A hundred days (then I'm) off
I arrived in Berlin in autumn 2000. I had boxed up all my belongings, left London, dumped the boxes at my mum's house, then puts some clothes and CDs in two suitcases, went to Stansted airport, and got on a early morning flight with a load of already-drunk Welsh football fans on their way to a Warsaw for a World Cup qualifying game against Poland (It ended 0-0, but you already knew that, right?).
Assuming I don't die in the meantime, I'll be leaving Berlin in 100 days time. Give or take a day or two, anyway; 100 days from now is when I give up my flat. I'll be packing my seven-years-worth-of-stuff and paying a storage company to be my surrogate Mum's-spare-room, and once again, packing a suitcase or two and... well, I don't know what I'll do.
And that's the fun thing. I have no idea where I'll go.
The nice, easy-ish, realistic option is to move to Ghent. It's a town I love, and I have friends there already, and most people speak the English, and you're even close enough to the British Isles to get a BBC signal on the telly.
The difficult-to-manage option would be New York. Visas, logistics, and the worrying healthcare system chew away like woodworm at the sparklingly beautiful thought of living in such a great city.
But the immediate thing I think that I'll do is take some time off from life, and start living. Pack some clothes and my laptop in a big old rucksack and get on a plane to who-knows-where and see what happens. The idea of not knowing is fun. Maybe I'll end up being a fisherman in Kiribati after all.
The title of this weblog entry references the Underworld album "A Hundred Days Off." Not their best work, but still pretty smart, especially the first single "Two Months Off".
Assuming I don't die in the meantime, I'll be leaving Berlin in 100 days time. Give or take a day or two, anyway; 100 days from now is when I give up my flat. I'll be packing my seven-years-worth-of-stuff and paying a storage company to be my surrogate Mum's-spare-room, and once again, packing a suitcase or two and... well, I don't know what I'll do.
And that's the fun thing. I have no idea where I'll go.
The nice, easy-ish, realistic option is to move to Ghent. It's a town I love, and I have friends there already, and most people speak the English, and you're even close enough to the British Isles to get a BBC signal on the telly.
The difficult-to-manage option would be New York. Visas, logistics, and the worrying healthcare system chew away like woodworm at the sparklingly beautiful thought of living in such a great city.
But the immediate thing I think that I'll do is take some time off from life, and start living. Pack some clothes and my laptop in a big old rucksack and get on a plane to who-knows-where and see what happens. The idea of not knowing is fun. Maybe I'll end up being a fisherman in Kiribati after all.
The title of this weblog entry references the Underworld album "A Hundred Days Off." Not their best work, but still pretty smart, especially the first single "Two Months Off".
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6 Comments:
where does little billy fit into your plans? :)
I'm putting him on eBay...
Do you ship internationally, and does he come complete with accessories (and food)?! Well, seriously, good luck with your new adventure.. Hope to hear about it on FFF...
Good luck with your moving and travels. I hope you end up somewhere really great!!
good luck indeed. i'm sure that where ever you go you will have fun. how about Seattle or Vancouver, two places I would love to live...or com eback to the UK? Billy could get a pet passport.
Thanks.
Well, I'd say returning to the UK - which was a very real option before last Xmas - is quite near the bottom of my list. Slightly above countries like North Korea, Afghanistan, Swaziland, and Iraq.
I kid, of course, but really, the last time I was home I realised that even though I feel British, I don't feel at home there any more.
Now, if they broadband and shops that sell Marmite in Micronesia, I'd happily settle down there in a hut on a beach...
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