Open Hardware Summit trek flight out: Monday 2023-04-24
April 2023 (328 Words, 2 Minutes)
Fast-forward to: Open Hardware Summit Day 1 and NoiseBridge: Friday 2023-04-28
After Melbourne’s extended CoVID-19 lockdown, finally having the opportunity to travel overseas again was too good to pass up. Especially when it was a chance to meet open hardware hackers in-person at the Open Hardware Summit 2023 in New York. Always good to learn and bring back useful new ideas for Melbourne’s Connected Community HackerSpace.
A huge bonus was travelling with Steph Piper, discussing and seeing her latest projects close-up, like Glow Stitch. Steph has strong connections with other amazing people in the broader craft Maker community. Really looking forward to meeting a new and different group of creative people. Spoiler alert: I was not going to be disappointed !
Long-distance travel is like a muscle, if you don’t exercise it regularly, it can take some practice to regain your stamina, especially for a long flight. Leaving Melbourne at 5:30 pm on a Monday evening and arriving in New York at 7:30 am on a Tuesday morning doesn’t sound too bad.
Until factoring in two airport transits (Sydney and Honolulu), crossing 14 hours of timezones and the international dateline (Monday happened twice). Even rebuilding tolerance for sitting in close proximity with lots of people takes time, especially after the isolation of lockdown.
Flying over the mighty Murrumbidgee River, near Dog Trap Crossing, provides an excellent view of north-east Canberra.
After 20 hours of flight time, which was over 30 hours of real-time … Manhattan island is beckoning. It was morning peak hour traffic traffic and the journey from JFK international airport via the Queens Midtown Tunnel (QMT) to the hotel in the East Village takes about an hour to cover the 17 miles (27 kilometres). Yep, an average of 9 MPH (14 KPH) … you can nearly run that fast !
The taxi provided the cost up-front, like an Uber, of US$70 plus extras, which came to US$82 (AUS$127) all up.
It is a real eye-opener traveling through the boroughs of New York, each with their own distinct culture and socioeconomic make-up. There are many recognizable landmarks along the way. For example, the New York State Pavillion, which was built for the 1964 New York World’s Fair, which contains the Unisphere and the Observation Towers. These are often seen in movies, like Men In Black.
As we approach the Queens Midtown Tunnel (QMT), the Empire State Building is just briefly visible (above) … and the end of the journey is close now.
Technically, the long Monday finished roughly 9 hours ago and Tuesday morning has truly begun. However, our minds perceive the world in unexpected ways and my brain is finally saying that Monday is done and dusted !
Distance walked: 6.8 km
Next day: Open Hardware Summit trek in New York: Tuesday 2023-04-25