I am currently sitting in a hotel room in Oslo, restoring mind and body after interesting lectures during daytime and a lot of urban walking in the evenings. One of my favorite things to do is to explore large cities by foot. Marvel at the shifting architecture, discover interesting people, smell the bakery and tune in to the local pace of life.
Matt Harding was a game designer at ActiVision who got tired of his work. Four years ago, he decided to do what many of us dream of but never get around to: He simply quit his job and travelled around the world.
I recently wrote a post about free subway maps. As we all know, good subway maps are a visual guide to the system and not by any means an accurate map of the real city. What seems close on a tube map could very likely be a large distance in the real world.
Did you ever wanted to bring a subway map in your pocket without ripping a page from your Lonely Planet? Now you can. Travel site Amadeus.net has put together a site with hundreds of metro maps.
I’m currently in Wellington, New Zealand. At latitude 41°S, it’s the southernmost national capital city in the world. This is about as far south as you can be without hiking through Patagonia. Being south of the equator once again, this time I actually remembered to personally debunk an old myth: The statement that water drains “backwards” in the southern hemisphere.
The year is about to get wrapped up, so me and Emelie are on our way to Mrs Macquarie’s Point in the Botanic Gardens. It is the best view in the city, where the Opera House is seen in front of the massive fireworks in the harbor area, celebrating the 75th anniversary of the old “coathanger” Harbour Bridge.
During the weekend, we revisited Madrid to say hello to a friend and have some tapas. That was the good part. The bad part was the flight home. Me and Emelie got up at 4 AM and catched a cab outside the Atocha station. That trip presented no problem and we arrived at Barajas two hours before the flight departure.
For all of you who share my love for both Manhattan and digital maps, I want direct your attention to Jason Kottke’s latest project: Manhattan Elsewhere.
Even though nature is beautiful, few things inspire me more than large cities, sprawling with buildings in all directions. I love to walk along the streets, sync my heartbeat with the city’s unique pulse and feel its energy while immersed by the creative chaos of mankind.
The hurricane Katrina has finally arrived at the mainland of Louisiana and hit Mississippi like a ton of bricks. Many streets in New Orleans are flooded by two meters with reports of sharks, alligators and snakes swimming around. Debris everywhere, boats are floating up the streets and about ten thousand people have sought refuge inside the Superdome. The still water will likely bring diseases, and I suspect that a lot of insects will soon be attracted to the area. It’s a war zone down there.
