 Oct 21, 2024 | 4 mins | #ios,#nsspain,#speaking

NSSpain 2024

What. A. Blast. 😁

Last month I have been to my first NSSpain, and as a speaker, too! Unbelievable, I know. Let me cut to the chase: it’s been an absolute blast!

NSSpain is probably one of the oldest, and definitely one of the most known European conferences for Apple platforms developers, and now that I finally got the opportunity to be there, I fully understand why. It takes place in Logroño. Logroño is a small(–ish) city in the La Rioja region, which is known for its wine production (especially red ones), and you will understand why that’s important soon.

But first things first.

Reaching Logroño

Logroño has a small airport, but the only connection is to Madrid (and Palma de Mallorca, seasonally). So in order to reach it from Milan, one has to fly to either Madrid, Barcelona, or Bilbao, and from there take the train. I chose Bilbao since I found a nice flight that allowed me to spend a couple of ours in the city, and from there I took a (slow–ish) train to Logroño.

Bilbao is a really nice city, and if you don’t try to read and understand the Basque language, you’ll surely enjoy your time there 😁. I did, and since there are still things I would like to see there, I will definitely be back.

The train is not an high speed one, so don’t expect the trip to be quick, it’ll take a couple of hours to reach Logroño. That said, it was nice, the scenery beautiful and I got to meet Thomas Durand on the train, and we had a really nice chat (although he scared the shit out of me by mentioning VIPER 😆).

Here are some photographs from Bilbao and the trip:

Logroño

A beautiful little city, sorrounded by wineries, and crossed by the Ebro river.

The old part of the city offers some really nice spots for photography, and the Calle del Laurel neighbourhood is packed full with small tapas bars, bodegas, and lovely little places, and from the late afternoon it comes to life and it’s a wonderful place to enjoy a glass of wine, some bocadillos, and spend some time with the other attendees.

The conference takes place at the Riojaforum, which is a bit outside of the old town along the Ebro river, but at walkable distance from almost all parts of the city.

(Yes, murals fascinate me 😁)

The conference

Let me just say it clearly, NSSpain is amazing! Lots of really high quality and interesting talks, a beautiful venue, and a perfect organization.

This year’s theme was One Piece, and everything, from the personal tags, to the conference logo, to the speakers “photographs” on the conference web site, was One Piece inspired. Borja and Luis, the organizers, even dressed up as the anime characters for the opening speech. Lovely 🏴‍☠️

For the first day night, they organized a tour of a nearby winery, followed by a buffet dinner were everyone had a lot of fun and that gave the opportunity to the attendees to chat and network.

One thing I would like to point out is that there were a number (myself included) of first time speakers, so hats off to Luis and Borja for the fantastic opportunity they gave us all. Moreover, I have to thank all the other speakers for the warm welcome they gave us, and the wonderful time spent together.

I expected to be extremely nervous before the talk, but the welcoming atmosphere made it so that I didn’t even sweat while on stage. And even if the talk was on a quite niche and difficult topic, it looks like at least part of the audience found it interesting, and none boo’ed me off-stage, so that’s good! 😆

I will add the link to all the talks videos here as soon as they publish them, for those interested. I’m definitely looking forward to watch my talk to see how it looked like from the audience, and to re-watch most of the other ones, too.

San Mateo

One interesting thing is that the conference is organized in order to coincide with the start of the San Mateo Festival (see here, here, and here for some more infos), a full week of songs, concerts, activities, wine, food, and fun that begins the day after the conference.

Unfortunately, I already had other plans for the weekend after the conference, and I had to leave on Friday morning, so I haven’t been able to enjoy it. Next year though I will absolutely stay at least a couple more days!

Conclusion

If you’re looking for a conference to attend in Europe next year, make it NSSpain. You won’t regret it. I will be back, either as a speaker, or as a simple attendee, but I will be back. It’s been, as a said, an absolute blast, and I can’t wait to be there again.