Yes! You read that right, I am going to SteemFest for sure now, it’s a certain, and I can’t wait to meet and have drinks with you people over there. It all happened really fast, I went from full uncertainty, to now, a full certainty that I’m attending. I mean, you can read in this post of mine how unsure I was about attending mostly because of the current down market, and the fact that I don’t want to spend that much crypto right now.

And, since then, I managed to get hold of a digital ticket but, let me tell you how it all happened, from the beginning.

Deciding to attend

Since joining not only this platform but, this vibrant community, as a whole, I managed to build plenty of strong connections with all kinds of awesome people, connections that went past the blockchain, past the money and the upvotes. But, it is never easy to interact with people only through writing; I always preferred the offline over the online when it comes to building relationships. So, with that idea in mind, I decided to attend SteemFest a long time ago since it’s the best place to meet up and go for a drink drinks with all these epic people.

I managed to earn some crypto since January, enough to pay for the ticket but, not that much in the current market. I set my mind to attend, as long as the tickets don’t cost way too much, but, with the current price of Steem, the tickets ended up costing quite a bit.

The thing is that 277 euros is not a lot of money, for the developed countries but, for the Romanian standard of living is quite a bit, considering that’s close to a month of salary. So, with my current situation, rent, living, and most importantly, these low prices, it’s a bit harder to make Poland happen.

But, because I really wanted to attend, I decided to participate in some contests, in the hope that I will win a ticket but, without many expectations, to be honest.

The Contest

I ended up joining a couple of contests but, the one that saved me was @smooth’s contest. I remember that I spent some time on the first night of the contest and crafted my entry.

But, I honestly had a feeling that I won’t win when I saw the kind of interaction the other contestants were getting, and that feeling only got amplified throughout the week. When I joined, I decided that I will give out my best but, I will try to spam with my entry as few people as possible, and so I did.

And, because of that, my engagement on the entry was way smaller than the engagement from the other entries, that until @alexvan jumped in to give me a hand. All the other people still had a lot more comments than me but, I gained a lot of confidence into my entry thanks to the nice words all the people that supported my entry had for me.

I was hoping that I will win a ticket but, for most of the time, I was thinking of ways to fund the trip since I was almost sure that I will not win.

That, until last night.

The Ticket

This weekend I allocated a lot of my time for family and friends, some going-outs and one huge family barbecue. Because of that, and all the food I ate Sunday, I was extremely low on energy that night, and all I could do was to sit in bed and watch stuff on YouTube.

I was tired but, right before going to sleep I checked out my phone, and there was no way I could go to sleep from that point on. Some friends just announced and congratulated me for winning one of the two tickets @smooth put on the table for the contest.

I was absolutely amazed and had to open back up my laptop and complete the last two steps before going to sleep. By the time I woke up, @smooth had sent me a link with the free ticket, and a few minutes later, after filling in some information, I was in possession of my digital copy of the ticket, ready to go to Poland.

To be honest, my brain can still hardly comprehend what’s happening but, I have a ticket thanks to @smooth, I’ll soon buy some train/bus/plane tickets and probably even some winter clothes, and, I will get to Poland in November to meet you all.

Thank you @smooth for hosting the contest, and for the ticket; and @acidyo for providing assistance in evaluating the entries. Also, thank you to everybody who supported my entry, and to those that helped me since joining, way too many names to drop in here.

SteemFest is a certain for me right now so, see you there!