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.

Posted by j3s at 09:12 PM | Permalink | Comments (4)

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)