Not all who wander are lost...
I have lived, worked, and traveled in all 6 inhabited continents on the planet: Europe, North America, South America, Africa, Asia, and Oceania. Only Antarctica is still eluding me, but I hope to make it over there sometime as well. And of course there are still plenty of places I have not been to yet. Continents are big, and in some of them I have only been in one or two countries so far.
I actually think the whole notion of countries, borders, and nationalistic feelings is rather silly, but since we live in a world that's chopped up like that anyway, I'll use this classification here as well. Below is an overview of the countries I have been to so far (grouped by continent), including the dates and a short description of what I've done in these places (well, I won't tell you everything!). And of course I hope to continue my world wide wanderings in the future, so I can keep adding to the list.
If you happen to have about 8 minutes to spare, and enough bandwidth (30Mb), you can view some images of places I have been in the past...
Not all who wander are lost...
| Country | Dates | Activities |
| The Netherlands | Up to 12/94 | The country I was born and raised in, and where I did my undergraduate studies. Still go back there for the occasional family visit, although I find it too flat, too wet, and too crowded... |
| Austria | 12/01-05/02 | Worked as a postdoc at the Wirtschaftsuniversität Wien (Vienna) for 4 months. Did many hiking and snowshoeing trips in the Austrian Alps. Friendly country. |
| France | 10/04-04/05; 07/06-08/06 | Worked as a postdoc at the LIRMM, Montpellier, for 6 months. Spent time hiking around in the French Alps, the Massif Central, the Pyrenees, and Corsica. Also short (work) visits to Paris, Lyon, Calais, Grenoble, and Marseille at various times. |
| Switzerland | 10/07-12/08; 10/10-current | Worked as a bioinformatics specialist at the University of Lausanne. Lots of hiking, trekking, and snowshoeing in the Swiss Alps. Actually trying to create somewhat of a home base here. The mountains used to be wilderness, but the swiss have turned them into a big playground! |
| UK | 07/09-09/09 | Worked as a postdoc at the University of Oxford. Also short research visits to the University of East Anglia, Norwich, and the Isaac Newton Institute for the Mathematics Sciences, Cambridge, and a workshop at the Royal Society, London, at various other times. I keep wondering how this country can have been one of the world's biggest empires... ;-) |
| Germany | 03/03; 01/04; 09/06 | Research visits to the Universität Leipzig and Universität Tübingen, plus various other short (personal) visits. |
| Slovenia | 02/02 | Week-long workshop in Bled. Hiking in the mountains. Quite beautiful. |
| Hungary | 06/08 | Week-long workshop in Budapest. River trip, thermal baths, architecture. Very nice. |
| Finland | 04/12-05/12 | Worked at the Tampere University of Technology for one month. Also made short sightseeing trips up to Rovaniemi (on the arctic circle) and Helsinki. |
| Belgium, Spain, Luxembourg, Czech Republic, Italy, Liechtenstein | Various | Various trips to Brussels, Barcelona (Gaudi!), Luxembourg, Prague, Rome, or just passing through by train (Liechtenstein). |
| Country | Dates | Activities |
| USA | 01/95-10/01; 02/04; 08-09/10 | Worked at the Santa Fe Institute and did my graduate studies at the University of New Mexico (NM), spent a few months at Yale University (New Haven, CT), and traveled, hiked, and mountain biked extensively all over the southwest (CO, NM, AZ, UT, CA, NV). Visited Chicago (IL), Washington DC, New York City (NY), San Francisco (CA), Durham (NC), Boston (MA), and a bunch of other places. Trying to make it a habit to go back for regular visits. |
| Canada | 09/07; 07/10 | A two-week family visit in Victoria on Vancouver Island (BC). Did a few hiking trips and saw a bit of the island. Came back for another month to visit the family again and do more hiking on the island and also in Banff and Lake Louise (AB). Presented a seminar at the university of Calgary along the way. |
| Country | Dates | Activities |
| Brazil | 06/02-02/03 | Worked as a postdoc at the Universidade de São Paolo in São Carlos for 6 months, and spent 3 months traveling around the whole country afterwards. I loved it! |
| Country | Dates | Activities |
| South Africa | 02/07-08/07 | Worked as a postdoc at the National Bioinformatics Network in Cape Town for 4 months (was supposed to be 6, but I'll tell you that story over a beer sometime...), and traveled around the country a bit afterwards. |
| Country | Dates | Activities |
| India | 07/05-06/06; 10/06-12/06; 01/09-05/09 | Worked as a visiting researcher at Karunya University (near Coimbatore, Tamil Nadu) for 6 months, did a little consultancy project in Bangalore, volunteered to teach english to Tibetan refugees in Dharamsala, and spend the rest of the time just traveling around the country. Returned for 2 months for another consultancy project and again for 4 months to teach at the Ambedkar Institute of Technology, both in Bangalore. India certainly doesn't stop amazing me! |
| Singapore | 01/06 | Spent a week in the world's largest shopping mall to obtain a new visa for India. Love the food courts, hate the humidity... |
| China | 11/09-04/10 | Worked in Shanghai, at Fudan University and the Partner Institute for Computational Biology of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, for 4 months. Spent another 2 months traveling around the country. Altogether a very interesting experience. Hope to go back some day. |
| South Korea | 05/10 | Spent one month in this lovely country, doing a little project at Hanyang University in Seoul for two weeks, visiting Postech in Pohang for one week, and doing a few hikes in various places. |
| Japan | 06/10 | Was in this beautiful country for one month, visiting several universities to present some seminars, and then traveling around for a while. Did many nice hikes in various places, including to the top of Mt. Fuji. Expensive country, but certainly worth it. |
| Nepal | 03/12 | Did the Annapurna Base Camp trek. Was great! The Himalayas are impressive... |
| Country | Dates | Activities |
| New Zealand | 03/03-12/03; 03/04-04/04 | Worked as a postdoc at the University of Canterbury, Christchurch (south island), for 9 months and made several research visits to Massey University, Palmerston North (north island). Did lots of hiking in the Southern Alps. Returned for another 2 months to travel around the whole country and do more hiking trips. Stunning place! |
| Fiji | 02/04 | Spent 2 weeks doing some hiking in the hills and relaxing on the beaches of this island nation. Very beautiful. |
| Australia | 05/04-07/04 | Traveled around the eastern and central parts of the country for 3 months, hiking around everywhere. Stunning wildlife! |
| Country | Dates | Activities |
| Antarctica | ?? | Never been there yet, but hope to make it some day. If you can get me a job there, that'd be cool! (pun intended...) |
Said the straight man, to the late man
Where have you been?
I've been here and, I've been there and
I've been in between...
---King Crimson