Long way to go

I´m back in Buenos Aires. It´s nice to be someplace familiar again, but I have definitely settled into the rhythm of travel and can´t wait to go to the next place. Which is La Paz, Bolivia, the highest altitude city in the world. The more people I talk to, the more I am beginning to regret signing up for a tour of the country. I was a little nervous having heard that Bolivia is very rough, so I booked a 10 day tour. I haven´t taken a tour since 1998, really prefer to travel on my own. However, from talking to people at hostels it sounds like it´s quite accessible, and I would have been fine on my own. Ah well. The bright side is I can turn off my brain a little, not have to think about scheduling buses or finding hostels for a few days.

The bad news is I am spending money more quickly than I thought. My original plan was to head to Chile after Bolivia, then back to BA, then back to NYC. Now I think after Chile I´d really like to head south to Patagonia for a week or two...if the money holds out.

As for Cordoba, I was sad to stay there only one day. Admittedly, much of my stay was augmented by how nice of a hostel I stayed at; the asado (BBQ) Saturday night was a blast, as was checking out the rest of the town: the big Parque Sarmiento, Paseo de Flores, the Museum, and a couple clubs and bars.

My bus left Cordoba, or rather was scheduled to leave, at 11pm yesterday; at 11:20 there was still no sign of the bus. I was getting kind of nervous, but did a good job of not getting upset once I understood that I hadn´t just missed it. Eventually I found a middle aged Argentinian woman who was on my bus too, and we waited together. She didn´t speak any English, but told me all about her family and her vacation, about half of which I understood. We cheered together when the bus arrived, finally, at almost midnight. After I had taken my seat upstairs (she was sitting on the lower level of the bus), the woman found me, gave me a macrame and bead bracelet and necklace she had made, a hug, and her email address, wishing me bueno suerte. It was so sweet! Little things like this make me quite happy, and remind me why I travel.

Now that I am back in the big city, I should mention a few things about it before I forget, both good and...interesting.

- amazing steaks, so cheap. My favorite so far is La Cabrera, but I want to try other places too
- the Sunday market at Plaza Serrano
- the MALBA Museum´s permanent collection of contemporary Latin American art
- cortado (coffee)
- really cheap breezy dresses and clothes
- asado culture, BBQ is a universal activity
- seeing my friend Maurizio play good music at parties
- always needing to have small bills on hand; portenos don´t like to give change for much over a 5 or 10
- so many beautiful plazas and parks everywhere
- good cheap argentinian wine
- Palermo Viejo, a really cute neighborhood
- the difficulty in finding English books not in the genre of Clive Cussler, Danielle Steele, or Stephen King
- the weather: sunny, hot but not humid, always a breeze
- the eagerness with which portenos offer directions
- Parisian-inspired architecture
- dulce de leche
- dulce de leche ice cream at Alta Volta Heladeria

I´m sure there will be more, that´s just off the top of my head. It´s a ridiculously pleasant city.

Posted by j3s at 09:16 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Finally, a little downtime. The last thee weeks have been crazy, but fantastic. Basically, filled with non-stop running around various cities with friends, and then bringing them back to Berlin to show them around town. Everyone who came to visit seemed to really like it here, which is nice; I'm glad my friends from Chicago and New York understand why I love this city so much.

To pick up where I left off, Amsterdam was fun. It's not my favorite Dutch city (I really like Rotterdam for some reason), but it was great to explore again with a bunch of friends. We only had a couple days there, but that was long enough for me; I was surprised by how excited I was to get back to Berlin. We walked around a lot, shopped, ate (chocolate-covered waffles, conveyer belt sushi, amazing Indonesian), and giggled. Once again I learned that shopping is only fun for so long if you can't spend any money, but that's OK. I plan on hitting some thrift stores here in Berlin next week.

In Amsterdam I can't help but feel like a tourist, so I just went with it, which was fun. Usually when I travel I am quiet, but running around that city with a huge group of people, being rowdy and not worrying about anything, that was a nice change of pace. Then after two nights, it was time to go to Berlin.

Having friends here was pretty cool; it gave me an excuse to do all of the touristy things I had been putting off. In a week of hosting visitors, I went to the Brandenburg Gate, the top of the Reichstag, the top of the Fernsehturm, saw the Melancholie exhibit at the Neue Nationalgalerie, and headed an hour and a half south to the Bauhaus School in Dessau (pictures from that forthcoming).

It was also really fun to take friends out to the clubs here (Watergate, Panormabar, and a few other random places). When Atom, Nicole, Brian and I arrived at Arena at 8am Saturday and there was still a full-on party happening, they agreed that Berlin is an awesome place to be right now.

Most of my American friends left on Sunday; it was weird saying goodbye to them. For traveling with such a huge group for over a week straight, there was no drama. Everything just worked out. I thoroughly enjoyed everyone's company, and I think we all agreed it was the best vacation ever. I already miss them.

Kris stayed until Thursday before going back to London, which gave the three of us an opportunity to run around town more. One night we went to Nocti Vagus, a restaurant where you eat in complete darkness, and are served by blind waiters. I guess some people get very anxious in that situation, but I thought it was a lot of fun and enjoyed the experience. It wasn't even difficult to eat in the dark, though I suspect years of yoga has helped familiarize me with my corporal and spacial boundaries.

On Thursday afternoon before Kris left we walked up to Prenzlauer Berg, and I found an outdoor market by an old church that I am excited to patronize. It was small, about one stand each for cheese, bread, fish, wine, meat, and produce. But really, what more do you need?

After Kris left it felt a little empty here; that's when I realized I had been surrounded by old friends non-stop for three weeks straight. I do miss them, but I am kind of excited to get back into a routine: daily yoga practice, three hours working on writing and other projects, and an hour a day of language lessons. I bought a German workbook, which is helping a lot in conjunction with Rosetta Stone. I can speak in some complete sentences now instead of just blurting out what I want, though of course my strongest verbal ability pertains to buying food and eating out at restaurants. Everything in time, I guess.

Posted by j3s at 07:06 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Wow, it's sunny out! Today is the first day I've seen the sun since I arrived in Berlin. A lot of that is because of the jetlag and clubbing; until Monday I was sleeping so late that I'd get up just as it was getting dark - around 4pm. But mostly, Berlin in the winter is very, very gray. I took some pictures of my neighborhood yesterday afternoon that look like they were shot in black and white, but really they were full spectrum.

Speaking of clubbing, there is so much good music here it's ridiculous. We haven't stayed out past 5 or 6am, which makes us big wusses by Berlin standards. Friday night we saw Ricardo Villalobos at Maria, a huge warehouse club that reminded me of the halcyon days of Drop Bass rave parties. Two chill rooms, a main and second stage, even a small separate room where a Japanese couple made spring rolls to order. While there, this kid Philip that we met at last year's Detroit Electronic Music Festival recognized Atom, and the next day he had us over for breakfast (at 4pm), and then took us on a tour of the city.

For dinner we ate at a place in Prenzlauer Berg, a neighborhood that reminds me of Wicker Park: used to be "edgy" but is now expensive and gentrified, selling cool as a commodity. (As opposed to my neighborhood, Friedrichshain - still kind of dirty, very cheap, lots of squats and clubs.) Anyway, Weinerei, the dinner place in Prenzlauer Berg, basically charges you 1 Euro when you arrive. With that, you can drink as many glasses of wine and eat from the excellent vegetarian communal dinner they prepare, and when you leave, you pay what you felt you owe. Something like that would never work in the US, but they seem to be doing really well here.

After dinner we went to a long-running squat party, which was packed, and then to see Ellen Allien DJ. She didn't play as well as I've seen her previously, though she seemed to be having some equipment problems. Unfortunately, I didn't know that Baby Ford was playing that night as well, otherwise we would have gone to see him, but Philip told us how to find all of the good techno events so I'm not missing anything else unless by choice.

On Monday we got up early (10am) and headed to Potsdamer Platz to get tickets for the Berlin Film Festival, which started the day we arrived. Specifically, we wanted tickets for the world premiere of V is for Vendetta; after standing in line for an hour, we got them! The screening was at 10:30pm, and we arrived right when Natalie Portman did; I stood about 10 feet from her on the red carpet. Hilarious.

The movie itself was pretty good. Very Hollywood, but well-made. It hit you over the head with some way to overt symbolism, but I was entertained, and it made some good points. Afterwards we missed the last train (they stop running at 1:30am here except on weekends, when they run all night), which gave me an excuse to photograph the empty station. It made me recall the Ghost Stations that existed here when the wall was up; it's strange to think that was all not so long ago. I live in an area that was formerly East Berlin, and walking around, it's difficult to forget that so much has happened here.

Posted by j3s at 02:03 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)

Hi! I've created this site as a way to keep my friends and family informed of my travels. If you don't know me, some background: My name is Jesica. At the beginning of February 2006 I quit my job in Chicago, which was awesome - I was a technical writer for a software company and had been working from home for over three years - to travel extensively for a year with my best friend, Atomly. The trip has two parts: Berlin, and RTW (around the world).

Right now and until mid-July, I am living in Berlin, and travelling around Europe to visit friends in London, Paris, the South of France, the Netherlands, and a few other places. I don't have a job anymore, though I am doing some freelance writing for a month and hope to find more work. Atom is an electronic musician (techno, breakcore, jungle, IDM, and whatever else he feels like), and already has a few bookings here.

So to family and friends: we made it safely! Next time though, I think I'd fly to Berlin direct; we flew United to London and then took EasyJet to Berlin Schoenfeld, which wasn't as good of as an idea as it sounded. For starters, it was a really long exhausting day, and any money we saved on flying not to Berlin we spent in London getting around. It's crazy expensive there, though the fish and chips are delicious and the Jameson's is cheap.

When we did finally make it to Berlin, we crossed our fingers and hoped that the sublet Atom lined up for February would work out. And it did! I love our apartment: 20 foot ceilings, huge Eastern European architecture, a meat slicer built in to the kitchen countertop, and a bedroom bigger than my whole apartment was in Chicago.

Right now I just got up from sleeping 13 hours, which is nuts because I am a lifelong insomniac. Last night we got into our apartment around midnight, and walked around the neighborhood at 1am looking for a place to eat. A few blocks away we found a place where we got a tasty sandwich ("homus" and "falafel" are the same in any language), two big pizzas, three glasses of wine and a Coke for 17 Euros, with a ton of leftovers to eat for dinner tonight. I'm relieved Berlin is so much cheaper than London.

Anyway, it's dark out now, time to go explore the city. Chrise is working on a design for this site, so it'll be prettier soon (thank you!). More later, including, of course, many pictures on my j3s.net photolog.

Posted by j3s at 06:00 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)