Two cities, five hours, countless star*ucks and other strange attractors.

Relet and AP R went on a dérive simultané, separated by approximately 5000 miles (8000 km), and 9 hours of time difference. They got started each at a point NDDD.xabc EDDD.ydef (in WGS84 coordinates, commonly known as GPS coordinates) of their choosing, where DDD.x and DDD.y were chosen at will, but where abc and def represent the same general place, or close to it. They communicated via IRC chat, and coordinated their actions thoughout the whole derive. They both captured GPS tracklogs of their journey, a chatlog of the coordination action and a few photos on the way.

Relet's start: 59.91162, 10.72619 Saturday October 2nd, 3PM (Oslo, Norway)
AP R's start: 45.51162, -122.67381 Saturday October 2nd, 6AM (Portland, Oregon, USA)

During the journey, they would be attracted to each others abc, and def. Whenever they reached the same point, they would decide jointly which direction they should follow. As one journeyman was on the eastern hemisphere, and the other on the western, the northern coordinates should always be the same, but def (the fraction of longitude) for the one should be the same as 1000-def for the other. With relet and AP R living on opposite sides of the prime meridian, the coordinates will move down when moving in opposite directions. It seems simple in concept, but, as these adventurers would find out the hard way, simple math errors can be very costly.

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AP R's summary

I started my journey by waking at 4:45 AM, showering, and gathering the required equipment (fully charged smart phone, handheld GPS unit, and camera). I then walked down to the train station at 5, and boarded the 5:20 train into the city. I was surprised that there were so many people on the train given the time, but resigned myself to reading my book. About an hour later, I got off the train and walked to the starting point.

I feel the chat logs do a good job of describing the majority of the trip. The general flow of my part was from heavy commercial (office buildings, etc) through to lighter commercial (shops and such), then into residential, and finally into wooded areas. I feel it provided a good amount of variability, which kept it fresh throughout. Throughout the wanderings, relet was my strange attractor, constantly pulling me along with him.

All in all, I would be just as happy never even submitting this for a praxis, as the tasking itself was all the reward needed. However, due to the great fun, I also would feel bad not sharing it with the community which sparked the idea for the task, so here it is.

The final bit I will add to this are my lessons learned:
- simple math is not so simple at 6AM
- if embarking on a walking task and not going Lincoln, wear good walking shoes
- when trying to mirror another person's movements in a remote location, sticking to urban areas provides many more options, and much more interesting stuff.

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relet's summary

I decided to start the trip in Oslo, thinking that it would allow me for more interesting sights and more freedom of movement than in my part of the woods. To me, the trip would start in the mid afternoon and span into the night. I exclusively navigated with my android phone, which therefore had to use its batteries for GPS and the uplink, but I brought a second battery to be able to pull through.

A few hours before I took my bus to Oslo, I learned that there would be a food fair in the center. I therefore decided to take an earlier bus, thinking that I should quench my usual motives for movement (food) before embarking on the actual journey. The market was great, and full of Ø (because everything was økologisk). As I had one and a half hours, I also derived a bit on my own through the immediate surroundings to get into the spirit.

In summary, it felt great. It is a totally different thing whether you just hang around in a place and don't know what to do, or whether you are accomplishing something - even if that end is totally random. I enjoyed peeking here and poking there and taking pictures of it all. I barely noticed the time passing. And there is always so much new to see and do and play with in the big cities.

As you will see in the tracklog, I did not really prepare well for the tech part of the trip. I only understood apr's masterplan for calculating coordinates after having moved the first 100m, and didn't bring the correct software to actually aim towards any coordinates he would indicate me. We therefore resorted soon to me giving coordinates, him following roughly, and us two choosing cardinal directions for the continuation of the journey.

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The journey

If you have some time, we would like to invite you to follow us on our journey - step by step, and impression by impression. If you don't have the time, here's what you will be missing:
- Funny comments
- Desperate attempts to recover from bad math
- Nearly 200 pictures from the derive



Follow the journey on an interactive map:

In Oslo

or:

In Portland

NOTE:
The maps work best when you follow the chat and photo logs (left side of the screen) in sequential order: Click on every message to see where the actors have been, what they said and which photos were taken. Both maps will show both of our activities, whichever city you choose to be your backdrop. It looks best on a large-ish screen, so if you can set your browser to full-screen mode, do it.

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Selected pictures

We have taken a few pictures at roughly the same locations:

What is Mummy's Restaurant in Portland, is a tram line running through a fountain in Oslo:



We met some stairs at the same time:



Dense wood in Portland is a construction site with oncoming rail traffic in Oslo:



And while apr ended up in the woods, relet barely met a very square potted plant in the business district:



Here are a few more impressions that have shaped our journey: