Since Sweden has had the coldest December month in 110 years, I thought it would be at least a bit warmer in central Europe. But the streets of Hungary’s capital are absolutely freezing. Fortunately there are lots of places with hot goulash to escape the chill, and not to forget the famous thermal baths all over the city.
You’ve all seen the Matt Harding dance and earlier this year I wrote about Bearded journey. Now it’s time again for another inspiring movie where a man walks across America from New York to San Francisco.
I got up at noon, packed the rest of my backpack and walked to the Central Station in Gothenburg where I met Pär and Hanna. A few hours later we arrived in Stockholm and went for a walk. We entered the Old Town and I was shocked to discover that my old favorite ice cream place had become a Ben&Jerry. Don’t get me wrong, I love B&J, but the old one had a lot of charm.
I often get travel inspiration from exotic scene locations featured in movies. Scarlett Johansson taking the Shinkansen to Kyoto, Matt Damon driving a vespa through a vibrant Tanger, Jake Gyllenhaal sipping booze on a balcony overlooking Djemaa el Fna in Marrakech (where my friend had to put up with me some years ago as I stubbornly wanted to find that specific balcony) and so on. But unfortunately most of it is fake.
Travel hosts tend to come in different flavors, but most of them are curious, positive and charismatic. Everybody loves Michael Palin in his quirky British way and Megan McCormick is adorable even when she’s wading through a mosquito-infested swamp. But what about all those people who just don’t have the talent for it? Or all those people who honestly suck at being travel guides? Worst of all, imagine those who doesn’t even like traveling but have to do it anyway. Meet Karl Pilkington.
Google are certainly not resting on their laurels. A few days ago they announced a preview of Google Places API, about the same time that Facebook released write access to Facebook Places. I can smell a hairy fight coming up between the giants, but hopefully the winner will be the best one for users and developers.
The mathematician Benoit Mandelbrot died today of pancreatic cancer at the age of 85. I guess most people don’t have a clue who he is, but he used to be one of my unlikely childhood heroes.
I’m writing this at a window some hundred meters above the streets of Warsaw, the capital of Poland. Staying at the five-star hotel InterContinental Warsaw which offers a good view of the city. Even though it’s only the 55th tallest building in Europe, it’s the tallest hotel in Poland and the third tallest in Europe.
Dögnvill is a kind of arctic, yet urban, music festival. Tromsö is located 500 miles above the Arctic Circle and it was definitely the coldest festival I’ve ever been to. You could see snow-capped mountains from the festival area and cold air vapor were clearly visible from the singers! Most festivals I’ve been to have had very strict policy regarding under-aged visitors and alcohol, but this one was clearly an exception.
Tonight was the Apple’s Fall Music Event, broad-casted live from San Francisco on the web. We watched it in the office on a Mac, since the new cool HTTP streaming is so far only available for Mac OS X 10.6 running Safari. The obvious choice of food were Big Macs (I would have asked for a Big Mac Mini if the burgers weren’t so small to begin with).
Reine is a web developer, curious traveler and ice cream devourer.
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