In 2015 in London I attended my first European Lisp Symposium. I was 21 at the time, and while this wasn't my first time abroad on my own, it was still a pretty stressful affair. I remember it still pretty clearly to that day: meeting Robert Strandh, Zach Beane, Didier Verna, Daniel Kochmański and many other people I'd previously admired from afar through many discussions on IRC. It was an important event for me, and was the first time I'd felt like I was in a group of people I could talk with about my interests and ambitions.