I have Kate Bingaman-Burt‘s Twitter feed to thank for linking me to her Tumblr page (her’s is my favorite on the web right now), linking me to this post where she mentioned being in Amsterdam promoting her new book, Obsessive Consumption, at the ABC Urban Arts Festival in Amsterdam this weekend. Then I saw that Pia Jane Bijkerk is also going to be there promoting her new book, Amsterdam Made By Hand, and the festival looked awesome too with it’s emphasis on the urban edge of design (just my style!). I know these women well thanks to the web world and numerous email exchanges. In fact they’ve both participated in Boarding Pass (Pia here and Kate here). So, I figured, what better excuse to go to Amsterdam – one of my favorite cities, particularly for design – than to meet these two lovely ladies in person finally. So in less than a week – when this crazy idea first popped in my head – I’ve pulled together last minute, CHEAP train tickets (zepass.com is my new favorite site for last minute travel in Europe!), pieced together lodging, plan to see my friends who passed through Paris a couple weeks ago for a second time (after 2 years of living in Africa), arranged to meet Joyce of Rosa Blu for my own private tour of her favorite neighborhood in Amsterdam, and meet some new friends of friends. Yes, my friends, this is how I travel – frugally chic with a vague plan that’s designed to be broken. Even with all this, I promise in my two days away there will be plenty of down time, good eating (Proef, finally!), sitting in cafes (of the coffee/beer, not the brown kind) and taking in the city.

More on the festival which takes place on Saturday, June 26th at the American Book Center in Amsterdam:
These ‘creatives’ have been chosen to participate because they represent a cross section of graphic designers, illustrators, graffiti artists, fiber artists, paper-toy designers – all with an urban edge.

Across the square, in the ABC Treehouse, workshops will offer free ‘hands on’ lessons to the public and discussions with artists, publishers and other industry professionals covering subjects such as design, crafts, illustration and practical crossovers between the areas.

The ABC Urban Arts Illustrated Book panel URBAN will be the first panel in the Netherlands to emphasize “street art / urban art “ as part of the world of visual / illustrated books, and trace the journey of a design book from idea to book shelves. The panel will be moderated by Buzz Poole, managing editor of Mark Batty Publisher (NY).

P.S. Speaking of how I travel, check out this interview I did with Travelinsurance.org.