## who we are
The team of web backend developers, doing custom cms solutions in Laravel for a couple of years now. Solutions are pretty advanced, and following one of the biggest names in the field definitely puts us on the high end of our skill sets and the understanding level of Laravel we provide.

## Laracon eu Lisbon 2023
The company promoted visiting gatherings like that to gain new ideas and inspiration, so we found Laracon EU in Lisbon, which was happening in a month or two. So the unplanned team-building, brainstorming, and lots of fun were waiting for us in one way or the other.

## the day before
Nothing special was happening in the team the day before. However, some small plans were made about how we should travel to the airport and how independent we wanted to be in the preparations.

## trip happening
Trying not to hurry things, we plan to arrive a day before Laracon starts, taking the flight as soon as 6 in the morning to have a complete rest day and the whole evening. None of us was ever in Lisbon before.
Some started the journey at midnight, whereas most of us gathered around 3 in the morning to catch the flight. We even had sandwiches and coffee as we had back in school, so a total nerd trip.

This was our first flying experience for one of us, so a trip's fun was guaranteed.

# day 1
The atmosphere was just as I remembered it, and it triggered the developer part of me with a feeling of enthusiasm and a "things are gonna happen!" voice in my head. It was nice to see Jeffrey Way, with whom many developers grow. The hard truth by Stefan Bauer describes a story of struggle. A must-new tool presented by Nuno Maduro that will change the whole merge review flow requirements.

And thanks god for the food they prepared for us there as things in Lisbon were not playing out well for us. We may be the unluckiest visitors, but here we were.

# day 2
Backend guys already love tailwind, as it allowed us to update our CV to a full-stack developer now. The topic of Termwind by Francisco Madeira made us want to do our own websites in the terminal from now on. As it is hard to imagine anything better than a website in the terminal, we were awakened by the shock of chicken on pizza presented at Batchable Jobs by Bobby Bouwmann, but we still need to say huge thanks to that guy as he gave us the solution we were craving for at the time. I am talking about "you can add jobs to batch as you go."

All the evenings ended with late coffee, smoking, and lively conversations, and that one was no different, no matter that it was the last day.

# going home
It was a circus of its own. Flights being late, connected flights waiting for us, lost luggage, and no smoking time. All were happening to the guy flying for the first time. Nothing stopped us even for a second, as it was still a full-blown, relaxed gathering, no matter what happened, with lots of new inside jokes

The image tells a lot of stories, but only we know what really happened :)

![He was not so generous that day](/media/blog/laracon-eu-lisbon-2023-story.JPG)

Till next time, stay sexy and hydrated.


laracon eu lisbon 2023