From Paris to Berlin and Every Disco I Go In....

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Hmmm

I wrote a huge entry here about my travels at Christmas and now its gone, I can't seem to find it anywhere and that makes me a bit sad.

In short, I went to Canada and visited my family and friends for Christmas, which was great, I loved being home at Christmas time! I came back (home) to Scandinavia and immediately headed off to Madrid and Leon in Spain for an installation that Dzl was working on. We had a great time there, found an authentic tapas bar playing spanish bagpipes and had a big culture shock at another restaurant. Upon returning I felt an urge to go to Berlin, and be alone for a bit, the holidays and traveling had become overwhelming and my thesis was in serious need of attention. I'm back now, settled and looking at apartments in Copenhagen to go with my new job.

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Please don't mind that the photos are all out of order with the text, its not me, its this interface, there's no option to get the photos to stay put! (That I can find anyway)

Vancouver:

Again, I'm so sad that I don't have that document because I know I wrote all about the wonderful things I did over Christmas. I arrived a week before Dzl did and my dad picked me up at the airport and took me for sushi where we met my mom. We had all you can eat sushi and it was beautiful, oh sushi. 😊 My dad had picked me up in his big white truck, I totally forgot that he owned it and even more, forgot how gigantic it is! I climbed in and although I knew that there was snow in Vancouver I had no idea that it was that much. It was more snow than in previous years and by the end of our stay it had apparently snowed more than any other year since the late 1960's!

I spent the whole week rejoicing over the snow, noticing how pretty it was, and having fun watching my dad shovel and re-shovel the driveway and hoping that it would continue to snow until Dzl arrived the following week. Well, it did. It kept snowing the entire time we were there and after we left. It was crazy but at the same time incredibly beautiful so I'm glad for that, no slush! Hurray!

It was a great visit, I got to celebrate Hanukkah with my other family :P, Christmas was wonderful, it was so good to be with my family for Christmas Eve, Christmas Dinner and Boxing Day we had great food and played Jenga and it was the perfect balance of family and friends. Christmas eve was spent with my family and close friends and that was really nice, I'm so grateful to have long lasting relationships that transcend stereotypical expectations. That makes sense to probably only one person, but thank you to them. We watched the Christmas yule log channel and my mom began seeing meat roasts instead of Christmas logs so we went to bed. The next day was pick-up-Dzl-from-the-airport day so I picked him up and got some sushi on the way home. We had spent the morning opening presents and having an amazing eggs benedict breakfast so I was super food-comaed on the drive there but I still managed to "bunny hop" the 4X4 truck into the tiny airport parking lot and get Dzl. It was so much fun to drive around in the truck after Dzl's tiny, tiny car in Copenhagen! Christmas hats with movement and lights were the theme this year and everyone donned them at some time or another. I told Dzl it was tradition to wear one while shopping and when meeting my parents. Poor guy.

We spent the next week being super busy and having a whirlwind adventure. Family and friends visited for boxing day and I got to meet Kirsty's new baby, Gemma. The previous week I had said hello to Callum, Tricia and Dylan's first child, and it was great to see my best friend so happy and content in her life, I'm so proud of her! Following boxing day we went out on Saturday and explored downtown Vancouver. I took Dzl through the slums of the downtown east side on the way to the Japanese gardens. I think that's always fun, crazy, singing, high, dancing, did I mention crazy? people on the streets and then sudden serenity in the Dr. Sun Yet Sen gardens. Of course, the gardens were snowed in so we just peeked in the hole but it was enough. We continued along until Harbour center and went to look out on EA's terrace. We walked up around so he could see bits of Stanley park peeking out from under the snow and went to Cafe Artigiano for "Fika" (coffee and sweets). Unfortunately, because he was chatting up the waitress (he swears he was just being friendly) he missed their coffee pouring show and I was very disappointed. We went shopping on Robson street to cure this and came up to Davie, and went into all the fun shops, took pictures at the various pink land marks (bus stops, garbage cans, etc) and went for some sushi at Samurai. We met up with Nick, Viv, Ben, and Jes for dinner at Shabusen which was awesome, we sat in a boat and stuffed ourselves nearly to death with sushi and korean bbq.

Sunday was...something? Can't remember. Monday was Dzl's birthday, and we went snowboarding at Whistler/Blackcomb. This would have been SUPER awesome if I had remembered how to snowboard. But I didn't. So I spent the day on my tailbone, sliding down the mountain. It hurt like hell. Since it was Dzl's birthday, I smiled through it, but still. Pooh. Anyway, we went for cocktails and had an amazing dinner thanks to my mom scouting the 2-4-1 book and took off to take the bus home and had to wait an hour so we slept in Starbucks, with the happy chance of getting two of their prized arm chairs.

We went shopping in the states where Dzl, (NOT I) fell in love with a pair of shoes. Its contagious I tell you. 😊 The next day was New Year's Eve and it was great. We had a 1940's style party called Noblesse Oblige at Ben's parents house which was the perfect setting. Everyone dressed up and it was fantastic! We had an early night, I think from all the previous days activities! The next day, after a surprise piping at the bar with my dad (I joined in for Amazing Grace) we had an amazing New Year's Eve dinner with my family, a seafood festival of happiness.

We spent the next couple days spending time with family and squeezing in the last few friend visits including a trip to various bars in Vancouver and a special trip to yam fry heaven at the Granville Room. Best line of the night: "Is this a gay bar?" while in 1187 Davie. Haha.

We ended the trip with a Mexican fiesta. My mom cooked an amazing Mexican meal and we all put on our gaudy mexican themed clothes and had margaritas all night. It was a lot of fun. Thanks to everyone for a really great Christmas and New Years!


Please don't mind that the photos are all out of order with the text, its not me, its this interface, there's no option to get the photos to stay put! (That I can find anyway)

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Spain:

We had barely been home a week when we got the call to go to Spain. Understand, this is the dream. Get paid to travel and do artwork, hurray! We flew into Madrid and took a train to Leon where Dzl got started on his crazy mad programming skills and put together a complicated project to run a piece of storytelling artwork that was being showcased at the art gallery there. It was a beautiful place, with incredible rainbow colored architecture and as Dzl geeked away working, I got to be the girlfriend-on-vacation and toured about the town. I found a beautiful old square where they were having a market and the vegetables and fruit were gigantic it was bizarre. I'm serious. I bought a red bell pepper because it was so huge that it made me laugh.

We had the most interesting cultural shock. We went to a recommended restaurant, walked in and walked out. Upon entering the restaurant we saw covering the floor, garbage everywhere, papers, cigarettes, everything and people were just happily standing in it and eating their food. Further, the place reeked of smoke! We were horrified. How could this be a recommended restaurant, and who on earth would eat in a place with garbage all over the floor? We went to the next place, and found to our horror, the same thing. And at the next restaurant. We finally settled (out of hunger) on one that had tables, though it had a back bar area with the same atrocities. We asked the next day about this and apparently what the mess comes from is a type of nut that's wrapped in paper, people eat it, and throw their garbage on the floor, or the bartenders sweep everything off the bar on to the floor and its just customary. Once we realized this, eating is much easier.

We went out that night to a restaurant in Leon and then explored the town a little bit, it was tiny and very old and beautifully architectured. (Yes I just made that word up). We spent the next day in Madrid, at a very funky hotel called Roommate Laura. It was all designer-like and in the centre of town. We managed to see most of the pretty sights of Madrid and try out a ton of tapas places. The last one we went to, after traveling around for literally hours and using our sexy phone's gps to find our way back, was just outside our hotel. It was hidden in a side road and was super authentic. (See pic) further, we went in and stumbled with the Spanish, and were given two glasses of red wine and two plates without another word. They then just kept serving us as we pointed at all the tasty dishes and next thing you know, they're playing Spanish bagpipe music which I found quite amusing.

We went home the next morning having thoroughly enjoyed our short two day journey to Spain!

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Please don't mind that the photos are all out of order with the text, its not me, its this interface, there's no option to get the photos to stay put! (That I can find anyway)

Berlin:

I was home maybe a week, two perhaps and was plagued by depression. It had been going on since I was laid off and was fine, I just felt pointless without work and I knew that, but it was starting to get to me, and leaving my family in Canada and ...whine, whine. So, I decided to take off to Berlin on a $60 return flight. Dzl came with me for the weekend and left Monday, we had a great weekend of relaxing in cafes, and attending Transmediale. We brainstormed some great ideas for interactive installations and met up with a friend of my friend who showed us around Berlin. We managed to get sushi four times in two days. 😊 I spent the next week in total thesis-trance. I, thanks to Mads, spent the week in the apartment, and at various cafes for literally hours and hours only taking breaks to eat or go swimming which I did lots of at the beautiful pool they have there. Its interesting, all of Kreutzberg is so...real and fresh and graffiti laden and full of post-warisms and this pool was so gorgeous, it was laid out like a beach, complete with wave pool and trees. It was a nice relief from my thesis to just go there and chill out. I came home, 40 something pages later, and was ready to get back into it, thesis, and job hunting.

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Copenhagen:

I got back to Copenhagen and had three meetings booked the week I got back, all potential jobs. The first was one I had been working on, interaction design for a friend's software interface and website. The second was a guy who was a friend of my friend who has a project management company and the third was a guy I met in Hong Kong who was working with eye tracking which goes along nicely with my biometrics work. The first meeting was a status update. The second a 2.5 hour long beer and discussion. The third a slightly uncomfortable reminder of my drinking spree in Hong Kong on that night of the free-bar, and a great discussion about biometrics. The second has turned into a job.

The project management company turned out to be the resource management company. Like Microsoft Project on drugs. For those of you who don't know Microsoft project, this company that I now work for, Marstrand Innovation, makes resource management software, basically planning time and resources for staff, finances, projects, deadlines, budgets, supplies, skills, everything. So my job, give them a web presence, marketing, and launch a new product. It could be very interesting!

Besides that, I've been thesising like mad, have joined Copenhagen's fitness world to keep my sanity going (sitting at your kitchen table 24/7 can have detrimental effects) and Dzl's been entertaining me and taking me to work now and then so I get out of the house. I've visited my Swedish home and roommate a few times for meetings and dinner which is nice. I've been to school a few times for classes and to meet my adviser but the rest is all writing thesis.

We also have had some fun besides all that, we did a workshop in a nearby city (2 hours away?) called Odense where we did a workshop teaching people to build robots it was a lot of fun and we learned about how to do a workshop better so we're more prepared for future ones. We're doing different workshops each time so its always nice to see which ones do well. You can see all the fun at http://www.geekphysical.blogspot.com

We also had way too much fun on a Friday night in the chem lab where liquid oxygen was accidently created and then fun was had by dipping everything into collected liquid oxygen and throwing it into a fire. Oh yes, and plasma in the microwave. See here: http://blip.tv/file/1825611

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Now....

So now, I'm sitting typing some more as if I don't do enough of that already. I'm currently inspired by this blog: http://www.wanderingjefe.blogspot.com/ where an interaction designer from ideo (big company that leads the world of interaction design) is applying interaction design to solving problems in 3rd world countries. His current mission? Build a $20 USD latrine for people in Cambodia. Its so interesting to see what the people who live there have invented and how just $20 has such a great potential to fix things. I'd love to be involved in something like that. Maybe less with the poo, but still, helping, in a real way through design. That could be great. I saw a good presenter today, Ezio Manzini, the Italian interaction design leader, who explained about Next Design, designing for green, social and networked reasons. Our job as designers is to facilitate green (ecological), social (social responsibility), and networked (interaction between people and artifacts and systems) and our product of the 21st century is solutions, not a thing, but a solution, involving many components.

This weekend, besides my thesis, I'll be checking out my potential new apartment, expensive, but ocean-front view, (oh, I have a job now, well hopefully, I'll know soon! (Visa Pending)) and checking out the latest rocket testing.

I'm happy. I've said it before, I say it again. I'm living a good life and I'm exploring the world and settling in a new life and I'm happy. There are certain things I miss, namely my friends and family but I feel like I've made a place for myself here and I'm trying to sit still and relax for once, take in what's around me rather than jumping to the next adventure. Its my latest goal, to appreciate what I have and damn is it hard to focus on but I'm trying. The world is so big with so many things to explore and I want to see them all but perhaps I need to start right here, right now. (Cue Fatboy Slim)

Vanessa out.

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