I can’t begin to tell you how many times I’ve found myself walking around some foreign city, knowing neither the language nor the currency, and staring into the coupled conversations of comfortable coffeehouse confines. How’s that for alliteration? The steam on the windows, the flirtatious curled lips of young women and the puffed up chests of their suitors. Cigarettes, cocktails, cappuccinos: everything at a snail’s pace. And every time, without fail, I think to myself, ‘now why in the fuck don’t I do that more often back home?’

That’s part of traveling. A reminder to live slowly. To breath deep. To let go.

I’m here for the “Open Translation Tools 2007” conference. When I mentioned that to someone a couple days ago, their response was, “wow, that sounds wonkie.” Maybe so, but this is an incredible group of people all concerned with how a globalized world communicates. Some friends and acquaintances are here: Alice, Lena, Gunner, Ed, Brian. It will be good to hang out with them. Then there are many more people I’ve never met, but have long wanted to. I’m glad to have a chance to.

These past couple days I’ve been working almost non-stop, but this afternoon I was able to take a break for a few hours and walk around the city with some Coltrane in the headphones. Everywhere you go it seems that a blue tram is either in front of you or behind you. Here’s the requisite motion shot:

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