungarians love books in general.
Szeged is a very special place to visit because of the rich Hungarian history, culture and food but I was also able to experience living in a real University dormitory. I missed out on this during my college experience and it was really memorable to stay in the dorm room, come and go from the historic building and hang out in the computer lab with a few students who were catching up on some summer studies.
A weird coincidence but my aunt who resides in Arizona was also in Szeged and traveling Hungary at the same time. We did not know that our paths were so close to crossing but we could have passed each other on the street. I carefully looked back through my photos trying to find her but with no luck.
