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AlisonW

search for tag 'Travel' requested

I really don't write enough any more

2012-05-09 11:23:00 - by alisonw Personal Travel Memories

or rather I tweet so much that I rarely engage in long-form (or longer-form, anyway) writing any more.

Apart from the occasional blog entries on my three 'real life' blogs and even they don't really get much love and the RedSox one is about two weeks behind.

But anyway …

I went off to Holland last week with a group of people, some of whom I already knew, some I knew of, and some I'd not the faintest idea about. Initially I'd said yes to going when I first saw the plans about the trip because I'd heard too late about last year's excursion and thought it would be fun to go this year. After signing up I then realised I probably couldn't afford it, but in the end that got sorted and last Wednesday it was off to St Pancras 'International' for a eurostar to Brussels, and then on to Rotterdam and points slightly north. Or at least it would have been if the train from Belgium hadn't been cancelled and delayed us by an hour until the next service. At one point the previous night I'd even be pondering whether to just intentionally miss the train as I was getting a bit panicked about sharing space with so many people with no 'escape' options.

Basically it was a bunch (around 25) of geeks going to stay in a hostel-like place. We even transported our own wifi equipment to install for the duration! A number of side-trips were made during the stay, including a day in Amsterdam (I bought a couple of new toys!) and one day we used the centre's three-person canoes to go up the canals and into the town of Delft - about two miles or so, including under some *very* low bridges. I like canoeing/kayaking as it is about upper body strength (which I'm ok at) rather than legs/lower, which I'm really not.

This was great on the way there - just over half the group were in the canoes, the rest walked - and we found a place to eat and drink in the main market square. But coming back I managed to drop my stick in the canal while getting into my canoe. Followed a few moments later by falling in myself.

The tourists and locals on the banks of the canal (not to say the other geeks) thought this was highly amusing as I disappeared (fully clothed) under the water and, to be fair, so did I. Though it took some assistance to get me out the water and into a canoe. In fact, although I had been a bit too cold earlier, now that I and my clothes were soaked through I was actually feeling warmer; the 'wet suit' effect I suppose.

Annoyingly, trying to get out the canoe back at the centre I managed to slip in *again* so where I'd started to dry off on the journey back I was promptly wet through again! Thankfully the hot showers were 20 seconds away...

Thankfully, I was pretty 'up' much of the week (too much, in some ways) but nobody tried to kill me so it ended up quite a fun trip and I might even go again next year.

Iceland

2008-11-12 12:00:00 - by alisonw Personal Gaming Travel

Flew up to Reykjavik last Wednesday for the Eve online Fanfest event. Mostly great fun with lots of news about upcoming changes to the game along with discussions about what direction it should take in the future. I was also on one of the panels, which was enjoyable too. being the report-back session of the Council of Stellar Management.

Didn't like Iceland in Winter though. Going down to breakfast at nine am and then seeing the dawn start to turn the view through the windows turn from pitch black to dull grey – and then the afternoon turn back to black around 3pm – is not my idea of a good climate. I like sunshine every day, indeed it was one of the reasons I really liked flying all around Europe daily in the late 90s – at 30,000ft you are guaranteed to get sunshine (except at night, obviously!)

My spaceship is docked

2008-10-04 16:30:00 - by alisonw Personal Gaming Travel

About four months ago I was elected to the 'Council of Stellar Management ' in the Eve Online MMORPG.

In the summer this meant a four-day trip to Iceland to meet with the folks at CCP who develop the product.

Symbol of the Matari peoples Today is time for the second meeting (the New York Times wrote about the first one ), but this time it is taking place via an in-game chat room with 'our side' sitting at keyboard in their homes in the UK, Denmark, The Netherlands, Eastern Europe and Australia. At some point the USA will be added to that. On the CCP management side they are also mostly at home, but in Reykjavik! And so far, so smoothly (but so slowly too!)

Of course, because we aren't face-to-face during the meeting I can run that on one machine while continuing to write and test new code on another... and drink coffee... and listen to music... ;-P

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