Trista's Summer in Europe

I'm home, missing Bath, missing the Carsonified family. I can't wait to go back and visit someday.
For now, I'm getting ready to head back to school and looking forward to seeing some Carsonifites in October and everyone else in New York City!!

To everyone that I met in the UK and along the way, thank you so much for all your kindness, generosity, hospitality, and smiling faces. I had an amazing, unforgettable experience.


Peace&Love

Summer Camp was a fabulous success and could go on about it and everything it entailed. But Ryan's put together a post and a nice video that wraps it up in a nutshell:

http://carsonified.com/blog/

Bienvenidos a Sevilla! Acabo de regresar de Sevilla! (I have just returned from Sevilla). Jen has been studying abroad there and I was looking for a nice hot vacation while I away on this adventure, so visiting Jen was just the thing! It was between 90 and 104 degrees Farenheit while I was there and it was so nice to always step out into warmth. Even in the middle of the night it didn't drop below 80, so evenings we're absolutley wonderful. Of course, walking all over the city and climbing a bell tower in that heat, you start to wonder if one could actually get completely used to it.

There are so many beautiful things in Sevilla and it's a picturesque Spanish city. I arrived on Friday evening and we did a few things around the city, went for drinks by the river, and saw a Flamenco performance, and had a lovely dinner in town.
Saturday was beach day and we took the train to Cadiz. I worked on my tan and went swimming. The water was a bit chilly, but it got so hot lying out that diving right in wasn't much of a problem. That night back in Sevilla we went out for drinks to this popular place that makes super gigantic Mojitos.. it was excellent.
Then on Sunday we did some touristy sights around Sevilla and had a picnic in the Castle gardnes which is really one of the prettiest places I've seen and is exactly what you would imagine Spain to be like. We also visited Plaza de Espana, which is now used as a government building. We also went to a Salsa bar and watched some natives Salsa! It was really fun and made me really want to learn how to dance it.. but it looks really hard.
On the last day, before my flight, we went into the center one more time to explore the Cathedral and to climb the Giralda (the bell tower). It gives you a lovely view of the city, about 30 stories up [phew!] Hot and sweaty, almost tempted to consider that it was too hot, we headed back to Jen's piso and I packed up for my return (brrr..) to Bristol.

Back in England I was greeted by a sweltering 65 degrees Farenheit... ugh. It looks like we're headed for proper cool, English weather all week, but hopefully it will begin to warm up for Summer Camp! I've got Summer Camp on the brain as I'm in the final stretch for planning and prep.

I can't believe I only have two more weeks left of my UK stay! I plan to be making the most of it and will hopefully be doing a day trip or two this coming weekend to some places in the UK.

Hasta luego!

The new Carsonified.com site is live! We've been anxiously awaiting all week for the launch and it was quite exciting when it was finally put up. We've have lots of good comments and positive feedback (much to the relief of the designer, Mike). They were also kind enough to include me in the teams page!

I have also been playing around with a new website builder, Moonfruit and am considering using them to host my website- you can check out what I've put together here.

I'm off to Spain for the weekend to visit Jen and work on my tan!

Yesterday I went into London again to see a few some more of the sights I missed last time and for London Pride! It was a beautifully, sunny day and I started off heading to the Tate Gallery and, like my experience at the Louvre, it was difficult to appreciate a lot of the art because I don't know anything about art... so if I go back to London again before I leave I'll probably try and visit the Tate Modern instead. After that I went to the British Museum, which is really cool. Because the British have a history of going to countries and colonizing them, they often borrow/steal really cool and famous artifacts from those countries and most of them end up in the British Museum, like the Rosetta Stone and lots of Egyptian artifacts. And the amazing thing is that both the Tate and the British Museum are free for everyone (minus a few featured exhibits) so it's really nice (unlike Paris where you can't even see dead people's tombs unless you pay).

Then I walked over to Oxford Street (big mistake) for the Parade. Because it seemed so well organized and because when Bjoern and I went to Berlin Pride there was enough space for everyone, I thought I'd hit Oxford Street right as the parade was coming though...unfortunately not only did about 300 other people think the same thing, Oxford Street is also a big shopping street so there were about 200 more people not there for the parade trying to squeeze through the side walks. This created a big problem. You could not move or walk through for about an eighth of a mile- there was space further down Oxford Street, but it was just one mass of hot, angry, squished people pushing and moving as a herd in both directions on the side walk... anyway I eventually got through and went to the other side of the street and enjoyed the parade. Then I followed the parade down to Trafalgar Square where all the festivities were taking place. There were kiosks with food and drinks all around the square, there was a big stage in the middle, and loads of people- even people sitting and wading through the fountains! There were political talks as well as a bunch of really great music performances. After staying there for a few hours I was completely knackered (British for exhausted) but had booked a late train for myself, so I forced myself to find something else in London to see. So I took the tube to Notting Hill (yes, from the movie). It is a gorgeous little neighborhood with the big marketplace on Portobello Road (also, in the movie). It's obviously a very expensive neighborhood, but there are still the cute colorful houses and apartments along Portobello Road that are very charming.

After a long stroll down Portobello Road and back to the tube, I really was looking forward to my (sitting) train ride home and made it to Paddington even for a slightly earlier train than I had booked so I got home a little earlier than planned.


Today it's another sunny day and I took a walk into town and sat out in the back garden to work on my tan and am just relaxing for the afternoon.
I hope everyone had a happy fourth of July weekend! I miss fried dough!
xoxo

After a good, full week of everyone coding, drawing, blogging, speaking, launching, and twittering for all the things we have going on at work, we were all treated to an epic night out! Starting off the evening with pints and wine at The Cork, we sat outside in the warm evening air and then made our way to Wagamama (a noodle bar) for dinner, then finished up the evening with a few more pints and Mojitos on the terrace of another cute bar in the city center. It was relaxing and fun and I'm really growing close with everyone from work.

And despite scheming and wishes to prolong my stay here, I will be coming home as scheduled and by that time will probably (well..maybe..) be more ready and looking forward to returning home.

So I've been fairly vague about exactly what some of my projects here entail and the reason is that a part of them is their launch or their surprise value and because out audience is web folks you never know if they'll stumble across my blog and spill the beans.

But today we have officially launched "Carsonified Summer Camp" which will be a two day event in July that has been organized and fashioned by ME! You can see this site here and the blog post here and now that all of that is done the rest of the work until the actual event is all behind the scenes stuff- ordering food, goodies, choosing the winners, and creating the decorations, etc.

My other pending project, at this point is still top secret but I promise it's super cool :)

The weather here in Bath is clear, sunny, a bit humid, and in the mid 80's, perfect.

Yesterday I returned from a fabulous week in Berlin, reuniting with Bjoern and enjoying a relaxing week that was largely unscheduled and not filled with touristy things. We spent some time hanging around his local neighborhood, Tegel, but also managed to get into the city on about three of the days and we also spent a sunny, windy afternoon at the Baltic Sea in the little seaside town of Warnemünde (where I had some Danish icecream and it was awesome) and I tried to get a sun tan...It's a very cute new england-esque fishing town.
There were some nice sunny afternoons and beautiful evenings spent in the city. One of the days we began at Schloss Charlottenburg, which is one of the Palaces in Berlin that I didn't visit last summer and then we made our way to Under den Linden and to Potsdamer Platz for a nice dinner and a movie (Transformers, in English) and took the train home. On Saturday we went into the city in the late afternoon to take part in the festivities of Christopher Street Day, which is Berlin's Pride parade. The festivity grounds stretched from the Brandenburg Gate all the way to the Victory Column and the streets were lined with loads of good German food, bars, and beer kiosks and the streets were packed with people, music, crazy costumes, and happiness. We had a fantastic time there enjoying it all and being around the other cheerful people. Afterwards we went to Hackescher Markt, which is one of my favorite areas of the city, and walked along the Spree to my other favorite area which is the river and bridges area around the Berlin Dome and we had dinner outside and then ate huge desserts in beach bar chairs right on the edge of the river.
I ate massive amounts of food all week and ate more breakfast rolls than one probabaly should in one weeks time, but it was really great. Bjoern has some pictures from the beginning of the week on his flickr and I have more of the end of the week and the beach as well, here.

And although leaving was terribly difficult, I at least return to Carsonified with lots of exciting things underway, including the upcoming launch of my event, Carsonified Summer Camp! Should be launching within the next few days and I'm really excitied. I also have a few small tasks there and one other larger project that are still in the drawing board/ pricing stages.
I have only about a month left here and am already having separation anxiety, especially on these beautiful, warm summer evenings (sorry New Englanders, I had to rub it in), but really, when it's just so lovely to be out around town and walking and spending time with people from work.
This weekend I have some free time and only loose plans to go into London on Saturday to visit some of the museums and attend London Pride! But otherwise it will be a nice weekend off from traveling and I'll spend some quality time with Bath.

I have just returned from Paris! I met up with Jen there and we had quite an adventure. On the first full day we covered most of the things on the right bank of the Seine, like the Louvre, the Tuilerie Gardens, The Arc de Triomphe, The Eiffel Tower, The Sacre Coeur, and Moulin Rouge. One thing you can't really wrap your mind around until you see some of these things, like the Louvre, the Eiffel Tower, or the Arc, is the size, they are all massive and took so much time to create. The Eiffel Tower of course is a whole story of it's own and essentially is kind of ugly, but when you think about the architecture and try to see it how Eiffel himself saw it, you can understand why he thought it was beautiful and when they light it up at night it is really quite amazing and glamorous. The Louvre was probably my favorite, and luckily we were able to visit it both days (as we did with the Eiffel Tower). The Louvre, is now a museum and houses items like the Mona Lisa, The Lacemaker, and the Venus de Milo, unfortunately I don't know very much about art and couldn't appreciate all the paintings in their context and technique but I enjoyed seeing them. What I really loved about the Louvre was the size and beauty of the building itself with all its courtyards, fountains, and the long stretching garden that leads straight down to the Arc, through its very own little Arc just before the garden. The Louvre itself was only built in the mid 1500's, but the site had been a fortress since the 1200's. I also really liked the Sacre Coeur (scared heart), which is a Roman Catholic Basilica, and has been kept in such perfect condition and it atop this hill over looking the city that it almost doesn't look real.

The second day we had a bit of rainy weather and had to hide out in a Subway for a while to avoid getting drenched- but after that we decided to conquer the things on the left bank of the Seine. This included also the island where Notre Dame is, then the Pantheon, and a wander around the Jewish quarter. We also spent some time back in the Tuileries Gardens enjoying the fountain and people watching, then walked over towards Hotel des Invalides where Napoleon is buried and the golden bridge to get there also provides a lovely view of the Tower. We then treated ourselves to a glass of wine, in the true spirit of being in Paris, then went to enjoy the site of the Eiffel Tower at night, which was beautiful.

Sunday before I left we ventured into Paris' underground to tour the Catacombs and the underground tunnels. It's quite the hike, but seeing the scale and number of bodies and bones down there and the care they took to arrange them and give them proper respect and organization was very interesting. We couldn't read most of the signs, quotes, and prayers (because obviously everything is in French) but we were sure they were probably very profound messages.

Once again, I am out of space on my Flickr so click here to view some of the photos through my Facebook.

Tomorrow I am off to Berlin to reunite with Bjoern and I shall be there until next Sunday (June 28).

I miss everyone lots and am looking forward to thoroughly sharing all my adventure news with everyone in person and in more detail when I get home. 5 more weeks of Trista's adventure :)

Greetings everyone! I have just returned to Bath from a weekend in Holland and Belgium. I have a friend studying in Holland and I went to visit her. Friday we took the train to Brussels and had lovely weather to tour the beautiful city. There are so many nice things to see in Brussels and we only had one day but got to enjoy a lot of it, as we spent a very full day there. Brussels is considered a twin city to Berlin and I could kind of see why, although I'm no sure which city came first and who copied who but the Brandenburg Gate was built before the Cinquantenaire.. so.. Of course Belgium is known for their waffles and in the city you can smell the fresh waffles everywhere and find a kiosk or a shop serving Belgian waffles with fruit and cream and chocolate to-go. Besides waffles there are Belgian chocolate shops everywhere, carts selling chocolate covered fruit, and ice cream.. it's fantastic. I have some photos here and more will be added to that soon.

On Saturday we slept late to recover from the long day in Brussels and then rode our bikes around Tilburg, Holland, where Sara's University is. We had another very sunny day and although I'm out of shape, riding bikes around was nice. It's a nice lifestyle they have there where everyone rides their bikes. There are more bicycles than cars, bike lots with hundreds of bikes parked there at any given time, bicycle street lights, and a path between the street and the sidewalks designated for bicyclists. They even have a free underground bicycle parking garage, where you can leave your bike for free and people who are paid by the government watch the bikes for you while you are around the city center.
Tilburg is a beautiful little city, very quaint and Dutch with the red brick houses all lined up very neatly along the streets and then a very open city center and an adorable street for night life where bars and cafes line each side of the street and everyone is sitting outside along the streets under the overhangs and everyone is happy and music is playing. Sara and I went back during the night to go to this street and have a drink and pretend we are both very European.

It was my first trip outside the UK alone where the signs and the announcements where not in English, and although I was a little anxious on some of my travels listening to the voice overs and crossing my fingers that I was on the right bus, because I couldn't understand them. But all is well, it was wonderful and next weekend I am off to Paris!

This past weekend I decided not to jet set off anywhere because of poor weather predictions in much of Europe for all of the weekend and I'm trying to optimize my spending so a last minute trip was a bit more expensive to some places. So I decided that it's about time I get myself to London!

I took the train and got into the city around 12 and spent the entire time (until my train at 8) trying to cover all of the major points of interest. One of the speakers from FOWA offered to show me around, so although London seems pretty easy to navigate, I had a nice tour guide. As I think about it, I really don't think there was anything that I missed. I saw London Bridge, Tower Bridge, the Tower of London, Big Ben, Parliament, the London Eye, Piccadilly Circus. Buckingham Palace, Hyde Park, the Prince Albert Memorial, and even a royal horse parade! [I've run out of space for this month already on my Flickr, so click here for all my photos.]

As for the other days in my weekend, on Friday I spent the afternoon in the center of town with Ryan and his family doing errands and hanging out in the park. Then on Sunday I took a long walk to the other end of town and after lunch I just settled back into my bed and watched Jane Austen movies (Pride & Prejudice and Sense & Sensibility) for the rest of the evening, in honor of true Bath and English spirit (Austen lived in Bath for many years and there is a museum and tour here dedicated to her.)

I have also planned a trip to the Netherlands for this coming weekend to visit Sara!(a friend from Turkey who I haven't seen in three years!) So she will show me around the Netherlands and we may even visit Brussels for an afternoon.

So here are my upcoming travel plans/ dates:
June 11-14 >Netherlands
June 18-21 >Paris
June 22-28> Berlin

I am now just about at my three week mark and finally completely settled in. I have moved into my apartment and met my flat mates who are all very lovely and I'm actually a little disappointed that nearly all of them will be leaving after their graduation.

The weather here has been unusually sunny and summery and I have been soaking up every bit of it spending all my days off lying out at on the Crescent lawn taking in the sunshine, the grandeur of the Royal Crescent, and watching the people. I rarely get lost now wandering around town and feel that I'm ready now to start making some weekend trips out of Bath.

I have just returned after three days of travel with work helping to run the Future of Web Apps (FOWA) conference days in Cambridge and Bristol. We left Monday and made our way to Cambridge. We spent the night there and wandered around Cambridge, which is really beautiful and we had amazing warm summer weather, and ate dinner at a small Italian place sitting outside on the cafe tables along the street. In the morning we then headed to the venue and set up and did registration for the 150 or so people who attended FOWA Cambridge, then Jo and I made our way to Bristol, leaving Cambridge in the hands of Keir and Mike for the rest of the event. We took the train to Bristol and did a bit of wandering there, had a few drinks and met up with Lou, another co-worker who lives in Bristol, for dinner. In the morning we walked over to the FOWA Bristol venue and set up registration with Lou and began the event. I did the MC-ing for the morning bit of the event and was able to watch some of the presentations as well. Following the main event we went over to a nearby bar and organized speed netoworking and then sponosored free drinks for all the attendees and everyone just chatted and relaxed from a long, but fulfilling day of focus and presentations. We stayed at the bar mingleing and drinking for a few hours and then went out for a work dinner with some of the speakers and friends of Carsonified, which was really fantastic because I got to know some of the speakers better and we all celebrated a job well done!

I now have another long weekend ahead of me and rain is approaching so I am trying to make a plan so that I'm not too bored. I have two trips already planned for mid-June, Paris with Jen and Berlin to reunite with Bjoern and would like to plan some more extensive Europe trips but am hesitant still with my budget.
More photos are up on my flickr so you can have a look at some photos from the event and the recent travels and now that I have a home I also have a mailing address so if you'd like it shoot me an email and because I have a home I can also have guests so if you'd like to come and visit me, please do.

<3

So this past weekend (+Monday) was a holiday here as well, it's called "Bank Holiday" and really celebrates nothing, it's simply a day off, so I had a four day weekend to try and keep myself entertained. It was wonderful and sunny and actually didn't rain one bit. I spent a lot of time outside, went to the Farmer's market, and a little French market that was in town this weekend, and explored the upper left side (that's where it is on the map anyway) of town where the Royal Crescent and Botanical Gardens are. Also there were some fireworks on Friday night to kick off the International Music Festival that is in town... it was my pretend fourth of July. So these are some of the photos from my weekend :)

I have now been here for about a week and a half and despite a very rough first weekend I am now on my feet and trying to make the most of my time here. I am grateful to the people who I work with because they have really opened their arms to me and have been really wonderful. On Monday night I went to a concert with some people from work, then on Wednesday I was invited to a co-workers home for dinner, and last night several of us went bar hopping after work. As far as my work goes I have two big projects lined up that I have begun brainstorming for and will hopefully begin further production of them next week. They are quite big projects and I am really excited about them and seeing how they turn out and learning a lot from that. As they begin to work themselves out I will say more about them.
Just to say more about my work life in general, it’s a work environment unlike any most will experience. We have a four-day work week, it’s very flexible, and very fun. Everyone knows that everybody else will get accomplished what they need to and no one needs to punch in/ out or look over your shoulder to see if work is getting done (when you’re actually browsing twitter or Facebook) because it just gets done and you enjoy your work. It’s amusing that we have important meetings on beanbags in the “living room” and play music all day, but its wonderful and everyone is happy.
I am happy too. Bath is lovely and I have done quite a bit of exploring (although I still have many points of interest still to explore). Last weekend I went to Stonehenge and to Lacock Village. Stonehenge is a funny trip to take because it’s very anti-climatic- it’s really just a bunch of old rocks and you can’t touch them or anything… but amazing nonetheless and well worth the trip to have seen them in real life. Lacock Village is one of many, very very old villages that still stand in the UK today, but it’s like you’ve stepped back in time. The village is tiny, you can see the whole thing really in about half an hour, but it’s sort of isolated and maintains its heritage and charm despite hundreds of years gone by. Today I visited the Roman Baths, which is the main point of interest here that people travel from all over to see, and I could see why. They are beautiful and so much of the Baths are still well preserved even though they were build in the first century A.D. Although it costs money to enter and walk around I plan to visit again before I leave Bath.
I am also looking forward to moving into my own room in a student apartment next weekend. It’s a quaint, enchanting little house where six students currently live. Some of them will remain while I’m there so I can also hopefully make some friends. The room is on the first floor looking out on the street and garden and the living room and kitchen (like most typical townhouses here) are mostly all glass windows that open up into the back garden. I am looking forward to having a stable living space as well as being able to cook and store my own food instead of eating out and only eating food I can store without a fridge.
Ah, well it is a holiday here on Monday as well so many are going away for the “bank holiday” so I am trying to keep myself busy for what for me is a four day weekend. But all is well and I have high hopes for the coming weeks as we at work prepare for the Future of Web Apps UK Tour and I get myself more thoroughly settled in.

So far all is well. I have arrived safely and nearly caught up on sleep. I have a long unplanned weekend ahead of me to rest and wander. My first day was a bit overwhelming and I was exhausted from all the traveling. My arrival to Bath itself was very intimidating, although I had my map with walking directions from the bus station to my hostel the streets here are confusing and vaguely signed. I had planned to just hail a taxi from the station because I couldn't possibly walk with all my luggage- however, getting a taxi here is difficult and I did indeed walk all the way with my luggage in the rain- I bet it was hilarious to watch.

I of course was greeted with gloomy, gray skies and the rain continues, thus lesson #1 is learned over the course of my two days: always carry an umbrella because you never quite know when it will rain!

Yesterday after my time at Carsonified I ventured out to find the B&B that was promoting a flat for rent. I, of course, got utterly lost, as I have almost every time I try to get anywhere around here. Even with my map and walking directions, I am lost and wandering... somehow I always manage to get where I need to be, it just takes me a little longer. Luckily yesterday I really had the time to get lost and although I don't enjoy being lost, I really didn't mind so much wandering around and just looking around. It is a very cute city, actually there is some debate over whether it really should be called a city, because it is really pretty small. Despite it's small size I haven't been all over yet and plan to do that this weekend.

My second lesson, was how to shop at a Catalog store... which I thought was quite bizarre, but was actually kind of enjoyable. Basically you go to a little counter where there are these enormous catalogs (of everything you would really ever need) and you write down the little code to what you want on a little sheet of paper then you take the paper to customer counter and the sales people type in your order, you pay, and they give you an order number. You then take your receipt and sit in a little waiting queue and your order comes down a conveyor belt and another sales person calls your number and gives you the items you ordered. It was very efficient.

Everyone here has been incredibly helpful and friendly, it's been really nice encountering these helpful people as I wander and struggle to find what I need, the Carsonified crew has been especially wonderful, as I knew they would be, and I feel much more relieved today that everything will be just fine as I start this adventure.

That is all for now, although there are many things to say, I am still working everything out and getting myself settled in and as that continues I will post other news in a few days as well as some photos that I plan to take on my adventure tomorrow.

I will be leaving the U.S. on May 12th and will be in England until July 27th. I am the newest Carsonified intern!