Thursday, September 22, 2011

Hello Etsy - part 1

Image taken from a platform on the trainstation in Köln

At last I find some time to share some bits and pieces from my short stay in Berlin. The journey didn't start out really relaxed as I was supposed to step onto a train in Hasselt & get off in Berlin. It didn't happen that way of course but after a small detour of about 2 hours which involved driving to Liège/Luik and then to Aachen/Aken I finally arrived in Berlin.
I took the train as I wanted to travel slowly. The past few months I've been so busy that it seemed that life was passing by too quick so instead of flying there quickly, I saw the landscape pass by and actually had some time to read too.
I wonder though when I will finish the book I started...
Image taken from a platform on the trainstation in Köln

The evening that I arrived, I met up with PetitPlat and Vadjutka in the flat I rented through AirBNB. While we were sitting around in the flat and chatting away, we decided that it would be lovely to cook together so we went shopping and made ourselves a lovely meal. It was so much fun to cook together. Marta arrived on early Friday morning at an ungodly hour. I wasn't feeling all that well due to a stomach bug so I was happy to tag along to the Etsy headquarters and hang out there for a bit. Marta works for Etsy as the community manager in the Netherlands so we helped preparing for the 'Hello Etsy' weekend and sewed some cushion that would be used for the Yoga sessions.
I took some pictures of the preparations at the headquartes...
... and at Ework, the site where the main event took place. What an impressive location! My jaws just dropped when I saw it!
In the evening we went to a preregistration party at Hudson. Already met some lovely Etsians there while chatting over a cup of tea and some scones.

I'll be sharing more of 'Hello Etsy' later this week as I don't want to overwhelm you with it all at once. It has been an amazing experience that was inspirational and energizing and I can't wait to share some of the live streams of the sessions that I loved most. Stay tuned! :)