Long way to go

I'm back from a week running around London and Amsterdam. I had an absolute blast, especially because I met up with a dozen friends from Chicago, New York, London, and Taiwan, but I was really surprised at how much I missed Berlin. I've barely been here a month and a half, but it feels like home. Strange that it happened so quickly.

My prepaid phone ran out of money on the first day I was away, and I only checked email twice in the entire week, so it was the most unplugged I've been in a very long time, probably since the month I spent in Ghana.

As opposed to the last time I was there, I really enjoyed London this time around. We stayed at Kris's awesome flat in Hoxton, where we met up with Nicole, Brian, Joanna, Tim, Sam, Jude, and Lauren. I also got to see Aidan, who lives in London, which was really nice because I hadn't seen him in a while.

I was a bit overwhelmed at first; it had been some time since I had been surrounded by a lot of people who have known me for a while. So I got very excited (and possibly a bit obnoxious), as well as loquacious, which was funny because as several people pointed out, my English had deteriorated a little. (Though after a week of talking to my American friends all day every day, it's back to normal.) We walked around a ton, rode the tube, shopped at some markets, ate a lot, drank a lot, and goofed off. So much fun.

While we were in London we went to a dubstep/grime night at Old Blue Last, where David Banner played. Saturday evening I went to the Tate Modern and saw the Albers and Moholy-Nagy and the Martin Kippenberger exhibits, which were both amazing. I also met up with Doris and Tony for the Alexander Robotnick show at Plastic People, which was a lot of fun.

Unfortunately, I got some really bad food poisoning or something on Sunday, so I spent a whole day in bed when I wasn't vomiting, ugh. I was better the next day, which was good because we had to fly to Amsterdam. The day I was sick I loaned my camera to Brian and Joanna, and will post the pictures they took on Flickr when they finish uploading. The photos I took in London are on my photolog, of course.

Next update: Amsterdam, once I get the pictures posted and a little more downtime. Friends are in Berlin until Sunday, and there is much running around to be done.