Entries tagged ‘travel’
Cities I’ve visited this year, in which I’ve spent one or more nights. Cities marked with * where visited multiple times on non-consecutive days.
- Naaldwijk, the Netherlands*
- Enschede, the Netherlands*
- Copenhagen, Denmark*
- London, England*
- Stockholm, Sweden*
- Brighton, England*
- Antwerp, Belgium
- Amsterdam, the Netherlands*
See my list from 2008.
I spoke at Geek Meet in Stockholm last night. The slides are now up on Slideshare:
- Web Typography and sIFR 3 is about the current state of web typography, and a quick run through sIFR 3
- Homemade Ubicomp is about ubiquitous computing you can do in your kitchen, with examples from PICNIC and the Copenhagen Institute for Interaction Design.
I had a great time, thanks to Robert Nyman and bwin for organizing.
As per Kottke:
- Enschede, NL*
- Naaldwijk, NL*
- Amsterdam, NL*
- Copenhagen, DK*
- Roskilde, DK,
- Bogø, DK,
- London, UK*
- Brighton, UK
- Lisbon, PT
- Berlin, DE
- Lausanne, CH
- Geneva, CH
One or more nights were spent in each place. Those cities marked with an * were visited multiple times on non-consecutive days. I lived in both Enschede and Copenhagen, but took trips to the other city after moving. Bogø isn’t necessarily a city, but it is a place 
Let’s see, where were we?
I went to Mediamatic Social RFID Hackers Camp at PICNIC in Amsterdam. Blogged about it on Supercollider.
Then I went to Lisbon, for SHiFT 08, and gave a talk on Home Made Ubicomp.
Sunday, I’m speaking at <head> on Web Typography with sIFR 3. It’s an online conference, so I’m presenting at home or perhaps with some friends, through my laptop. They’re using Adobe Acrobat Connect, which for some reason does not support PDF documents, nor does it support Keynote files, so I had a lot of fun converting to PowerPoint, opening in crappy software also known as OpenOffice, and patching the presentation to a reasonable level of sucktitude. We’ll see what happens.
On November 16th, I’m physically giving pretty much the same presentation, but with working slides, at DrupalCamp CPH. Henriette would not be amused.
I’m now also in the Danish systems, and started Twittering after not using my account for over two years. Then I reached 42 followers, so what choice did I have? Public for now, if that keeps working mentally.
That’s it then, short update. I suggest you subscribe to the Supercollider blog for more technical articles, as I’m turning Novemberborn into a more personal website. Which may mean that the posting activity may go down even further, we’ll see what happens.
I also blog at Toothless Tiger these days.
By the way, Supercollider is my freelance alter ego. Yes, I’m for hire.
Over the past 13 days I’ve been in five different countries. It started by taking the train down to Enschede, from Denmark, through Germany. After spending some time in The Netherlands, I boarded a flight for Brighton, in the UK. I got back to Copenhagen yesterday, and spent a few hours in Malmö, Sweden this evening.
I don’t have a very clear feeling anymore of being in a foreign country. The sense of wonder is gone. The excitement of being in Enschede, of being with my family, of being in Brighton or Copenhagen, it doesn’t start more than 24 hours prior to arrival.
(It could, however, be argued that this is because I go to countries I’ve been to before. Still, as a child, being somewhere else was just wonderful. Not so much, no more.)
Neither do I see myself as being primarily Dutch. I’ve begun describing myself as a European Dutchman. Yes, I have Dutch roots, and the more time I spend abroad, the more cultural differences I notice, the more I recognize these roots. Being Dutch is part of my identity. But, also, being European. Especially European, for within Europe, I don’t think in countries anymore. I think in cities, in places, in people.
And even on a global scale, I think in cities, places and people more than I think in terms of countries. It’s just the experience of crossing the border, with extensive questions, that make it clear that you really are in a different country.
(Again, I’ll interject, and state that if I were to go to Seoul, I’d really feel that I’m going to South Korea, and not just Seoul.)
In Europe, most countries have signed the Schengen treaty, which means that there is no border control. And even for the few countries that haven’t, like the UK, showing a simple ID card is enough to get in. No questions asked. Heck, the Danish border control only glanced at my ID card before waiving me through.
The ease of travel, and for me, the experiences of living abroad, with two months in the Bay area, and now moving to Copenhagen, they change how I feel about the world and about travel. They change my Location Identity. I’m Dutch, but I don’t live there. I’m not yet a Copenhagen person, and will never be Danish. Where does that leave me?
For now, European Dutchman will do.
What is your Location Identity?
(For the best introspective thinking, reply late at night after a train ride home from a foreign country, to a somewhat foreign country.)
