I had a great time speaking last week at DevDays 2009 in Den Haag (The Hague), along with Fritz, Keith, and Matt. It was my first time in The Netherlands and I absolutely loved it there. The first thing I noticed when leaving the train station was the massive number of bicycles. There are actually more bicycles in The Netherlands than people. Most folks own at least 2-3 and they use them.
In fact, check out this shot I took at the Amsterdam central train station (yes, those are all bikes on the multi-layer platform):
We spent most of the week in The Hague by the sea, but got to spend Friday evening and all day Saturday sight-seeing in Amsterdam.
Then one of our old Dutch friends, Henk de Koning, picked us up for a drive and he took us to a neat little fishing town called Volendam where we had an excellent seafood dinner right by the water.
Now I actually understand the difference between The Netherlands, Holland, and why they call themselves Dutch. ;-) The conference organizers were fantastic and the attendees were very engaging, bright, and interesting to talk toalways makes for a fun week.
For those who attended the conference, here are the demos from my various presentations last week:
- A Day of the Azure Services Platform
- What’s New in WCF/WF 4.0
- Introducing .NET Services
- Introducing the WCF REST Starter Kit