XDC 2012: Nuremberg, Germany.

[Luc Verhaegen]

Egbert Eich, Matthias Hopf and I stuck our heads together a month or so 
ago and thought: we can do the next XDC in nuremberg! And so, to 
continue the good tradition started by Michael last year; during the 
current conference, we would already like to propose the next one, and 
we would like to propose Nuremberg in Germany.

I just presented this here at XDC Chicago and the slides are available 
at: http://people.freedesktop.org/~libv/X_conferences_2012.pdf

The City: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuremberg

In the northern part of Bavaria, Nuremberg is a city with a rich and 
diverse history (not always positive:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuremberg_Rally), and the way it got 
rebuilt after the war makes it very beautiful, and despite, the rebuild, 
not at all fake like Bruges (says a belgian).

Nuremberg is large for a european city, everything you can possibly 
want, you can find there. But while it is large, it is also not too 
large, it has no issues with safety (unlike Brussels for instance). 
Nuremberg is also far enough inland to usually have good weather in 
summer and even september.

While the english of most germans is not stellar (my theory: the use of
overdubbing instead of subtitles), it is usually quite ok, and everybody 
is willing to help foreigners (unlike brussels again :)). But for 
instance the metro from the airport has stops repeated in english.

Nuremberg is of course in Bavaria (actually Frankonia) and therefor has 
plenty of beergartens, restaurants and bars. Beergartens can easily 
handle very big groups of people, and provide good food and drinks at 
very affordable prices, but Nuremberg gastronomy is of course not 
limited to beergartens, there is something for everyone there.

Travel to Nuremberg is easy (check the map in the slides). Nuremberg is 
a 30 minute flight away from either Frankfurt (huge european and 
international hub), or Munich (big european hub). Alternatively, for 
those who do not want to waste too much time on airports, one can take 
the ICE from frankfurt straight to Nuremberg in comfort (the time spent 
on the train is about 2.5h - not that much more than the time spent 
boarding/taxying/flying/taxying/disembarking).

Travel inside Nuremberg is also easy: there is excellent public 
transport, where one ticket serves all (unlike my experiences in the 
UK). The Nuremberg airport has a direct metro connection to the inner 
city (~10-15 minutes). The main railwaystation is just across the street 
from the inner city. And the city is crossed with metro (u-bahn) and 
tram (strassenbahn) lines.

Hotelwise, there is probably something for every budget, and this in the
direct vicinity of the inner city (check the slides, there is a map 
there). If you cannot find a hotel for 50-100EUR (~ x 1.3 -> usd) within 200 
meters of the inner city, we either chose a really bad time (really big 
conference takes place at exactly the same time) or you are doing 
something wrong :)

The inner city (within the city walls) is about 1km from east to 
west, and 1.5km from north to south. Mostly, you do not even need public 
transportation to get around, a 10 minute walk usually suffices.

The actual venue still needs to be decided. If Egbert can convince SuSE 
to give us their big conference room for 3 days. This might give us a 
nice room, tables, chairs, projector, good power, and networking for 
free, and this right outside the northern city wall (400m from a metro 
station, right next to a tram station). Failing that, Matthias might be 
able to organise something with his university. In the highly unlikely 
case of both of those not working out, we should have an easy time 
finding an alternative.

And finally, there are three organisers. Matthias, Egbert and myself 
(and two of us are local -- even living just 50m outside the city wall). 
As the most extreme example, if one of us gets run over by a bus, the 
event will continue. But more positively, the load can be easily spread, 
and the event can get well planned through and organised.

One extra thought: for me, as a belgian (read: not ashamed of it), i 
find the nazi party rally grounds in the south of Nuremberg one of the 
most important historic sites of europe for the 20th century. Some of 
the megalomaniac Speer architecture buildings are still standing there, 
and one of them contains the Documentation Center, a very good museum 
about these grounds and the run-up to WWII. For anyone slightly 
interested in the history of the last century, this is a pretty unique 
opportunity.

So, what do you guys think?

Luc Verhaegen.