Holidays on the road

I left Amsterdam on Sunday by car, with 3 other couchsurfers (I met them on the couchsurfing groups and on local meetings), direction Italy. They were heading to Rome and I was staying in Genova, to spend X-Mas with my aunt Rejanie and see my cousin Bruno. We stopped for the night in Frieburg, southern Germany, where I could meet Gabriela, an old friend from AIESEC (we haven't met for years...). I found another host, Connie, and we all had nice places to sleep. The driving adventure was to have a broken window covered with plastic bags (great job Glenn and Valentina!). We managed to get it fixed on Monday morning, before we crossed the Swiss Alps...

After 3 days completely relaxed, sleeping a lot and eating like someone in Italy deserves (including good old Brazilian food), I'm ready to continue the journey. Tonight I'll arrive in Krakow (cheap flight) and I found a very curious couchsurfing host - I'll stay in the same place as other 16 couchsurfers, from all around the world! I'm looking forward for that - it sounds like those old reception weekend I had in AIESEC, including partying, sightseeing and cooking together). On Monday morning I hitchhike to Warsaw to meet my brother and spend new-years with Ania, another friend from couchsurfing. After new-years, a short stop in Berlin and maybe Hamburg, on my way back to Kaos, back to Aarhus.

My classes restart on 7th of January... My graduation is coming soon... 26th of June 2009!!

Holidays on the road

I left Amsterdam on Sunday by car, with 3 other couchsurfers (I met them on the couchsurfing groups and on local meetings), direction Italy. They were heading to Rome and I was staying in Genova, to spend X-Mas with my aunt Rejanie and see my cousin Bruno. We stopped for the night in Frieburg, southern Germany, where I could meet Gabriela, an old friend from AIESEC (we haven't met for years...). I found another host, Connie, and we all had a nice place to sleep. The driving adventure was to have a broken window covered with plastic bags (great job Glenn and Valentina!). We managed to get it fixed on Monday morning, before we left (and before crossing the Swiss Alps!).

After 3 days completely relaxed, sleeping a lot and eating like someone in Italy deserves (including good old Brazilian food), I'm ready to continue the journey. Tonight I'll arrive in Krakow (cheap flight) and I found a very curious couchsurfing host - I'll stay in the same place as other 16 couchsurfers, from all around the world! I'm looking forward for that - it sounds like those old reception weekend I had in AIESEC, including partying, sightseeing and cooking together). On Monday morning I hitchhike to Warsaw to meet my brother and spend new-years with Ania, another friend from couchsurfing. After new-years, a short stop in Berlin and maybe Hamburg, on my way back to Kaos, back to Aarhus.

My classes restart on 7th of January... My graduation is coming soon... 26th of June 2009!!

Two tales of a City

The opening lines of the book "A Tale of Two Cities" by Charles Dickens (1859)
go like that:

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times,

it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness,

it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity,

it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness,

it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair,

we had everything before us, we had nothing before us,

we were all going direct to Heaven, we were all going direct

the other way--in short, the period was so far like the present

period, that some of its noisiest authorities insisted on its

being received, for good or for evil, in the superlative degree

of comparison only. (*)

My story is by far less tragic than the French Revolution, but it still has its
charm and drama - I guess. I'm back to Amsterdam, after 3 years, this time for a short
2-month period, until Christmas.

I'm working for the Global Reporting Initiative, starting-off a research on CSR
"landscape", trends and hubs at national and regional level. In my short period I'm in charge
of seeting up the methodology and research on Latin America.

When I arrived I thought my life would be simple, easy and fun - just like when I arrived 3 years ago, which actually also marks the beginning of this blog!!

In 3 years, most of my friends have moved away, or got very busy into their careers. Housing in Amsterdam became much more complicated and expensive. The banks and authorities seem much more bureaucratic then never. Albert Heijn is so boring. De Heffer gatherings do not exist anymore. Nice girls got boyfriends, fiancés and husbands. Yes, the city has changed, but more important than that - I have changed! A LOT over the last three years.

I go to different bars, I listen to different music, I hang out with different people, I eat different food. How can we change so much and be the same person at the same time? I start to realize that I'm more of myself, each day, and to be conscious about that evolution is a revolution by itself! Scary eh? Yeah, sometimes... hard to understand? Yeah, sometimes...

Amsterdam will always be one of my favourite cities, a kind of tricky place that feels like an extremely comfortable couch. You love it, but you might fall sleep too easily. Amsterdam has a similar effect in people: the easygoing, laid back, relaxed and fairly safe atmosphere needs to be balanced with excitement, risks, emotions and danger, in order to keep someone awake (in life) - oh well, in January I'm back in Denmark, back to the Kaospilots, for my last 6 months in the roller coaster! :P


(*) Freely available by the Project Gutenberg:
http://www.gutenberg.org/files/98/98.txt

BBC World Debate: How Accountable is Business?

Hello dear friends,

An interesting debate will be broadcast through BBC this weekend (17th and 18th of June), as part of their series on global issues called BBC World Debate. This debate was filmed during the GRI's Conference on Sustainability and Transparency last Friday in Amsterdam. It was a fair and straight forward debate, I must admit, and I hope you like it :)

(and you might see me on the second row... ;-))

If you prefer to listen to the full non-edited version, you can go to the GRI website and download the podcast - Friday morning Arena debate.

Showing Times (check your local time...):
Saturday 17th May: 0710 GMT, 1510 GMT and 1910 GMT;
Sunday 18th May at 0010, 0710, 1510 and 1910 GMT.


How Accountable is Business?

The World Debate asks whether companies, already forced to report on their finances, should also have to reveal details of their impact on the environment and society? How transparent do we expect companies to be and can we trust them to come clean? Can openness and profitability go hand in hand?

Speakers

Alessandro Carlucci – CEO Natura
Natura Cosméticos S.A. is a leading player in sales of cosmetics, fragrances, and toilet products in Brazil. It was founded 40 years ago and is based near Sao Paulo, Brazil.

Gerd Leipold - Executive director of Greenpeace International

Maud Olofsson - Deputy Prime Minister of Sweden
Deputy Prime Minister of Sweden and Minister for Enterprise and Energy.

Sir Michael Rake - Chairman of BT
Former Chairman of KPMG International.

Alex Sink - Chief Financial Officer of the Florida Department of Financial Services
Chief Financial Officer of the Florida Department of Financial Services and (Former President of Bank of America) Florida's Chief Financial Officer, responsible for monitoring the state's fiscal health and managing more than $74 billion in tax revenue coming in and out of state government annually.

Bruno Prior - Director, Summerleaze
Summerleaze is a UK based renewable energy company. His company is a renewable electricity generator primarily from landfill gas, but with an increasing emphasis on anaerobic digestion.