Starting the sprint with a walk

It's an exciting week for the Mapnik community, as the first international meetup and code sprint is kicking off on Friday in London, with remote participants from San Francisco and New Zealand.

I've arrived to the UK early to meet up with Artem in the tranquil town of Charlbury where Mapnik consulting is based. After several years of working closely together on Mapnik development we had a lot to talk about in person, so Artem proposed we take the train a few stops down to Oxford and explore the city on foot.

We had a lovely day walking in the sun, through the university, stopping at markets, pubs, and museums while chatting about how we ended up sharing so much in common and what keeps us going, in code and life.

We're both thrilled about all of the community that is coming together on IRC and in London and San Francisco to think about fun things they'd like to do with Mapnik. See you all soon!