Jean-Georges Perrin organised a pan-European Informix day on 16 January 2009 in Strasbourg, a beautiful city that is truly the crossroads of Europe. Speakers from France, Germany, Italy, the UK and the USA addressed a crowd of over 50 students, partners, users and IBMers.

I had to crunch my way across the slippery, icy streets in the early morning, but was surprised by the bustle, even though it was still dark when I set off! Things got off to an early start (08:30AM!! These French students are diligent sorts, evidently!) at the Maths faculty of the University of Strasbourg. After a brief introduction by JGP, we divvied out into three different streams: beginners, application development and advanced.

I gave a talk on MACH11 and another talk on how 11.5 completed the picture. The audience was very gracious, no-one fell asleep, and even managed to ask some relevant questions. I was very gratified.

We then all congregated back into the main amphitheatre to have a general-purpose discussion. As I am not a very good European, I did struggle from time to time to follow the discussion, but the translation service was excellent.

We then had a delicious lunch -- provided by the university canteen! The French are so good at cooking that even the university canteens provide excellent food!

After lunch, Cindy Fung provided the keynote address, which I found very positive. (Well worth nicking her presentation, anyway! :-)

Everybody then split up back into the three tracks for the remainder of the day.

JGP also arranged a delightful dinner in a 15th-century cave for the speakers, where we managed to eat cabbage that tasted delightful among many other gastronomic delights.

It was a fantastic day, very well organised and the hospitality provided by the University was excellent.

Many thanks to the sponsors: GreenIvory, VMark, the IIUG and of course, IBM. And JGP, too! :-)

Unfortunately, I don't have any decent photos of the event itself, but here is a photo of Strasbourg in the very early morning, taken on my way to the event.