Dear world: Help wanted. Plz send a rowboat and a few paddles. It’s no secret by now that a volcano in Iceland with an unpronounceable name decided to get cranky this week and stranded hundreds of thousands of people all over the world.
With that out of the way, Did you know… that half the Wikimedia Foundation staff and a lot of volunteers who were in Berlin for the Wikimedia Developers and Chapters conferences (since renamed, collectively, “Ashcon”), were among those who were stuck? We’re making the best of it… we’ve got it better than a lot of people. We’re in a very nice hotel in downtown Berlin, and we’ve got food and drink. We’re missing our families and really want to be home, but the whole trip has a very “summer camp” feeling to it now. We’ve done laundry, and “the boys” (as Danese affectionately calls them) are whacking some Mediawiki bugs from our makeshift office in the lobby. The kind people at Wikimedia-Germany have been wonderful hosts, arranging outings, giving tours of their office, and connecting us with local Wikimedians for sight-seeing tours. We’re getting pretty good at ordering curry-wurst, and we’ve found the local Ka-De-We department store (which Danese affectionately labeled “heaven”). On the whole, we’re doing okay. Some of us are even optimistic about making it home someday soon. Others are practicing their German. But Iceland, you’re on notice: we’re holding a grudge. ____________________ Philippe Beaudette Facilitator, Strategy Project Wikimedia Foundation phili...@wikimedia.org Imagine a world in which every human being can freely share in the sum of all knowledge. Help us make it a reality! http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Donate _______________________________________________ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l