We seem to be getting an earlier start on the Whiny Expat Blogger MeetUp planning this year. Matter of fact, there have already been several proposed locations in the Gathering Ideas thread. So far, the following places have been discussed:
Wine-regions (Rhine/Mosel area – click the squiggle on the map)
Hamburg (repeat?)
Nürnberg
Flensburg
Würzburg
Regensburg
Not all of the suggestions have local hosts, so if you know one of those places and feel like showing it off, let us know. We’re entertaining suggestions until March 15. Stop by the forums and tell us what you think!
The planning of our annual Whiny Expat Bloggers Meet-Up has been kind of different this year. I tend to think that the nearly nonexistent Spring lulled people into feeling that it was miles away and we were slogging on about it way early. Plus, there was a lingering hangover of fabulousity from WEBMU 2012 Berlin. Now, Autumn is making itself felt and we’re under a month out. So to help with your short-term planning, a small reminder:
WEBMU 2013: Prague! Sept. 20-22
Ok, maybe not so small.
It’s time for WEBMU to take its show on the road! A little Bohemian adventure to cleanse the porky German palate! There will be a firm schedule up shortly in the forums and we’ll have a few hotel recommendations as well.
Last week we headed off to the 2nd Travel Bloggers Unite conference (the first was this Spring in Manchester). Hashtag: #TBUIBK Delegates arrived from all over and some found it more convenient to fly into Munich, and so the organizer kicked in for some free shuttle transfers for us from Munich airport down to our hotel. Even if we were arriving at MUC via DB Regio, the shuttle drivers didn’t mind at all.
We got to Innsbruck just about two hours after departing Munich on Wednesday night, checked in, and crashed out (it had been a long day). We got started the next morning early exploring the town while killing a little time waiting for our city tour and photo walk to start. One of the first things we noticed: Innsbruck likes two things: puns, and visitors from Italy.
We got ourselves some Tiroler Bauern Gröstl and Schupfnudeln and climbed the stairs to the top of the Stadtturm. The sun was strong, and it gave me a chance to play around with the Diorama art filter on my camera. Austria seems like a good place for that.
We finished up lunch and then started two tours, almost back-to-back. Our first tour guide was a very nice woman named Ute. She knows everything about Innsbruck, but insisted we didn’t have time to do all the best stuff, as we hurried our way through the multimedia museum exhibit on your favorite HRE and mine, Maximilian I; toured the Hofburg palace, admiring the royal portraits; visited the Dom for some impressive sculpture and plenty of Rokoko, and got the skinny on the Goldenes Dachl.
Just about directly after that, Ken Kaminesky took us on a photo walk around town. Armed with our DSLRs, point-and-shoots, and smartphones, we learned a little about lighting, accessories, perspectives, and that it’s not so much the gear that really makes the shot as it is the patience and perspective of the photographer.
We met a lot of great new people over those 3 days, and it was awfully nice to reconnect with pals from Manchester as well.
Here’re the rest of the best of the photos from that trip:
It’s not that there hasn’t been anything to write about, really! In contrast, there’s probably been too much to write about and too little time to do it since we got back from Kansas City and Oklahoma City.
We’ve had
two different sets of U.S. visitors
airport, airline, and luggage follies
a rockin’ Regensburger Bürgerfest
some unforeseen business travel
…all since the last week of June. Today after work we’re headed off on another weekend adventure — details when we get the chance!
It’s meetup season here in Germany. The annual Whiny Expat Bloggers Meet-Up is converging upon Hamburg this weekend. If you’re in the area and want to join in the yearly English Language Airing of the Grievances, go to the planning bulletin board and sign up. The details are all there. Don’t worry, photographic evidence is, by mutual agreement, strictly unpostable.
The new planning threads are open for WEBUM (Whiny Expat Bloggers Unmissable Meetup) 2010 over on the discussion board.
For those of you new to this experience, it’s a chance for the English-speaking expat bloggers here in Germany to get together and put faces to screen names. We’ve previously met in Marburg, Bonn, Dresden, Bremen and Munich and mostly in late summer or early fall, but first poll is up now if you want to weigh in or pitch your city as our next destination. The board does require you to have a login, but, if you’re a blogger in Germany, getting one is easy:
1. Click on the above link,
2. click on ‘Register’ at the top of the page and
3. wait for approval (usually takes less than a day).
Where and when will we end up this year? You can help decide!
Sarah got me a swell iPod Touch for Valentine’s Day. So, what must-have apps will complete the experience for me? I already tried the WordPress app, but for some reason, it’s not playing nicely with this blog. Also have Skype installed, which works great.
Jetzt kommen wir zum Endspurt! We’re winding up our last three whole days in Turkey with two trips — yesterday was an all-day excursion to Kekova and Myra, and today/tomorrow we’re bussing it out of Southern Turkey toward the central region of Cappadocia. We’ve been up and ready to go before the breakfast meal starts at the hotel a few days in a row and haven’t yet had time to post the best of the neat pictures we’ve taken. By chance we stopped for a breakfast / WC-Pause at rest stop with free WLAN and the (strongest halitosis aroma ever, no charge!), so this might be all you read from us until we get back to Germany, depending on the departure schedule on Tuesday (as of yet a bit unclear).
We’ve been back from our France for some time now, but it hasn’t escaped our thoughts. I’ve developed another WordPress theme based on my impressions from a trip to Provence. I named this latest one after the abbey we visited. It’s mostly ready for public consumption at this point, with some final touches necessary as I stumble across them.
If you’re not seeing a new look to the old Regensblog, click here to force your browser to show you the new design. You can switch back to a familiar one anytime you like using the links in the navigation area labelled “Themey Stuff.”
It’s not that there hasn’t been anything to write about, really! In contrast, there’s probably been too much to write about and too little time to do it since we got back from Kansas City and Oklahoma City.