Without a Traceroute

I am currently in Eindhoven, a city in the South-Netherlands. So far it seems alright. Phillips was founded and headquartered here, so there’s an enormous amount of lightbulb-related tourist attractions. They have some sort of art museum focused on artificial light (read: glowy art things), so I’ll probably check that out tomorrow before catching a train to Utrecht.

My stopover in Dublin was nice. I took the bus into the city and ate lunch at the oldest pub in Ireland, which dates from 1198. It was sort of a tourist trap, but the food and Guiness was good. However, the bus back to the airport was kind of slow and I nearly missed my flight to Eindhoven. On the plus side, because I was so late, the Ryanair woman checking me in didn’t bother charging me the 20 euro they usually want for checking a bag.

I’m pretty tired since I lost a big chunk of last night to time zones, but I think I’ll go out at least for a little while and see what Eindhoven is like.

So my name is Brendan McCollam, I just graduted from Pomona College in Claremont, CA where I was a neuroscience major.

I received a Watson Fellowship, which provides a $25,000 grant to travel and complete an independent project. My project involves traveling to the Netherlands, Germany, France, Slovenia, Croatia, Argentina, Chile, and Mexico investigating the free software movement and hacktivism. If you’re interested, you can read the personal statement and project proposal I submitted to the Watson Foundation which awards the grants.

This blog will be a record of my travels, with photos and stories and such; I also intend to write about timely issues in software/technology/politics. I imagine the majority of readers will be my friends, family, and perhaps people connected with the Watson foundation, but anyone else is welcome as well.

I’m leaving in a few hours, and I still have a bunch of packing to do. It’s a strange and oddly liberating feeling to have only the vaguest notion of where I’m sleeping tonight.

Thanks for reading.