Derick Rethans - tag: holiday

Scotland Holiday

Fri, 29 Aug 2008 19:58:00 +0000

Scotland Holiday

Friday, August 29th 2008, 21:58 CEST

Edinburgh, August 9th and 10th, 2008

I had a good flight through Amsterdam to Edinburgh, the real nerves started when my luggage did not appear on the baggage belt. Apparently I had missed it and it had fallen off in the back, out of sight. After being reunited with my bags slightly later and getting the car I made the arduous trip to the "hotel". The "hotel" was the Heriot-Watt campus, which was neither sign-posted or easy to find. After making a few circles through the neighbourhood, I managed to find it. However, finding the campus wasn't the only issue -- 30 minutes later I finally had found the reception in a pitch black night. Sleep commenced very soon after that.

I got up early in the morning for a light breakfast and unhappily discovered that it was raining. Not something you should be surprised about in Scotland. I took the bus into town to meet up with Lorna and after a cup of tea Scott as well. Without any real plan we wandered around the city and taking in the views. This quickly turned into looking for food. While having some drinks over lunch we chatted a bit more, and more walking occurred in the afternoon. We got tired, had some more drinks and by that time Lorna had to leave for home again.

Scott and I dropped of our gear at his room and went looking for a comedy show to go to. The Edinburgh Fringe festival was happening, so the biggest problem was to which of the 640 shows we wanted to go. We settled for "Des Clarke - Desire" at the Pleasance Courtyard. After a cup of tea in a café full of loonies, we left for the show. We had a great time, although his accent was sometimes a bit hard to understand for me. A cab brought me back to the "hotel".

After sleeping in a little bit, I took the bus again to downtown Edinburgh. I took a quick bite to give me strength to visit the Edinburgh castle. I took the long route through Princess Gardens up the hill. The queue for tickets took a little over hand an hour. The tour at the castle itself, was interrupted by the occasional shower, but the weather had improved a lot since the previous day. The castle is a must see. I liked the "prison of war" exhibitions best, and the crown jewels where the anti-climax.

After visiting the castle I was quite hungry and went to have a lunch of stir fried scallops at the Mussels hut. With the new found energy I climbed Caston hill. The last hours in Edinburgh I spend at the various street theaters of the fringe. After a light dinner at "bar One", consisting of swordfish and an apple/carrot salad I left back by bus to the Heriot-Watt campus.

Edinburgh to the Isle of Arran, August 11th, 2008

I started the day with a simple though hearty breakfast at the newly opened Mensa. From the hotel I travelled first slightly south to visit Roslyn's chapel. Unfortunately the chapel is mostly hidden by a roof to protect it from the rain. Inside photography was not allowed, so I didn't manage to take any pictures. In the church I listened to a guide explaining all the interesting art from the chapel. From pagan green men, the apprentice pillar and the Hollywood circle, the church appeared to house much more than I expected. From the church I left for Falkirk, home of the Falkirk Wheel.

The wheel replaces many locks between the Union and Forth and Clyde canals, and is quite an engineering feat. For some time there was even some blue sky which made watching the wheel turn more pleasant. I continued my journey after a quick lunch towards Glasgow and to Ardrossan where I would take the ferry to the Isle of Arran. I was a bit early and wandered about the really windy harbour. They also tried to fool me that my ferry would be two hours later, but that I didn't go for. The trip of the Firth of Clyde was windy, bumpy and slight sunny.

When I got the Brodrick on the other side, I shopped for essential energy suppliers for the upcoming walks around the island. I was staying at the Catacol Bay hotel on the northern point of the island, where I had breaded haddock for lunch. The wine that came with it "forced" me to walk around a bit along the windy coast. The heavy rain that had plummeted down when I arrived was gone. Before I went to bed I prepared a bit for the hikes of the following day.

Isle of Arran, August 12th, 2008

Hiking on an empty stomach doesn't work, but a full Scottish breakfast might be a bit too close to suicide. Way too much artery clogging goodness for me. Of course, the rain had returned but that was not going to stop me from a little hike around the "Cock of Arran". From my "parking place" I spotted a few seals, but they were obviously not sun-bathing. I didn't walk the whole planned tour as there was simply too much rain. In the end I was happy that I didn't continue, as I would have missed some many other things during my really short stay on Arran.

The next stop on my tour around Arran was a short walk to the standing stones and stone circles of Machrie Moor. During the two mile hike it was of course raining still. The last hike of the day was to the King's caves. I was silly and went the wrong way for nearly half an hour, but it finally stopped raining. After some dry period I finally ended up at the caves. There was even some sunshine. The rest of the day I merely drove around the rest of the island thinking I had no water with me. Back at the hotel I found six bottles in the trunk. I had dinner in the hotel's bar and the Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy brought and end to the day.

Isle of Arran to Isle of Skye, August 13th, 2008.

A heavy Scottish breakfast started the day. I left quite early to catch the ferry at Brodrick back to the mainland. The day consisted of a lot of driving over narrowish roads. I stopped for a late lunch at a café overlooking Monty Python's castle Stalker. The weather was getting better the close I got to Skye. After the Skye bridge beautiful scenery appeared but I stopped only briefly to take some pictures as it was getting late too quickly. I didn't really settle in at the lovely B&B "Roskhill House" until after dinner at Hotel Dunvegan's bar.

Isle of Skye, August 14th and 15th, 2008

A nice breakfast at the B&B started the day. It was beautiful weather and excellent for my plan to hike to the Quiraing. A quick drive later over surprisingly good roads--although the last part was a one-file road--brought me to the parking place at the start of the hike. From there I walked for ca. 2.5 hours over the maintain range. Very strange rock formations and beautiful vistas. From there I drove on to walk to the Cave of Gold but was met by some bulls in a field that I had to cross. I gave up in fear of my life, and instead drove to Neist's point and enjoyed the view there in the setting sun.

I had dinner at "Old School" restaurant. Actually, I had dinner twice. For some reason my starter--duck--was misunderstood as another main course by the totally cute, but clumsy waitress (it could have been my accent of course as well). Both dinners were excellent; if you want to eat here as well, make sure you book on time, one, if not two days before hand.

The second day I was woken up by a little rain shower, but luckily the rain was gone before I was out of the shower. As the weather on the east coast of the island was supposedly going to be a bit better, I opted for climbing up to the "Old Man of Storr". A really nice walk with excellent views -- which got even better when the sun broke through. From the Storr I traveled up the coast and stopped a few times to enjoy the views and take some pictures. I ended up doing a walk to a lock, which was boring. With threatening rain I aborted the walk -- I got back to the car just before the shower would have soaked me. I had dinner at the Dunvegan hotel as my first choice, the "Loch Bay Seafood Restaurant" had no space for me.

Isle of Skye to Edzell, August 16th, 2008

Lots of driving again this day. I started off after brekkie for Scotland's east coast. I took a few compulsory pictures at Eilean Dohan castle and then drove along the shore of Loch Ness towards Invernness. I made a quick stop at Urquhart and but not manage to spot Nessie. I continued my way south from there through beautiful Aberdeenshire where all the heaths were blossoming. I was staying in a small village, Edzell at the Kelvingrove B&B. I had dinner at the Panmure Arms Hotel, which has an interesting setting. The food however was excellent.

Angus, August 17th, 2008

Breakfast was early at the B&B which meant that I had some time to kill before all the attractions opened -- it was a Sunday after all. So I decided to drive into Glen Clova, the supposedly nicest of the Angus glens. Unfortunately there was not much too see in the mist. I then proceeded to Glamis castle, said to have been the set for Shakespeare's MacBeth. It is very nice, with gardens all around. I found it a bit too commercial. From there on I visited the Pictavia museum in Brechin followed by a quick visit to Aberlemno to see a few of those Pictish stones. It was a bit of a bummer and lame. As last activity of the day I wanted to walk a little bit along the coast. But at the moment I started to walk, the rain started to pour down as well. So I aborted and went back to the B&B to eat, pack and watch a movie. The following day I was going home again.

Final notes

I should definitely have spend more time on Arran and Skye - both beautiful places of which I've not even seen half.

The food is mostly great in Scotland, as long as you stay away from Haggis.

My best accommodation was Roskhill House , there were also lots of other hikers there, which added to the atmosphere.

I had the least amount of fun in the last day in Angus.

It always rains in Scotland, so bring waterproof gear.

My pictures from the trip are on flickr .

On the way to Québec again

Fri, 09 Mar 2007 12:48:00 +0000

On the way to Québec again

Amsterdam, the Netherlands

Friday, March 9th 2007, 13:48 CET

Again I am on my way to Canada. After last months PHP Conference in Vancouver it is now the time for the 5th PHP Québec Conference . Just like previous years I will be skiing first with Marcus (and a couple of others) close to Québec City in some place called Mont-Sainte-Anne or Le Massif .

After the skiing fun it is time for me to give a workshop on Database design and a talk on PHP's new filter extension.

Hope to see you there!

Brasil Conference Wrap-up

Tue, 19 Dec 2006 15:42:00 +0000

Brasil Conference Wrap-up

Foz do Iguaçu, Brasil

Tuesday, December 19th 2006, 16:42 CET

In the beginning of this month I attended the PHP Conference Brasil . Besides speaking on Xdebug and the eZ Components I also spend a few extra days as holiday there.

During those extra days I flew to Foz do Iguaçu to have a look at the Itaipu dam on the border with Paraguay and Iguaçu falls .

Besides the falls there are many other things to see in the park, such as butterflies and very big ants .

After visiting the park I travelled further south to visit one of my colleagues, Melissa . Together we travelled to Gramado, a very German looking city .

For the rest of the pictures check my gallery . There are also a few panoramas available.

Something You Don't Want to Hear on an Airplane

Tue, 17 Oct 2006 20:26:00 +0000

Something You Don't Want to Hear on an Airplane

Amsterdam, the Netherlands

Tuesday, October 17th 2006, 22:26 CEST

When attempting to go home from a short holiday I had the "luck" of a broken plane. After some 15 minutes they provided us with a "reserve kist" (Dutch for "spare box") that would take us back to Norway. 20 meter into the taxiing procedure we suddenly stopped and were towed back to our parking spot. The captain came on the intercom and said "We just had a computer crash, we'll reboot it in somewhat the same way you reboot your Windows XP machine at home." - Definitly not good :) (I did make it home alive though).

Iceland - Fire and Water

Tue, 18 Jul 2006 15:09:00 +0000

Iceland - Fire and Water

Reykjavik, Iceland

Tuesday, July 18th 2006, 15:09 GMT

Most people don't mention "Iceland" as their top number one holiday destination. However I'm a bit strange and decided to go to just this place on holiday this year. After some investigations it seemed that the best time of year was somewhere around the end of July regarding temparature, however you never know certain about what to expect. That means packing all types of clothes... summer clothes, but also a thick winter jacket, skiing clothes and rain clothes. Of course, depending on what you are going to do exactly. I wanted to see all possible types of terrain on iceland, which includes nice warm lagoons (swim wear) and glacier (warm clothes is a good idea there). Flights to Iceland are not very cheap either, but then again, nor is anything else cheap on Iceland. (Yes, the alcohol tax is even higher than in Norway). After a bit of investigation in the different points-of-interest on Iceland with the help of some locals (thanks Helgi and Bjori!) and the Lonely Planet I headed to Iceland with a friend on July 6th.

101 Reykjavik

After getting to Keflavik airport way to late at night we managed to find our way to the guesthouse just to find that I fluked the reservation and they they expected us to arrive the next day. That meant that we had to sleep in "sleeping bag accomodations" which was not so confortable but I really didn't care after this overly long trip. A guesthouse is normally just a small step down from a hotel usually without people cleaning up your room every day. It does however provide a good and somewhat cheaper place to stay at.

The next day we toured around Reykjavik and the Reykjanes peninsula a bit and basically just waited until our room at the guest house was ready. After a well needed shower to get rid of all the smells we met up with a local and headed for a relaxing bath in the Blue Lagoon, the most famous (but definitely not the only) geothermal pool in Iceland. Helgi suggested to have dinner at ... and so we went there for a good meal. The best meat in Iceland is sheep or lamb and you figure out why once you start out driving in the country side... the only animal that you'd find there is sheep... and you find them literally everywhere - both off the road and on the roads.

Þingvellír (Thingvellir)

Iceland begun quite some time ago with the first parliament ever in

930. The parliament was build on a site called Þingvellír which is now part of a national park. Besides the site of the former parliament the general landscape is also quite interesting as well as there is a massive lava ridge cutting across the landscape there as well as some water filled gorges and (ofcourse) a waterfall. From Þingvellír we avoided the ring road on the way back to Reykjavik and instead took some road closer to the south of the country. Little did we know as suddendly the road turned into a gravel road which we had to follow for the next, say, 50 kilometers. The road did however pass an interesting site with lots of water coming up from the ground in bright coloured mud pools.

Water

As proper tourists we visited two other popular sites the next day. Starting off on the southern ring road we left busy Reykjavik to visit "Geysir".

Before we ended up at the geysirs we drove past the Keriđ explosion crater. We actually tried to have a look at this one the day before but our map had it in a totally wrong place, however my GPS map (!! add link) did have it correctly. (!! add stuff about this event). All that as left now is a crater which now houses a small lake in the middle.

The English word geysir finds its origin in exactly the site which formerly housed this great natural water fountain in Iceland. However, in the last few years the original geysir does no longer function properly and only rarely spits out its water into the air. However at the same site there is another geysir called Strokkur which still performs well. About every 5 to 10 minutes it bursts out water into the air, however each bursts intensity varies quite a bit. You need to be a bit lucky to see a "big one". Besides Strokkur there are also a number of smaller less regular geysirs and "Bluesi" - a very blue pool with warm water.

From the geysir field we then proceeded towards Gullfoss - the Golden Falls - named because its always present rainbow. However... if there is no sun there won't be a rainbow either ofcourse. We were lucky and the weather was fair so we could enjoy the magic of the great falls.

Past the great glacier

Leaving Reykjavik behind we set off for Höfn (pronounced like "Hùb"). Along this route there are many smaller and larger waterfalls including one of Iceland's finest called "Seljalandsfoss". We went to see a few of those and then wandered off the ring road to have a look at the Dyrhólaey plateau where there is a large colony of puffins as well. We spend some time trying to get as close to the puffins as possible for a good photo and then proceeded our route to Höfn. When driving along the southern ring road we passed lots of lava fields and glacier tongues. The glacier toungues are all part of the largest icecap of Europe: Vatnajökull.

About an hour before Höfn we passed the Jökulsárlón bay which is filled with icebergs from the Breiđamerkurjökull glacier. This bay gives a very strange feeling as it looks like it just comes out of a movie. Coincidentally we figured out later that parts of a James Bond film (Die Another Day) was shot here on this bay. Höfn itself is a tiny tiny town with little to do, however we would only use it as base camp for our glacier expedition.

Hike on Svínafellsjökull glacier

The next morning we left early from Höfn to be on time for our 10 o'clock appointment with the Icelandic Mountain Guides. This little plan of ours almost went wrong because at the Jökulsárlón bay they where working on the bridge which set us back by about 20 minutes. We barely made it on time to the base camp of the mountain guides just to find that they had us down for 14:00 and not 10:00. Luckily there was still some space for us in the 10:00 tour. There was not much Icelandic about our guide as he was there on an exchange project from New Zealand: Ben. Ben took us out on a trip over the lower parts of the Svínafellsjökull glacier and explained us about the different things that make up a glacier. Basically a glacier is just compressed snow but because of gravity this compressed mass starts moving down the valleys until there is a point where the sun is winning from the accumulation of snow. Here the glacier melts and ends. Between the main icecap Vatnajökull and the edge are the glacier valleys and ice falls. Just after we came off the glacier it started to pour so we just drove back to Höfn and stayed in. I managed to assemble most of my panoramas and manage all my photos that I'd taken so far.

From Höfn to Akureyri

Rain, rain and more rain was the case this day as well when we passed past numerous bays and inlets on the eastern side of Iceland and later through high plains with lava fields. Somewhat closer to Myvatn we made a small detour to see the Krafla region's vulcanic activity but bad wind and rain killed that plan. We did manage to have a look at the Krafla power station where electricity is won from earth heated water in the form of steam. The small tour of the plant was done by a girl who've had this summer job for the past 4 years and was happy to answer our questions, especially because were not so loud as the three tour busses that left when we just got there I suppose. We promised to come back to the Krafla area to see more of it the next day as weather was supposed to improve a lot.

Waterfalls and Vulcanoes

And indeed the weather did improve. With 18°C and sunny it was the perfect day to investigate some of the waterfalls in the area and then head back to the Krafla region. First on the menu was Gođafoss, which is situated very close to the ring road itself. From there on we went to the Ásbyrgi canyon on the north side of the road that leads to Dettifoss. The road that leads to Dettifoss is a 25 km long gravel road (doesn't matter from which end) that goes over some very intersting landscape which can only be similar to something as remote as the moon. There are actually multiple waterfalls in this river and you can get close to three without too much walking. The first one is Hafragillsfoss, which is rather uninspiring as you can see Dettifoss' spray in the background already. Dettifoss is actually quite ugly with black water but it is the most powerful waterfall in Iceland so you shouldn't really miss it.

From the same carpark that serves Dettifoss it's a nice 1.5 km hike to the third waterfall that you can get to, Selfoss. After visiting those three falls we proceeded southward to end up in the Krafla region, this time with some sun. Now the rain was gone we could actually see the big Viti explosion crater and walk a bit around it. Another popular hike here is the one around Lernhjúkur that takes you through a geothermic area with lots of hot springs and the lava fields that were created with the latest erruptions in this area. You can quite clearly show where the lava came from and how it flowed. It was also clear that the area is still active as the ground was usually warm and there were lots of steam vents spraying bad smelling vapor into the air. Nearby is the Hverarönd area which also has a lot of interesting pools.

Dimmuborgir

On our last day on the North side of the country we again traveled to the Myvatn area to see Dimmuborgir, the black castles. However before we went there we tried to have a look at some intersting lava pillars that can be found just inside the lake. It is quite obvious why the name of the lake is Myvatn (Mosquito lake) as the were literally swarms of mosquitoes attacking us as soon as we got out of the car. Even at the Dimmuborgir site the mosquitoes were quite persistent however not as bad as closer to the lake. Dimmuborgir has some intersting formations of lava resembling buildings and even a church. On the way back we also visited the Laufás farm museum which has some restored old homes.

To the west

After Akureyri we traveled to the Snæfellsness peninsula on the west of Iceland. Unfortunately this day was again full of rain and lots of wind so we didn't really see a lot besides dirt against the car window. We stayed in a tiny town called Grundarfjórdur in a tiny but cosy hotel which also serves as the local restaurant. The town lies under the realm of Kirkufjell which we actually couldn't quite see just yet. With promises that the weather would clear up the next day we headed for bed early.

Snæfellsness Peninsula

At the westernern part of Iceland is the Snæfellsness peninsula with its main feature being the Snæfellsnessjökull glacier. But there are many more sites along the coast, although some of them might be a hard to get to. The Lonely Planet helped here a bit and we eventually made it to some very little traveled place: Öndsverdnes - the most western point of Europe - Very remote and actually quite boring. However when traveling further south along the coast the weather cleared and we had some nice walks along the coast near Arnarstapi where the water carved out interesting features in the rocks. The small hikes here however were the end of the holiday as we needed to head back for Reykjavik to catch the next day's early morning flight.

Pictures

For pictures of the whole trip, see my gallery , panoramas are here .

Singapore, Bangkok and Bintan

Fri, 23 Dec 2005 18:47:00 +0000

Singapore, Bangkok and Bintan

Singapore

Friday, December 23rd 2005, 19:47 CET

In the last week of November and the first week of December I had my holiday, which I choose to spend in South East Asia.

The first stop was Singapore, where I have some family . That made it an exellent point to start my trip. The flight to Singapore is quite long from where I'm living and the 7 hour time difference is not very nice either. The moment I stepped out of the airport and into the taxi the rain started pouring down, topped off with a nice loud lightning strike - that was an excellent start.

Singapore is a very modern and western city, albeit it has a lot of eastern influences.

Not only from the Chinese and Malay , but also from Tamils. Therefore in Singapore most signs are in 4 languages (English, which is still the primairy language, Mandarin Chinese, Tamil and Malay). The influences from the other cultures are mostly visible in dedicated areas. There is Little India and of course China Town. Interestingly enough, the largest hindoe temple (to the right) is in China Town :).

When Stamford Raffles reached Singapore in the early 1800s he did not find a large bustling city that is now Singpare, but instead he found a lot of rain forest. There is still some of it left, in the northern part of the country, in a nature reserve called Bukit Timah where monkeys still roam freely (although they also pester you near the entrance of the park).

From Singapore we made a 6 day trip to Bangkok , which official name in Thai is "กรุงเทพมหานคร อมรรัตนโกสินทร์ มหินทรายุธยามหาดิลก ภพนพรัตน์ ราชธานีบุรีรมย์ อุดมราชนิเวศน์ มหาสถาน อมรพิมาน อวตารสถิต สักกะทัตติยะ วิษณุกรรมประสิทธิ์". Bangkok is a whole different world compared to Singapore. Where Singapore is clean and modern, Bangkok is large and polluted and has a horrible traffic problem. The main attraction (atleast for me) is all the different temples (wat in Thai). As I like photography, all those temples are a nice subject to take shots of. At your left you find the 46 meter long reclining buddha at Wat Pho .

Above is one of the decorations around the building housing the emerald buddha at Wat Phra Kaew . This temple lies on the Grand Palace premises, which houses a lot of other templates and the some buildings used for royalty.

We visited the day before the King's birthday which unfortunately meant that some of the buildings were closed. Our hotel was close to Khaosan Road , which is a very vibrant area with lots of food stands and shops that sell fake stuff :). One temple that has quite a different style compared to the others is Wat Arun which you see here on the left. It's in Khmer style and covered with porcelain.

After 6 days we left Bangkok and prepared for our next trip. The next trip went to Bintan, an Indonesian island about an hour by ferry from Singapore. As Dutchie I needed to get a visa for Indonesia so we had to spend some annoying time at the Indonesian embassy in Singapore. We managed to retrieve our passport with the visa just in time before going to Thailand so we were all set to go.

Bintan is a small island and mostly leased by Singapore to put resorts on. We did not go to the North Western resort area but instead we went to Trikora Beach on the east side. We stayed at the Shady Shack which is definitely not a luxurious place. It did have running water (from a large tank) and electricity but that was about it. The main attraction was the nice beach on which our shacks were located. We were the only tourists there and it was very nice and quiet to relax on for a whole day.

On the second day of our stay we walked to a nearby fishing village that was built on poles in the ocean. During the night the villagers go out fishing with their kelang (houses on floats) and during they day they would sell their fish in the village. Bintan gave me a small tan and I relaxed quite nicely. In the afternoon of the second day we went back to Singapore where I concluded my holiday.

For all the other pictures that I made during the trip see my gallery .

Asia Holiday

Mon, 21 Nov 2005 07:53:00 +0000

Asia Holiday

Skien, Norway

Monday, November 21st 2005, 08:53 CET

I will be going on holiday the next weeks. First visiting relatives in Singapore and then off to Bangkok in Thailand . This will be first trip to Asia, and I'm excited about going there. I hope to get a lot of good time, and return with plenty of pictures (and stories).

Travel Report: Lofoten

Mon, 15 Aug 2005 15:01:00 +0000

Travel Report: Lofoten

Lofoten, Norway

Monday, August 15th 2005, 17:01 CEST

Day 1

We started our trip from Bodø, a small industrial city just above the artic circle. The city itself is not very interesting, but it does make a nice starting point for a travel to the Lofoten, which lay a 3 hour ferry trip away to the east. After we checked in into our hotel we drove around a bit and ended up on mount Rønvik from where you have an excellent view over the city and the coast .

Close to Bodø you can find Saltstraumen which has the strongest tidal current in the world. The current is at strongest four times a day and you can only see its real power by seeing a boat struggeling to go into the wrong direction. On our way to Saltstraumen we passed this shed near the water, with a beautiful reflecting in the water .

Day 2

After staying the night in Bodø we drove around a bit more, and ended up at the ruins of a fortress across Bodø's harbour. Here we relaxed and kept an eye on the myriage of ships entering and leaving the harbour . Later on the day we took the ferry to the Lofoten. From the ferry we saw Værøy , the first island we were going to visit, looming up in the mist. After arriving we "checked-in" into our rorbu, an old fishermans cabin. Rorbua are usually cheap, but sober, cabins which people now rent out to tourists to stay the night. We didn't say long there and proceeded to drive around on the island to see what's happening there.

As a typical island in the Lofoten, Værøy has ragged peeks and steep cliffs. The island is pretty small, so we quickly saw most of it. We decided that we wanted to see the sun rise, which meant we need to get up in the middle of the night, well, 02:00. As the Lofoten are so far north, we barely missed the midnight sun with 10 days or so. So, we got up at two in the morning and drove to the west side of the island, just to see the sun rise, just behind this mountain . Bugger.

Day 3

The next day we first stopped by the shop on Værøy to buy the necessary material (bread) for our hiking trip to Fuglefjell (bird mountain) to see some of the wildlife on the island. We had a lovely 6 or so hour hike, and saw lots of seaguls , a couple of seals , a few eagles and some " toppskarv ". As we couldn't quite walk all the way to Fuglefjell, we crossed the island's mountain "ridge" to have a look at " Måstad ", the abandonned fishing village. We were all sweaty when we came back from the hike, so we decided to take a refreshing bath in the Ocean. Estimated water temperature: 15°C, estimated air temperature: 11°C. On the same day we took the ferry to Moskenes, and from there to Å i Lofoten where we stayed the night in another rorbu.

Day 4

From Å we drove past Reine on our way to Nusfjord, "Norways best preserved fiskevær". In this old town they still process dried cod, by hanging them out to dry in the strong winds. They make a whole fuss about this there, and although it's worthwhile having a look, you shouldn't get overexcited. Our sleeping place was in Kabelvåg, 5 minutes south of Svolvær.

Day 5

We decided to stay one more day in Svolvær to climb to Svolværgeita , a famous rock formation. As we didn't have proper climbing gear, nor the experience to climb at all, we instead hiked to the backside of the formation, where we took a picture of Svolværgeita with Svolvær in the background.

The view was magnificant from there. Too bad the weather wasn't a bit better as we got some rain, but that's to expect when you go to the Lofoten.

Day 6

From Svolvær we continued our trip to Andenes on Andøya, which is not part of the Lofoten, but of another archipelago, the Vesterålen. Unlike the Lofoten the island of the Vesterålen are not littered with mountains, instead there are a lot of plains and lakes . Andenes is a very small town, with besides it's lighthouse , seemingly only one major attraction: whale safari. We wanted to do that the next day, but as the weather would get worse, we instead went almost straight away in the evening. The temparature was still only 10°C so we put on a lot of warm clothes (I used 5 layers) and got our photo gear as we wanted to put those whales on the picture ofcourse. We had a lot of luck as it wasn't very windy, so the sea was quite calm. After an hour steeming we approached the area where the whales appear. At this place the continental sheft abruptly ends making it an ideal place to see sperm whales and minke whales. We were quite lucky and saw 3 sperm whales and a minke whale. Unfortunately the latter one had also some whalers on its tail.

Day 7

After the great whale safari it was time to start on our way back to Bodø, but we did that in two days as it was quite a long drive. The first part of the leg went to Lødingen, a very small town, but close to the ferry that would bring us all the way back to Bodø. As we were a bit early, we decided to drive to Harstad to do well... get dinner. Harstad is pretty boring, and so is Lødingen. But atleast in Lødingen you can rest.

Day 8

On the last day we drove back to Bodø from where we took the plane back to Sandefjord. On the first leg the plane actually stopped in another place before continuing to Trondheim. First time that happened to me. We made it safely back home after this wonderful trip.

For the best images of this trip, have a look here . The full album with photos can be found in my gallery , with additional panoramic pictures here .

php|tropics wrap up

Tue, 17 May 2005 14:14:00 +0000

php|tropics wrap up

Cancún, Mexico

Tuesday, May 17th 2005, 16:14 CEST

The past couple of days I've been speaking at php|tropics in Cancún, Mexico. It might not be the first place that you could think of for organizing a conference as attendees might find the pool and the free drinks more intesting than going to the conference sessions.

The flight to Cancún went fine - Continental is pretty okay and the second leg of the flight was actually rescheduled to 30 minutes earlier, which caused that I didn't have to wait at all in Newark. Getting into the US was a bit annoying as usual and I think that taking finger prints and a photo makes people feel like they're criminals. Arriving at Cancún International Airport is interesting too - after passing through immigration and customs there is a horde of people that want to arrange "transportation" for you. I respectfully declined and waited for Chris , Wez and George and shared a "taxi" with them to the Moon Palace Resort .

The conference started the next day on the 12th in the Expo Center across the road from the resort's entrance. The first talk I had to give was on "Clustering PHP and MySQL". It was the first time that I gave this talk, but it worked out fine although I should have had a tiny bit more material. After the sessions ended we went for dinner in one of the many restaurants and relaxed at the pool-side.

On the second day of the conference I had no talks to give, and together with Ilia and Andrei we booked a tour to Chikin-Ha . We had several activities on this tour, like zip-lining, snorkling in an under ground river and enjoying Maya food. Definitely a better choice than staying at the hotel doing nothing all day. Andrei has more on this trip. When we returned we headed for the hotel's pool and enjoyed the sun and water while sipping on our cocktails.

On the third day of the conference I gave two talks. One was a "Bring Your Own Laptop" session on "Practical Debugging Techniques" in which I showed how to use Xdebug and the second one was on "Encryption with PHP".

When checking in to get out of Mexico I found out that I misplaced my immigration card, so I had to get a replacement at the immigration office. When walking there I was already blaming myself for this, and worrying about how much time this was going to cost. Fortunately, the woman in the office gave me a simple form that I had to fill in, and during the 30 seconds that that took me she was hapily singing along with the radio. So as soon as that was wrapped up, I could go home through the air via Newark where it was again a chaos with endless queues for the various attractions like immigration, bagage collection, customs, bagage re-check-in and security. So much for efficiency. I did make it on time to Schiphol airport where I had a pick-up that brought me back to my parents place. Next trip is to go back home to Norway on Saturday.

The presentation slides of my three presentations on " Xdebug ", "Clustering PHP and MySQL " and "Playing Safe: PHP and Encryption" are online at the talks page .

Skiing in Vrådal

Sun, 27 Mar 2005 07:34:00 +0000

Skiing in Vrådal

Vrådal, Norway

Sunday, March 27th 2005, 09:34 CEST

Norwegians usually spend their long easter holiday in the Mountains in some cabin, and so did I this year. Together with Frederik, Ray and Judith we went skiing in Vrådal. Although the skiing area is not very large, we had a wonderful time and really excellent weather.

This 22° Halo I first spotted when going up with the elevator to the mountain's summit again - I've been looking for this during the whole trip as I guessed that conditions would be perfect for it.

We also had amazingly nice scenery on our way back. The image above is a mozaic of 15 images from a lake near Seljord. The rest of the trip's images are here .