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)

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)