A hand-picked selection of things to do, seasoned
with ideas, stories and people of interest.
Happy Monday, everyone! We hope you had a great weekend, and are easing nicely into March.
Today, we wanted to share an interview with one of our organizers, Nadine. Nadine hosts the ever popular “Make your own sock monkey” workshops in Berlin for a great cause! Read more to learn all about Nadine, her partner charity Tara for Children, and the sock monkey revolution…
Happy Monday, all! We hope you had a great weekend.
Today we’d like to introduce you to Robert, of the “Hail a Tour!” events in London. Robert is a qualified taxi tour guide and has a number of awesome guided adventures though London up on Gidsy - explore Harry Potter’s London, Murder in the Metropolis, Classic London & London’s American Links in the back of his classic black cab. Keep reading to learn all about Robert, his love for London, and his connection to the Royal wedding…
Happy Monday, everyone! We hope you had a great weekend.
Today we’d like to share a little interview we did with Florian, the organizer of the awesome Maltby St. Market Lock-In event, which is happening soon in London. Florian runs the successful Foodtri.ps Foodcamps and Porkcamps, where he brings people together around food. Read more to learn all about Florian, his Foodcamps and his love for celeriac…
Happy Monday, everyone! We hope you had a great weekend.
Today we’d like to share a little interview with Mark, the organizer of the ever popular NYC Dumpling Tours. Read on to learn all about Mark, his experience with Gidsy and all things dumpling! Is anyone else hungry?…
Happy Tuesday, everyone!
Today we wanted to share a short interview that we did last week with Piet, the organizer of the awesome “Policetour Redlight District, 1980” tour in Amsterdam. A former Amsterdam police officer, Piet’s got a lot of really interesting anecdotes from his time “on duty” back in the early 1980s. Keep reading to learn more about Piet, his large collection of stories from his time as a cop, and his upcoming comic book!
How are you?!
I am fine and cannot wait until Friday! That will be my first Gidsy tour.
Tell us a bit about your background, and how you came to be an Amsterdam police officer?
In 1977 when I was 23, I started training to become a police officer. After one year at school, I started working at the Precinct Red Light District (a.k.a. Bureau Warmoesstraat) where I worked for 8 years. I became the senior police officer there.
In 1986 I started working at the Police Training School Noord-Holland in Amsterdam (Police Academy), as a trainer of police officers and a creator of educational videos. Midway through the nineties I became interested in interactive design and in 1999 I became senior project manager at a full service internet agency in Amsterdam. Since 2007 I’ve been working as an internet consultant at NS (the Dutch Railways) where I am responsible for producing and launching mobile apps for our customers.
When the Precinct Red Light District was forced to close in 2000, I claimed the URL www.bureauwarmoesstraat.nl and didn’t actually use it until 2004. Then, I decided to publish stories from the past about what happened at this police bureau and I collected stories from my former colleagues. It totally took off, and so far 290 stories have been published! I call it the living legend.
In the very near future, I will launch my comic book “PrecinctRedlight district” (it’s in Dutch and English), based on the true cop stories from my website. The cartoons are drawn by Eric Heuvel (http://eric-heuvel.nl/)
What was your inspiration to organize the Red Light district tour? What are some highlights from your event that you’d like to share?
To keep the legend alive I started “tour with a former police cop of Bureau Warmoesstraat” about 3 years ago. From that day on, I’ve been doing the tour on weekends for different groups.
There are several highlights: I‘ll tell you all about the drug dealing, prostitution and gambling on a regular day back in the eighties!
How did you find out about Gidsy?
After I saw DWDD on Dutch television last week I couldn’t wait and posted my tour immediately. The next day the first booking was there!
How has your experience been with Gidsy so far?
What I like the most is the interface and the immediate answering of my questions! That makes you feel alright!
What’s your favourite thing about Amsterdam?
Amsterdam is the feel-free city of Europe! You have to be there to discover it!
Ok, last question (a bit off topic!) - What are you reading right now?
I’ve nearly finished reading “Ouwe hoeren” a book with real stories about old prostitute twins in the Redlight district.
Thanks so much for your interview, Piet! And congrats with your awesome tour!
Happy Friday, all!
Today we’d like to share a little interview with one of our organizers, Robert Gaal. Robert lives in Amsterdam, and recently hosted the successful “Amsterdam from a Start-Up Perspective” tour.
Keep reading to learn all about Robert, and how he got involved in the Amsterdam Start-Up scene…
Now for the latest in a series of interviews with Berlin’s organizers. We met up with Matze Hielscher, party planner, blogger and self-proclaimed ‘pop kid’ to discuss his work and Berlin’s changing cultural scene.
Interview with Matze Hielscher by Gidsy
Who are you and what do you do?
I’m Matze, and I’m from south of Brandenburg, which is between Berlin and Dresden. I’m 31, and I’m…doing things.
What sort of things are you doing in Berlin?
Lots of different things. Most of the things involve parties, concerts, culture…events. I hate the word ‘events’ - it’s horrible, and I never want to call myself ‘Event Manager’, but maybe that’s what I am.
Another in our series of interviews with organizers in Berlin: we spoke with Etsy.com’s European Director, Matt Stinchcomb, about the upcoming Hello Etsy conference, what Etsy Labs gets up to, and lessons to be learnt on the subjects of small business and sustainability.
Who are you and what do you do?
Gosh. Who am I…I guess that’s what I’m still trying to figure out too! I am the European Director for Etsy.com. I live here in Berlin with my wife and young boy, Francis. I basically am responsible for getting Etsy going in Europe. I moved to Berlin a year and a half ago to do that.
As our launch is getting close, we’re hunting for the most creative, unusual and eye-catching activities in Berlin and New York City. And we want to feature the best ones when we launch. So whether you want to organize cooking classes, beekeeping master classes, chocolate bonbon workshops or unique walking tours - this is your chance.
Why create a listing now? Because featured activities get a lot of attention, press-love, access to new features we’ve been working on and most importantly: a lot of bookings for your activity…
Creating a listing just takes 2 minutes.
The latest in our series of interviews with organizers in Berlin: we talk to Stefanie Gerke, Nele Heinevetter and Katharina Beckmann about Niche Berlin, a service they invented to provide personalized art and architecture tours featuring some of Berlin’s often overlooked treasures.
Who are you and what do you do?
We are Stefanie, Nele and Katharina. We are the founders of Niche Berlin, an agency with which we organize art and architecture tours in Berlin – to the niches. We focus on interesting but widely unknown locations: non-commercial project spaces and innovative buildings.
