One of those weeks. A 4 day course from tuesday to friday. Of course the company had an event on tuesday, so I wasn’t home until after midnight on tuesday, well, wednesday. Well, I could have come home earlier, but the poker clinic (!) after the corporate stuff and great Italian food took a bit longer than expected. Still it did mean that I spent most of the week exhausted.
I met some interesting people at the course. Some Australians who work for Tomtom, an Italian guy living just a few miles away from me and a few other.
It was fascinating to see how people responded on Twitter to the faked elections in Iran. The people on Twitter were among the first to report on what was going on in Iran. Quite a while before the conventional media caught on. Twitter users even started bashing CNN for not picking up the story. #CNNfail became a heavily used tag for a while. It is true that Twitter brought the Iran situation to the attention.
Something just didn’t feel right about it though. Call me a cynic, but I couldn’t believe that so many people were suddenly interested in the fate of Iran. I think it’s quite safe to say that before these elections most of the (Twittering) world couldn’t have cared less about what happens to Iran.
I wasn’t very surprised when I clicked the profile of a few of these ‘protesters’ and found quite a few could be considered Valley girls and boys. The majority of them American I wonder how outraged they were about the last couple of American elections…
Twitter is fashionable and what’s easier than supporting a good cause from your arm chair?
When we returned from Berlin and left the highway close to our home we saw something remarkable. In no time the city had turned a body of water near our house into a recreation area. A few hills, a beach and a picnic area with those typical one piece table and seats constructions. All in all a plan quite well executed. We’ve spent a warm evening there with two salads and a rather mediocre wine. The bad wine didn’t spoil the atmosphere. It was warm, we were lying on our towels on the sand and we were enjoying the food and each other’s company.
This picture was taken on the other side of the water. This other side is an area is nature reserve area with a few paths running through it. They weren’t used very often as we had to thrust our way through the thicket in the beginning.
This arrangement of table and chairs is on a private part of the nature reserve area. It looks like they’ve been standing there unused, but that’s just because the weather hasn’t been good enough.
That nature reserve area was quite a discovery. It’s narrow and long, but you do get the idea you’ve left the city behind. Despite the fact there’s a highway nearby that’s full of cars day and night.
This house is just a short walk from mine. I’ve seen it before on previous walks, but I either didn’t have my camera with me or I passed in front of the house. The road there is quite close to the house, so it gets rather personal when you take a picture. The front of the house does have a rather huge window though on the first floor (second floor you Yanks, I guess), which makes it look very nice. Well, it’s not in this picture. You’ll have to settle for the backside.
After trying on the jacket of the suit I bought in Berlin I found out that the sleeves are too long. They have been altered, but they’re still too long. It’s not the first time this has happened to me. I whined about this to a friend and he said it’s for keeping the fingers warm, cos it’s so bloody cold in Northern Europe.
So I started googling for a tailor, but the first 5 hits were from people trying to sell their secondhand suits online… Which makes you wonder, who buys a second hand suit…
Ah, I might try it at the tailor at the airport mentioned below. Easy to drop it off there and pick it up a few hours later…
My office is close to the main airport in the Netherlands, Schiphol. I took this picture on my lunch break. The landing strip is just about 500 meters from my office. If I look through the windows on the east side of the building I see planes taking off and landing all the time from this landing strip. Through the north looking windows we see the traffic control tower and planes landing, taking off and taxiing.
I love airports. The buildings are often interesting structures and outside these buildings these magnificent titanium and aluminium planes take off and land. Inside the airport you find a mix of people coming from all over the world. There are interesting luxurious shops and supermarkets. Schiphol is one of the few places where I can get the cooled Japanese tea that I like so much. The same supermarket also sells one of my favourite Japanese beers and so far it’s the only place where I can find maple syrup. Bookstores sell newspapers and magazines you can’t find easily find elsewhere.
I’ve known Sigur Ros for about 3 to 4 years now and whenever I listent to their music it really gets to me. Here’s a fine example of their beautiful music.
