That was the scene on the streets of Berlin lat night, a brief moment of no explosions or fire or chaos. It was amazing. There is no question in my mind that Berliners know how to blow shit up for New Years. That said, it’s 2008 now which is amazing, I can’t even describe how happy I am top have 2007 be in the past. Of course that means I need to figure out my next travel plans ASAfuckingP since everyone I know in Berlin is leaving in the next 24 hours. So I did. Rather than spec out the whole freaking trip here before I leave I thought I’d wait till I got somewhere and then blog it, so that I have an excuse to write something which will help keep this place interesting. I will say that I return to the US in 13 days, and between now and then I’ll be visiting 6 cities in 4 countries traveling by a variety of different methods which will surely be interesting. I have hotel reservations in some cities, a couch with my name on it in others, and some yet to be determined. It’s going to be fun.
That said, I’m skipping Scotland this trip simply because of the god awful state of the US Dollar versus other world currency. I’ve gotten comfortable with the Euro, in fact very comfortable. In fact so comfortable that I’m actually pissed I have to go back to the Dollar in a few weeks. In fact so comfortable that I want to open up a bank account in an EU country and move a bunch of my cash there, as well as ask some international clients to pay me in their native Euro rather than the Dollars they currently convert to. Anyway, that’s a different story. Scotland, as part of the UK isn’t on the Euro, they are on the GB Pound which has an even worse conversion rate against the Dollar. So much so that as far as I can tell the other EU countries that are on the Euro are totally pissed off at the UK for keeping the Pound and are annoyed to death by it. Of course I can’t avoid it when I go to London, but I did limit my time there as much as possible because of that single fact.
The funny thing all this currency conversion, and really I’m laughing so hard about this every time I think about it, is that the value of the money is what changes, not the price of the object. So, for example a coffee at Starbucks that costs you 5 Dollars in the US, costs you 5 Euro as well, except now that is actually $7.35 or so. The same cup of coffee also has a 5 GBP price tag, which translates into about $10. And that’s with a small dollar value item. Something a little bigger like a 300 dollar iPod costs 300 Euro ($450) and 300 GBP ($600) as well. Fuck that.
I’m straying from my point here, as I am in fact going to London. I’m not going to Scotland. Sorry guys. Ireland had the right idea. I know you guys wish you were independent as well, or at least on the Euro (the folks I’ve talked to about it anyway) and I highly support that. Also, after all this, I highly support Quebec declaring independence from Canada and joining France so that we’d have someone in North America using the Euro which would be damn amusing. Anyway. Enough of that. I’m going to be a tourist here in Berlin for the next few days, pics coming soon.
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