2017 — what an awesome year
I just realized that another year just passed and I thought what another unspectacular year it was. But when looking back and reflecting, this year was absolutely not normal. I scrolled my calendar back and spotted an amazing time back in 2017.
First some stats…
I was just curious and played around with some numbers. Because all my steps and activities are tracked by Google Maps, I do have a lot of data to use.
Then I added some manual metrics to it and came up with some amazing stats:
In 2017 I…
… slept 110 nights in another location than my home.
… stayed in 26 different hotels
… did 62 smaller and bigger journies (10 of them were outside my home country)
… worked a 100% workload
… traveled by public transportation for about 16k Swiss francs
… took 10 flights
… have been to 11 different countries
… visited 27 large cities (8 of them were capitals)
I like to guide you through my awesome year as a review. Let’s start the year 2017:
January: Internship as a cameraman/cutter
The whole first month I made a break from my current work as a frontend engineer and started an internship at a local video production company. This was a step toward the direction to become a freelancer cameraman and get back into video production.
Strongman
A really cool event is the Fisherman’s Strongman Run — Winter Edition. It took place in the Mountains of the French part of Switzerland. When the event took place it snowed the whole day and the evening before. On the day there was almost one-meter of new snow. So the best requirement for the run. And I really mean this way. Watch our official highlight video below.
Adelboden Ski Weltcup
Once in a year, there’s a famous event taking place in Adelboden. It’s a skiing race, part of the Skiweltcup, the season for the professional skiers. The company I work for has the opportunity to do the Stadion-TV, do videos for social media and even stream the press conferences live after the races.
Cutting a Swiss Marathon registration movie
Besides being out in the snow behind the camera. Sometimes I also sit behind the computer and cut some videoclips. One I did during my internship was a short trailer for a marathon. The footage was shot on the last edition.
Video spot for the village of Bever
It was kind of a graduation work for my internship. So I spend a weekend with another intern in the beautiful, but extremely cold Engadina (-25°). We shoot there a promotion video for the upcoming Ski World Championship in St. Moritz.
As part of the shoot, we explored the tiny village of Bever at it’s best. While shooting the best parts of the town, we were able to enjoy delicious food, great leisure activities, accommodations and even parties. Before the trip I couldn’t imagine that this remote place even had something to offer. It’s extreme how much a place with 200 inhabitants can offer.
February: Ski World Championship St. Moritz
One of the biggest events in the ski circus is for sure the world championship. I was lucky to be part of this event as a cameraman and could feel the atmosphere there.
Because I had VIP access, I took some time-lapse videos besides my main work:
March: Zermatt with Joshua Earle
Because the famous guy from Unsplash spend some days in Zermatt and I also was never to this place, I decided to meet him over there.
He was the whole week up in the mountains with his tend and took some fabulous shoots. By the way, Joshua Earle started writing and wrote a good article about his passion and Unsplash here on Medium. Check it out.
April: Stuttgart & Promovideo Fisherman Strongman
During Eastern 2017 I decided to travel to a nearby German city. I choose Stuttgart. So I was there for 4 days and explored the place.
On my way back from Stuttgart I edited the promotion video for this year’s attempt of the Fishermans StrongmanRun. For me it was an honor to do so, because I knew this video gets a lot of traction on social media and local television stations which is always very rewarding.
The video got more than half a million views on social media platforms like Facebook, Instagram and YouTube. It was also shown on multiple local TV’s.
I was sitting in the Flixbus in the evening and was creating the following video. The people behind me, which were able to watch my screen, must be very surprised when they saw it on social media or television. And I’m sure there were some which faced this situation.
April: Salzburg
Family time. In the last year, my parents and I went at least once a year for holiday with our caravan. This time we went to the German/Austrian border near Salzburg. The weather was everything other than good. Rain and even snow when we visited the city of Salzburg. Nevertheless, we enjoyed the time off and made the best out of it.
May: MODX Meetup Munich
At my job, I had a bigger project to finish with quite difficult technical challenges to solve. I choose a different framework to work with than I was used to. This led me to a Meetup in Munich, a couple of hours by car from my workplace.
I took the journey with my boss, which is a big believer in the content management system I decided to use and was willing to support me there.
May: The Next Web Conference Amsterdam
One of the biggest tech events in Europe is The Next Web (TNW). With 14'000 attendees it’s just crazy — I would call it a nerd festival.
After missing it in 2016, I booked my tickets quite early and was happy to be part of this event this year.
A friend of mine and me booked an Airbnb on a houseboat, which sounds like the real Amsterdam place to stay, and it was. An awesome place. We also took advantage to visit the city and chill there a little.
June: WordCamp Europe Paris
Every year again. After Vienna a year before, Paris was on the list this year. A group of 3 Swiss developers, including me, meet at the train heading to Zurich airport. Knowing to meet a couple more when we arrive. A WordCamp is kind of a gathering of known people for me. A lot of common faces everywhere.
June: Strongman Run Switzerland — Summer Edition
It was summer, time for the summer edition of the StrongmanRun. A huge event in the mountains of Switzerland (Engelberg). 2000 attendees, which are ready to get thirty and wet. Our job was to record this event and create an awesome video from it, which our team did. Have a look below.
June: Hiking in Switzerland (Andeer)
Since spring I owned the DJI Mavic Pro drone. I was actively flying and on the hunt for some amazing aerial footage. In Switzerland, the best places are for sure the mountains. On the weekends and sometimes even after work I went out in the mountains and flew my drone.
What I learned is that beautiful weather isn’t always best. Let’s see an example of some clouds hanging into the valley.
July/August: Civil Service (Brigels)
Every Swiss citizen has to serve for the nation. An option is to be part of the army or do the civil service. Which I did this year. I worked at a farm for 2 months during the summer.
The work I did there was completely different from the work I’m used to. But it’s always interesting to learn new stuff and do things I haven’t done for a long time. Being outside every day doing physical work is hard, especially when normally working in the office like I do. But I liked this difference for a couple of weeks. But just with the knowledge that I can go back to my desk at some point.
On the 1st of August, which is the birthday of the Switzerland, we had the day off. So the farmer, his sons and me went for a hike just up the hill. The weather was amazing and we had great fun climbing the top.
August: Camping on a mountain
This year, my colleague and I decided to buy some camping gear. With the intend to use to camp on a mountaintop and enjoy the nature and most importantly to photograph the sunsets and sunrises.
As everything, we had to learn the basic stuff. I was used to camping, but just with caravans. Camping with trends and back bag is a different experience. So we started small. First, we just went uphill and set up the tend and tried to get something warm from our gas cooker.
The next step was climbing a mountain and set up the tend at the mountaintop, which we learned is not always the wisest decision. We regretted quite fast after a thunderstorm came up and strong winds. After trying to fight the wind on the edge of a cliff we had no other opportunity then try to dismantle the tend during the storm. After we moved to a more secure and most importantly wind covered place, we enjoyed the sunrise in the morning. Disclaimer: we missed the sunset because the wind kept us busy, which was a bummer.
September: WordCamp Bern
As a co-organizer of the Swiss WordCamp, I spend some time preparing for the event in advanced and as the video dude, especially after the event. We were very happy, that the event went well and enjoyed the capital of Switzerland during the days.
September: Holiday in Greece
Autumn came in and to your surprise, I almost had no holiday this year. So I had a lot of days to kill.
The first trip was leading me to Greece, which was always on my bucket list. Because I now had a tend and was used to it (more or less), a colleague and me decided to go for it. It was a great decision. I really enjoyed the time and made some amazing photographs.
First, we toured the island of Creta with a rental car and our back bags. Later we flew over to the capital Athens. We rented an Airbnb and discover the historical places. Both very different experiences, but amazing.
October: Landscape in the Engadina
When the autumn starts and it’s getting colder, the trees are preparing for winter. In a region close to my hometown this phenomenon is very nice to watch. All trees are colored yellow and it’s an amazing look. So we took our car and drove there for a weekend.
November: WordCamp Utrecht
My third WordCamp in this year took part in the Netherlands. I spend 2 days at the conference before visiting Rotterdam and staying one more day in Amsterdam.
WordCamp’s are all about meeting people and exchange ideas and technical issues we face in our daily work. Besides the personal connection with other developers, designer or marketers, there are a lot of presentations to follow. So there’s a lot going on.
After the conference, we normally sit together and enjoy a great dinner. This was exactly what we did also in Utrecht. In an Italian Restaurant.
November/December: Backpacking Scandinavia
The end of the year was a very exciting one. Because I had still a lot of holidays left, I decided to grab an Interrail ticket to travel Europe. I like the northern part of Europe, so I decided to go all the way to the dark and cold areas — northern Norway to name my destination. I wanted to experience the aurora and do some amazing photographies there.
I repeated what I did in Greece 1.5 months ago. Pack the backpack and travel as much as I could. Because it takes ages to get to the far north by train I bought a last-minute flight ticket to Tromsø via Stockholm and Oslo. On all cities, I had the ability to visit for a couple of hours. After arriving in the beautiful town of Tromsø I gave myself some time to rest and hunt the northern light, which I sadly wasn’t able to find. Because the time between October and March is high season for tourists there, I wasn’t the only one and I was able to explore the area with other travelers.
After some days in the north, I made my way via bus and train to Kiruna (Sweden). This is a very interesting city. Next to the city there’s a mine, where tourists can go below ground and explore the underground world.
At the time, when I was in the Swedish Lapland, the solar activity was very high and I decided to rent an Airbnb a little outside the town to finally get the chance to see the lights. This time I was lucky and spotted some incredible lights. But because it was so cold, I wasn’t out that long to photograph. Luckily my lodge was located next to the lake and I had a beautiful sight.
After enjoying almost 2 weeks in the cold north of Europe I took the train and drove all the way down in direction south. 18h drive by train until arriving in Stockholm and then 6 more hours to Copenhagen, where I stayed for one more day and visited the city.
December: Spengler Cup Davos
My personal favourite ice hockey tournament, the Spengler Cup. Not just because it’s so close to my hometown, also because there’s great sport to follow. When I was a child, the time between Xmas and new year was blocked in my calendar to watch the games on the television. An attraction I was excited to watch every year. This year I was able to attend this event in person. Not just as a spectator, no as a cameraman. Which is awesome because you get so close to the interesting stuff.
Overall a very interesting week working at the Spengler Cup in Davos. But also a very challenging one — 7 days nonstop concentrated work.
Beside all these activities outside my main work, I also achieved a lot as a web developer. This year was more focused on the activities I’ve done during my leisure time than work itself. Although a lot of activities were work-related like conferences and meetups.
2018 will not slow down. In January I already was in Dubai and Oman. Let’s see what this year holds.
—
Marc Wieland
WordPress. Front-End Development. UX. Cinematography. Landscape Photography. Time-Lapse Video.
