...is admittedly already a while back and I'm actually currently taking care of school stuff, organizing some things at home and enjoying this. Nevertheless I wanted to quickly share the events of the day that seems to be so very special to the nowegian people.

At first I thought this søttende mai - which marks the Norwegian Constitutional Day, akin to the 4th of July in the United States - would turn out somewhat similar to the Koniginnendag back in Holland. But unlike the Dutch, who have a more or less humorous approach to the whole event by covering everything in orange color and wearing trashy fake crowns as a reference to the queen, the Norwegians take their day a bit more serious.

Yes, there was also lots of drinking and partying the night before (which I did) and yes, the streets are also crowded with lots of cheerful people, but everything seemed to have sort of a posh touch to it. Everybody, kids and adults alike, was either wearing traditional clothing or their finest Sunday-suits and dresses, as if they were out for a peachy weekend stroll in the park. There was lots of flag-waving and several parades - one for the kids, one for the Russ, for who it marked the last day of their celebrations, and one featuring the King and Queen themselves, waving to the people and all that jazz - after which the mob flocked to the local parks, the harbour or any other public space for fancy lunches. And oh yeah, they all said 'Happy Birthday!' to everyone they met. You know, 'cause it's Norway's birthday...

Apart from feeling slightly awkward in a celebration that I have absolutely no relation to and - being the German that I am - having suspicions towards everything that involves overly patriotic gestures, it was particularily bizarre to walk through these masses of excessively dressed-up people in jeans and a t-shirt. Especially since I'm not the type of guy for this kind of appareal anyways. Being hungover and uncomfortable, I only took a couple of pictures, had a quick chillout session with Magnus and Niklas down by the fjord and crawled back to bed. Should've listened to that half of the people who told me to get away as far as possible from Oslo on this specific date.

In a little less than ten hours I'll be heading to good ol' Germany. Happy to go home even though it's gonna be some extremely busy two and half weeks. Hope everything works out ok. Wish me luck!

Last part, I promise. Just wanted to drop a few lines about the smaller things that were going on these five days in Portugal.

For example was there an interactive 'Space Invaders' game on a huuuge touchscreen – instead of a joystick, you had to throw rubber balls at the aliens. There was Humvee/DJ podium from which two guys were playing electronica almost the entire festival – with a maximum audience of maybe 20. There were a couple of smaller installations, mostly focused on user interaction, a long row of tables with designers selling books, t-shirts and artwork (only few things were really cool though), and a 'chill out zone' where you could play Xbox or just recharge your laptop. The sanitary facilities consisted of a massive array of port-a-potties, where on the first day you had to wash your hands with bottled water cause they hadn't installed any sinks yet. Getting food (toast sandwiches, baguettes) or drinks (water, beer, Red Bull) was almost impossible due to never ending queues and a stupid system where you had to first buy vouchers which you could then 'trade' for the product of your choice. As I've said before, the bad organization of catering, the toilets and the horrible acoustics were the three major downsides of the festival.

A lot of the designers, even though they had their own 'VIP Room', could be seen walking around the premise and watching lectures, always distinguishable by their big badges instead of wristbands. So you could actually get up close and personal with the creative masterminds if you wanted to – I saw a lot of them talking to visitors/admirers throughout these three days. Some of the designers even stated in their lectures that you should just approach them off-stage if you had a question or just wanted to chat. And so I could observe Stefan Sagmeister being followed around, almost molested by two female groupies the entire time. He didn't seem to mind too much – they were pretty good-looking and for some reason he didn't show up Saturday morning for one of the discussion Panels... I could also see that the energetic Joshua Davis looks pretty tired and worn out from up close. I even managed to talk to Si Scott for a couple of minutes – by the way, him and me look pretty alike, if I were to shrink a bit and gain a little weight I could pose as his friggin' stunt double – and I might be getting a custom tattoo by him... We'll see :)

All in all, I'm very happy and grateful that I had the opportunity to go to this very recommendable 'cause interesting and inspiring event. It was very very worth it. Thanks Bleed!

As a thank you for bearing with me through this shitlong text (one of the top 5 longest ever written on this blog, I think) I've compiled the visual crème de la crème of this years OFFF conference in video form. An arrangement of finest moving image: OFFF 2009 Sponsor Titles by Onesize, U.V.A.'s stage visuals for Chemical Brothers' gig at Trafalgar Square last year, the short 'Western Spaghetti' from PES, a Gnarls Barkley video by Chris Milk, Re:Nascent's current showreel and the 'True Blood' opening titles from Digital Kitchen. Enjoy – and be patient, might take a while to load everything :D