The Beggar & the Tourist (by Shahriar Shahriari)

I saw an old man lying by the side of the street staring into oblivion
What a simple existence, purposeless and futile my opinion
He saw a young man busily running around in futile pursuit
Only to fulfill what he was taught, someone's ideal to suit
I see the existence of a beggar, idle and senseless
He sees the life of a slave, brainwashed and defenseless.

	I attended AIIDE 2008 at Stanford with Jonathan, went for a hike with Ethan, and visited Ron Fagin at IBM Almaden Research Center.
	I went for a refreshing hike with Frank in the beautiful Elbsandsteingebirge.
	I attended MPC 2008 and visited Marseille with Qi-Qi.
	I attended EC'08, visited Prof. Gmytrasiewicz, and had a look at Chicago.
	I visited Qi-Qi in Santa Fe during her summer school, and together with some of the other nerds we did some delightful hikes in the beautiful surroundings...
	I attended AAMAS 2008 in Cascais and took some time to explore Lisbon and surroundings.
	After attending a symposium on Logic and the Simulation of Interaction and Reasoning, Jonathan and I went for a short hiking trip near Aberdeen, which got a bit more snowy than planned...
	I visited Rouhia in Barcelona and explored the city with her bike.
	I attended a conference at a Game Theory Center in Stony Brook and then walked around in New York City for a week.
	I attended the conference IJCAI-07 and afterwards travelled a bit through South India. Since it's probably going to take me a year to finish the travel diary, and since it's going to be in German anyway, I made a little summary of some of my experiences :)
	I attended WINE 2006 in Patra and had a look at Athens on the way.
	And on to the next conference... LOFT06 in Liverpool!
	I attended the Summer School on Game Theory in Computer Science in Århus and went via Frederikshavn to Göteborg for the weekend.
	Ramon from Hospitalityclub gathered a group to go on a mud walk, which promised to be an event I wouldn't want to miss.
	A school on computational complexity took place in Bertinoro, Italy. Besides studying hard it was also possible to enjoy the surroundings and to have a look at Cesena and Bologna.
	My friend Ania organised a big spring party in the small village of Wieciorka, close to Krakow. Of course I had to go there!
	Carnival in Cologne 2006 – one huge party!
	Here you can look at some pictures from the Hospitalityclub New Year meeting 2005/06 in Riga and my short trip to St Petersburg and Moscow. It was usually dark by the time I got out, or at least it was cloudy, so don't expect too lively colours :-)
	The weekend after Wroclaw we went to a lido in Berlin where a big Hospitalityclub meeting and great party took place.
	Martin and I went to Wroclaw (Breslau) in Poland to visit our Hospitalityclub friends Justyna and Krzysztof in September 2005. We had a great time!
	Together with Hendrik I went to the beautiful city of Edinburgh end of July 2005 in order to attend the IJCAI-05.
	I went to Berlin for Richard's birthday, and together we went to the Tulipan exhibition where you could see lots of – well, tulips.
	In early March 2005, I went to Rokytnice nad Jizerou in the Czech Republic together with some exchange student friends to go skiing and have some cheap and tasty food :-)
	My Swedish friend Sebastian and his brother own two tents for selling food on summer festivals. Together with Nadim and Lars I went to the Sweden Rock festival in Sölvesborg to help Sebastian and his folks preparing and selling wok-noodles...
	I went to Berlin over the weekend to visit my friend Richard and to see the Carnival of Cultures.
	One week of fun – interesting courses, nice people of all kinds, and little to no sleep – that's what they call IK2004.
	In the end of February 2004, I made a short trip to the beautiful city of Prague together with my good old friends Frank and Maja.
	During my exchange year in Göteborg, I did quite a lot of travelling in Scandinavia, mostly in Sweden of course.