I woke up this morning to find an unexpected message from discoverylover (unexpected because I thought the voting would not be over until tonight) saying that I'd won the vote for representing the Dutch Convention Team at the BookCrossing Convention in Christchurch next April !!! *deep breath*
And now I'm bouncing around the room because I can't believe that I'm actuallly going and I have no one else to tell. So that's why I'm posting here.
*boing boing boing boing boing*
*makes nice calming cup of tea*

Okay, the next thing to do is fundraising. Because I'd really, really like to see if we can raise enough money to send aka_phoenix over there as well. I know she wants to go as badly as I do.
So here goes: www.bcx.bounce.com.au
There's a Donation page in the The Second Adventure submenu. It has PayPal.
Any and all donations, no matter how small (they start at 2 kiwidollars, which is close to 1 yankeedollar or 1 cloggydollar) are very, very welcome. Thank you!

Okay, this one is really hard. Maybe all y'all can help me think.

See, gummihuhn, stoneshop and me were going to visit a biker's meet on Dartmoor (*waves at miketroll*). And on the way we would stop to meet a BookCrosser or two, and pick up a teapot for my Teasmade, which I bought on E-bay (or actually, gummihuhn did the buying on my behalf).
But there's a problem. stoneshop cannot get many days off from work, so his time is restricted. And he figures it's a lot of kilometres in rather few days, to meet a group of people he's not all that involved with. We'd be on a rather tight schedule in order to make it to the ferry on time.
I can see his point, and even if I couldn't: if he doesn't want to go, I can't make him go, and I wouldn't want to if I could.

So if he stays home, why shouldn't I go? After all, I've been looking forward to this trip for quite some time.  Therre's going to be campfires, and greenlaning, and lots of biker's stories being swapped. It sounds like a lovely outing and I know that gummihuhn and I make fine travel companions (everything went quite well on our trip to the BookCrossing convention in London).

Well...
it's just that stoneshop and I haven't been on a proper holiday since I don't know when. I'd really enjoy a few days out and about together. Doesn't have to be just the two of us, can be in a group; but I do want him to be there or it wouldn't be the same.
Are there other things I'd like to do with those days off? Well... I've always wanted to go to Prague together. It's my favourite city in the whole world and I'd love to show it to him. Of course, that's about the same distance... but there are no boats involved, so we wouldn't be on such a tight schedule. We could even travel by bus and sleep on the way.

So what's a girl to do? Go for the fun bike trip, get down and dirty on the moor, drink lukewarm beer around a campfire with total strangers and probably have a whale of a time?
Or go for some quality time together with the big guy, in a city which I know I really love, and he may well love it as well?

Dear LJ, I know I've not been around much lately, but don't forsake me now that I come to you in my hour of need. Please advise.

[Error: unknown template 'qotd'] I would have hit the brakes, instead of counting on the sheep to stay where they were. So they would not have crossed the railroad I was riding my motorbike on, right in front of me; and I would not have hit one of them and fallen down. I wouldn't have hit my shoulder on the iron rail, tearing a muscle, and the sheep would not have had its leg broken. And the sheperds would not have come to make us pay for the sheep.

Oh well. It makes for a good story now.

Click on the pic if you want to see them. You'll be able to spot stoneshop and me, too.

It seems someone has been writing on the roof.


Click to see

A motorcycle trip with a difference, this one.
Our friends of the MSG (the Enschede university motorcycle club) arrived yesterday late in the afternoon, after a three-hour ride on the various wide and narrow roads our countryside has to offer. It had been a splendid afternoon, quite warm in fact, and it was still very nice weather.
Stoneshop ordered Surinam takeaway for everyone, and we sat down to eat. There were about twelve of us.
After food and coffee we saddled out iron horses and headed for the East, while there was still daylight left. Stoneshop led us by some nice bendy dike roads (the nicest roads we have in this flat country) into Germany, and then on to the city of Duisburg. It was almost dark when we arrived at the Landschaftspark Duisburg-Nord, a former steel plant that has been transformed into a tourist attraction.

One of the MSG members had booked us a tour so we could see the steel melting oven, 65 metres high, last used in 1985. Our guide was a former employee, so he knew exactly what he was talking about! He first showed us a film so we understood the basic principles of steel production. Then he took us all up the steel steps to the very top of the oven, by that time it was completely dark. The plant itself was lit in various colours, making it look like something in a science-fiction movie.

Monday evening, we got back from a long weekend of camping and motorcycle riding in Luxemburg. And a great weekend it was!
No scary adventures, this time. Just great weather, lovely scenery, and good company.
I've said it before: Luxemburg is bikers' paradise. Lovely roads and cheap petrol, what more could one want?
And we were so lucky with the weather, too.
As we left on Friday afternoon, it was OK; had a drop or three of rain on the way, but mostly it felt like we'd just missed a shower by fifteen minutes or so. Everything still wet, but no rain in sight.
We arrived after dark to find our friends around a blazing campfire, so we quickly put up our tent and then made our supper by the fire.
The next day, we all had breakfast in the sun, with tiny white clouds chasing each other in slow-motion across a bright blue sky. We were camping in a meadow on the banks of a brook or small river, the water as clear as glass. All around us the birds were singing their little heads off.
It was a great day for a ride. So stoneshop and I went off together. We had some shopping to do since the night had been colder than we'd expected, so we wanted to get some cheap fleece blankets, and a legging or some long johns for me to wear during the night. When I got up to pee early in the morning, all the bikes had ice on them.

We had a lovely ride. There's nothing quite like the ever-shifting view from a bike, in a landscape full of hills such as this one; every second, something new comes into view. You'll be rolling down into the valleys, through the cool, dark woods, and then back up a mountainside again; as the road twists and turns and winds itself around the mountains, you'll see old farmhouses next to brooks, houses painted blue or yellow, and every now and then a castle overlooking the valley. The grass is a bright, translucent green and dotted with spring flowers in yellow and white. You can actually smell all the different crops on the fields, and the pine trees. Like the view, the smells are constantly changing. And the air feels cooler as you're passing under the trees, then warmer as you're climbing up a hillside again, feeling like you're getting so close to the deep blue sky you could reach out and touch it. The bike itself sounds like it's having a good time, purring along like a happy cat.
It's impossible to experience all of this and not be put in a good mood; in fact, it all made me want to smile and wave at everyone we met. All other bikers seemed to feel the same, since they greeted one another as if to say: Hi, isn't this great? Are you having as much fun as I am?

Stoneshop taped a small digital video camera to his helmet and tried to shoot some nice footage while riding; it turned out he'd mainly managed to get a nice view of the bike's instrument panel. The camera obviously hadn't been directed at quite the correct angle. Next up, he taped it to the bike and this yielded much better results. Coming very soon, to a web page near you!

The only thing I wasn't very happy about was the fact that my bike's gear shift pedal had come loose (again). This wasn't easy to fix, as it was the axle itself, that it was attached to, that had worn so much you couldn't screw the pedal on tight enough for it to stay put.
So the next day, we tried to get it fixed in a quick and dirty way: by having it welded on. Unfortunately, this was Sunday so we couldn't find anyone willing and able to do it. Eventually, I ended up going back to the camp site to read, sit around in the sun and drink some wine (oh, what hardship!) while Stoneshop rode around a bit more and shot some more video.

On Monday, it didn't take Stoneshop very long to find a garage 5 kilometres from the camp site, where we could get the bike fixed. We left around one o'clock and spent the whole afternoon and part of the evening in two-wheeled bliss, going back home.
What a perfect little holiday.
 

I'm still tired, but did we ever have fun! And there was so much interesting stuff going on. I'm interested in the technical side of things, so on many of the pics up on Flickr you'll see me talking to Matt or Wyando.
I actually didn't go to ANY of the talks and workshops because I was too busy talking to old friends, getting to know new friends, and getting to know old friends whom I'd only ever met online.
I did have time to taste a bit of London, which took the shape of sandwiches, fish & chips, excellent Indian food, and a nice pint of bitter.
This Convention has left me feeling hopeful and optimistic about many things concerning BookCrossing, one of them being our chance to host the 2010 Convention in the Netherlands.

Here's a video of the presentation of our bid: ( Cut for your viewing convenience )

Furthermore I just want to say that the Organisation of this Convention did a great job!

I'll be off to Rubberchicken's place in an hour. Tomorrow morning we fly to London for the International BookCrossing Convention. I've heard  the weather won't be all that good, so I've taken my precautions.
Fellow conventioneers, 'tis by my Brellycumber thou shalt know me.

(if only because I'm going to the BookCrossing Convention in London on the 18th!)

My mother and I arrived in the afternoon, rather clueless as to where we could find our hotel. We couldn't look it up because the keys to my mother's suitcase were nowhere to be found. We figured it would be easiest to find the hotel first and then solve the suitcase problem.
A bus took us into town from the airport. And we got off at the right stop. Several utterly friendly Portuguese folks helped us to find the hotel, which turned out to be really nice!
The room was lovely. And someone from the staff  picked the lock on the suitcase for us. So that was one problem taken care of.
We headed into the center on foot, walking along wonderful boulevards, dressed in our summer clothes. It was warm and sunny! It felt almost subtropical.
We ended up finding a nice place to eat and it wasn't even expensive.

The next day, we went and bought a three-day ticket for public transport, which turned out to be a very good deal. Here's a short list of things we went to see and do during those three days:

- the National Tile Museum, which was much more interesting than you'd think
- the Monastery of St. Jeronimo, very impressive
- the city quarter named Belem, where we had tea and the traditional pastry
- the river. We took the ferry to the other side especially to see it, and the Bridge of April the 25th.
- the Cathedral
- the streetcars, especially line 28, the so called historical line
- the funicular to the higher part of the city
- the lift. See the pic and you'll understand
- the city quarter named Bairro Alto, which is where people go out, and where the artists live
- an antiques shop where they sold original tiles from people's houses
- the castle, but we didn't go in. We've seen castles before.
- the Museum of Modern Art and its spectacular gardens. We had tea with two local BookCrossers there, which was very nice!
- the tiles and the architecture. We spent a great deal of time looking up.

Furthermore, the food was great. We had lovely fresh fish, orange juice, lots of great coffee (and decent tea served in generous amounts), local pastry, roasted sardines, local wines... Lisbon is full of great flavours. The people are very friendly and helpful, and almost everything you see is adorned with decorative patterns. Even the subway stations look like works of art.
It was a great little holiday. It's a lovely city. In fact you should go there and see for yourself.


Oh, and my mother ended up finding a spare key for the suitcase padlock on the same keyring her house keys were on.

In fact I came back tuesday evening.
I'll be writing a bit about the trip soon; for now, the pictures I took can be found here.

I won't  be posting here for a couple of days... my mother is taking me to Lisbon for a short holiday!
Be good while I'm away... or not, suit yourself  ;-)


Reminder to self:
when I get back, post about that dream about a book about a book. Or was it a story?

We had another meeting today. We, in this case, means the small group of BookCrossers who are conspiring to bring the 2010 BookCrossing Convention to the Netherlands.
Present were: Fotomiep, LuieLezer, pvanoort, Phoenix-Flight and me. Joanazinha, boekenxnl and chris147 could not make it, the first two because they'd both come down with terrible colds.

It's all going really well. The information that futurecatnz gave me has been sent on to the other conspirators, and we find it very valuable. We'd still like to get the written part of your presentation, by the way! It's worked once, it may well work again.  ;-)

Here's what we've got so far: Phoenix-Flight came up with a venue. It's a theatre, and we can actually afford it. It has all the room and facilities we need, including wireless internet for our guests.
I'm not telling you the location yet, but it's in a place that you furriners will love.
There's plenty of things to see and do nearby, it's easily reached by public transport, and there's free parking space for those who come by car. There's a fancy hotel close to the venue, and better yet: a camping/hostel combination for the outdoorsy types and those who travel on a limited budget! You can bring your tent, but you can also rent a bed in a hut if you prefer.
The city center is very easily reached (public transport) and offers something for everyone. You may well want to book your flight in such a way that you can spend some extra days. You won't regret it.

Another nice thing: it won't break the bank. No hard figures yet, but I can safely say that admission to the 2010 Convention may turn out even cheaper than it is for the 2008 Convention Londen (which I find quite reasonable).

We'll keep the location secret for a while, so as not to spoil the surprise. You can all start saving up now, because I feel quite certain that we have a good chance of winning the bid!

Today is market day, so Stoneshop and I went into town (by bicycle, as usual) to get some nice fresh veggies.

I just love markets. The fresh fruits and vegetables look so damn tasty, the way they're laid out, forming a colourful painting. And they smell so good! I think people who eat too much junk food and produced foods should be encouraged to shop at local markets, the smells and sight of all that tasty goodness would seduce anyone.
Well, maybe not.
But it certainly works for me. I always end up buying more than we need. Especially fruits.
Not that some extra fresh fruit ever hurt anyone... except maybe if you were hit over the head with one of the pineapples I bought.
What can I say, they were two for a euro.
By the time we left the market our bikes were well loaded. It's a good thing we have bags on them.
We rewarded ourselves by getting Vietnamese spring rolls at the Vietnamese spring roll stand. With hot sauce. Lovely.

I couldn't simply start eating all of the lovely stuff we bought without taking a picture first. I even went so far as to arrange it on an old curtain and make a proper still life. As always, click for a bigger version. Eet smakelijk!



I remember going to markets in Africa, and seeing how people had the habit of stacking things like tomatoes and bell peppers into neat little pyramid-shaped heaps. You were supposed to pick a heap that you liked, and buy all of it. Often, if you'd buy a certain amount or if the stall holder felt like it, you'd get a little extra as a bonus: a pepper, a handful of peanuts or a tomato.
Even the potatoes they sold there were stacked, which made them look very neat. They were all the same size, too. I wonder what they did with different-sized potatoes?
From all the time people spent on making their merchandise look nice, it was clear to see that time and manpower are readily available in Africa, and therefore cheap. You could even buy your garlic peeled, if you wanted.
I have some African market pictures. I might post them here, too.

(Originally posted on MySpace)
Even though I love my work and the job at hand is great, I'm so looking forward to going on vacation. That's because it promises to be a lot of fun!
Not only are we going to this international hacker's convention (remember?), we're going to have a Temporary BookCrossing Zone there, we'll be setting up a BookCrossing Village, and some of my favourite BookCrossers are coming: Rubberchicken, Raffizack and Phoenix-Flight (you may know her as Phoenix).
Phoenix will even travel with us, which is going to be quite an adventure since we'll be traveling by motorcycle, not our newer bikes but the ancient two-strokes: my Jawa and my boyfriend's MZ. Both the Jawa's trailer and the MZ's sidecar will be stuffed with books, camping gear and more books!
Here's a pic of me on the MZ, even though I won't be the one riding it:

(Click makes very big)

(Originally posted on MySpace)
Ever been able to read your name on a car that was speeding your way?
I just had that experience this weekend and it wasn't nice.

We were off to Luxemburg for a nice Easter weekend of camping and motorbike riding.
The roads in Luxemburg are excellent: they are full of bends and curves in all directions, including up and down. The tarmac is either very smooth or quite bumpy. Both are fun, albeit in a different way.
The landscape is rural and very green and pretty, you often have a lovely view from one of the countless hills and mountains.
There are many nice camp sites, most of which welcome bikers.
Fuel is cheaper there than it is in the Netherlands (which isn't very hard).

In short, it's a motorcycle rider's perfect country.

We arrived on Friday evening, it was totally dark, so we quickly put up our tent and joined the jolly group of friends seated at the campfire for a chat and a drink.
The next morning it was sunny and fairly warm, so we sat on the grass, had a wonderful breakfast and took our time to do nothing in particular. Eventually, we decided to go for a ride; a friend of ours came along, so there were three of us.

We were merrily rolling along, I was riding in first position, when we passed a curve that was on top of a hill, so there was no view of the road ahead. And when I could see the road again, I saw two cars, side by side on the exactly two-cars-wide road, coming right at me.
Whoa !!

Even my leg hair stood on end.
I did the only thing I could do: first I braked fairly hard, then I got out of the way... and off the road. I steered the bike onto the shoulder, which was not wide and quite bumpy, but I was glad it was there at all. Things got very shaky for a while untill I managed to slow down and eventually come to a stop, without even falling over.
The guys were riding a bit behind me and by the time they were able to see anything, the motorist (who was braking as well) was busy getting his car back behind the other one, and I was off the tarmac. So they didn't get half the scare I got, because by then I was out of danger. But they did see enough to be pretty sure that the driver wouldn't have been able to avoid hitting me if I hadn't acted quickly and moved out of the way.

I felt a bit shaky and we took a short break, and then continued on our way. The &*%@$ driver never stopped; I hope he got a decent scare. With any luck he may even have learned a thing or two... or peed in his pants.

I'm actually quite proud of handling this the way I did! And once more, riding a dirt bike came in handy... I felt like hugging it and saying 'well done'.

(Originally posted on MySpace)
Now that spring's definitely here, I've started making holiday plans.

The main part of my plan is that I'm definitely planning to have a holiday this year. I didn't really have one last year, although we went to a nice bikers meet in Germany. Oh, and my mother took me to France for a week, but that was more of a working holiday since we were there to help decorate an old farm house and I painted all week long, except on those days when I put up the kitchen tiles. I did have a good time, though. But this year I want to:
So when I heard about CCC2007, that sounded like just the thing.
Apparently, it's an international hackers convention, going on during five days in the beginning of August, near Berlin (Germany, of course).


I know I'm no hacker and only half a nerd, but I had such a great time at WhatTheHack two years ago that I don't think I'd want to miss this. WTH was just like summer camp. A kind of freaky techno summer camp for grownups.
And it might even be fun to stay there a bit longer, say: two weeks, and help them setting things up, and running the event.
So I sent an e-mail which went like this:

---

Subject: Hello, we'd like to join the circus please

Hi,
We read about the Chaos Communication Camp 2007 and we would like to be part of the crew.
In return for admittance we are offering two weeks of our time, and our mAd sKiLLz:

-one of us is a sysadmin with 25 years of experience, especially non-Windows
-the other is a professional signwriter and decorator since 17 years and occasionally builds websites
-language skills: Dutch, English, German
-we both enjoy and are good at tinkering, fixing things and building stuff
-we are easygoing, love to improvise and brush our teeth fairly regularly.

If you're the wrong person to send this to, could you please forward it to the right person? We had a hard time locating a contact address on the website.

Looking forward to August,
yours sincerely,

---

Now, what German hacker in his right mind could possibly resist us?
*flutters eyelids seductively*

Here's a pic of my tent and bike at WhatTheHack:

(Originally posted on MySpace.)
My father came over and visited me, and he gave me a lovely, lovely gift. Here it is:

(Originally posted on MySpace.)
 As some of you may remember, I was in Bremen last november, to meet the delightful antof9 . Read all about it here.
We 'released' eight books that day, and two of them were caught within a few days.
Now the third one has been reported as found, too! Three out of eight, that's wonderful. And the journal entry is quite elaborate, too.
Seems the book has done a bit of travelling on its own since I left it, it's gained a new member, and it has been read and will eventually travel on! What more can an old, battered hardcover sans dust jacket hope for?

Those of you who can read German will probably enjoy reading the journal entry.
Others can at least click the picture for a bigger version... it shows where I left the book.

(Originally posted on MySpace)
One of the books I've left in Bremen has been 'caught'!
Do check out the journal entry, it's here.
BookCrossing is such fun!


Added a day later:
Another one!
*does the Happy Dance*