My flight to Berlin Tegel airport was scheduled for 2.15pm, and the first sign of trouble was a delay until 4pm — no problem I thought, i’ll still be in Berlin for early evening, with plenty of time to get to my hotel, explore my surroundings and hopefully network with some Blockshow attendees.

While waiting for my flight boarding gate to be announced, I thought about the U Network protocol, and how I could use the dApps to write a travel blog, which the community would either upvote, or downvote, based on their opinion of the quality of content I produced.

Then disaster began to strike. 1 minute before the boarding gate was due to be announcement, I received a text from the airline advising my flight had been cancelled, and i would have to rebook and manually apply for a refund of my ticket.

My heart sank, this golden opportunity was in peril due to a technical issue at an airport sill several hours flight away. The first step to resolving this was picking up my checked baggage as the plane was unloaded. Approximately halfway through this, the baggage carousel broke down, leaving half of the would be passengers unable to collect their bags.

When that was fixed, and I finally retrieved my bags, I tried to book onto the only other flight to Berlin, offered by the airline that day. The queue to do this was horrendous, with hundreds of other people in the same situation as me, all in front of my place in the queue.

F*ck you very much EuroWings.

Needless to say, any available seats on the later flight were snapped up in seconds, and trying to find other reachable flights, proved a new impossible task, with wildly expensive prices (British Airways charging £849 for one way same day flight) being at different airports on the other side of London, leaving on a tight schedule I realistically would never of made.

I tried to contact the U Network guys to discuss my situation, however due to the time zones, I was unable to make contact. With huge disappointment I decided to cut my losses and make arrangements to get back home. During the 5 hour journey back to Nottingham, I managed to hear back from the team, who were completely understanding and helped me to find an alternative route so we could make the show happen.

Gutted, back on the Underground to start the long journey home.

When I got back to my house around 9.30 pm, almost 14 hours after leaving, I booked a new flight from Birmingham to Berlin leaving at 7.45 am — this meant getting up very early to arrive in time. Looking forward to my 2nd journey, I decided to get some sleep ready for my early start.

Day #2

Overnight the UK suffered flash floods, right in the area of where my flight was due to depart, some unfortunate person actually died as a consequence of the floods, they were a real danger and ultimately would cause me a problem to get to the airport in time for my flight. In the end it wouldn’t matter, my 2nd journey’s connecting flight from Dusseldorf to Berlin was also cancelled due to technical issues in Berlin’s Tegel airport — I received another text advising me of this when i woke up, so i cancelled I the flights and requested a refund.

Due to how early it was in the UK, community manager Ken was still up in Silicon Valley, actively participating with the community in the telegram group. I let him know the situation, and undetered, he helped me come up with a 3rd plan to get to the Blockshow.

Manchestaaaaaarrrr!

I finally arranged a flight from Manchester airport to get me into Berlin Schoenefeld airport, leaving at 19.15 pm, and started on my journey across the UK to make that flight.

After all of the aforementioned issues, I was beginning to think this was never going to happen. I had spent a full day trying to travel only to end up back home, subsequent planned flights didnt happen, and due to how late I would arrive, there would be no one to represent U Network on the first day, missing out on letting hundreds of people know about this great project.

My flight out of manchester had a small delay of 15 mins, but otherwise went perfectly fine. When I landed in Berlin, we had another 30 min delay being stuck on the tarmac, due to staffing issues at Schoenfeld, meaning we could not be unboarded. Once resolved, I grabbed my bags, withdrew some Euros, and found a taxi to take me to the Estrel hotel.

I managed to check in at around 11.30 pm, I took in a quick drink to unwind after my long day, and went to bed, eager to get on with the show the following day.

Day #3

It was day 2 of the blockshow, I left my room just before 8am armed with my U Network materials, laptop and bags of enthusiasm. This was my first exposure to the real world of blockchain tech and community, filled with a mix of excitement and dread of what was actually happening.

First port of call was to get to my booth and ensure everything was set up. Locating it involved walking through the entire convention centre, letting me see all of the areas people would be meeting and interacting from. I found my spot in the nicely named coinmarket hall, where the roller banner was in place to signal my patch. I laid out my promo materials, connected to the U Network website, and made my way to the breakfast area to meet some of my fellow attendees.

Home for the next 10 hours.

Upon entering the communal area it was still early, around 8.15am. It was fairly empty, with approx 50 people all looking at their phones on seperate tables, not really wanting to engage with each other. I began by getting some coffee and a few of the breakfast items on offer, chose a table, and quickly picked up a conversation with my nearest neighbour.

Early morning networking, more coffee please!

My first contact was a 20 something German, attending as a private investor, interested in blockchain tech, who works for a company using software to teach people new languages.

We discussed many different topics and as our conversation continued, new people came over to join in, enabling me to meet them and understand what capacity they were attending the event as.

After speaking to these few individuals, I was much more confident that I was going to really enjoy my time at the event. Blockchain & crypto knowledge takes time to accumluate, and not everyone is a super tech geek who knows everything about the technology. It was pleasing to hear the vast majority were regular people like me, who are interested in what blockchain can do, and had come to see what projects were on offer, and who they could connect with.

At around 9.30am I made my way back to my booth, ready to start meeting interested parties and let them know about the U Network project.

#The Booth

My goals for the booth were to speak to as many people as possible, explain the project, answer any questions they have, and get a photo of me & them to share with the community.