Yesterday was the day of the Dutch Bloggies. And I was there. Unprepared, unexpected, but I was there. 18 blogs were awarded in 18 categories. 250 people where in the Atrium in The Hague to witness it. And I am not going to tell you who won. I am also not going to tell you about the jury, the countless hours of judging and reading blogs and I am not going to tell you about sponsors or media coverage. I am going to tell you about twitter.

Highlights of my day yesterday were walking up to a restaurant picked by @raaphorst. Spending time eating with @eef, @arjanh, @erwblo and others (forgot the nicks, comments please…). Or going to Pavlov half an our before the bloggies and chatting to @leolovestwtr and @marlooz about how natural it seemed to be twittering while talking to others. And nobody in the group thought it was strange. Sitting next to @phoef during the award ceremony I felt both on the backchannel as well as in the Atrium. A nice combination of being close to people there and yet not sitting next to you. And after the awards there was the time meeting so many of the twitterazi I am connected with.

The evening was great. For me the main thing was just being there and being with a group of friends who I never met before, except for on twitter. And it proved to me once again that relationships can build online and extend naturally into ‘real life’. I had a great time. Thanks @frankmeeuwsen for making the evening happen. And to @erwblo for inviting me over. Mostly to talk about the Support your local Startup! rules. But I guess we’ll have to do that online again today.