To: euro@neurostyle.net
From: Emilio Gonzalez 
Subject: 6.29.00 - 13:25 - berlin, germany


well, i'm certainly feeling much better now. nothing like a little bout of food
poisoning to set you askew - not serious, of course, just a night of no sleep, a
lot of sleep the next day, and not a whole lot of food. i'm pretty much fine now
- not perfect, but good enough.

i bought a camera, a little rollei point and shoot deal, a pretty good camera for
what it is... rollei makes great optics - love these germans. it's got a decent
zoom and a flash, and all sorts of bells and whistles. hell, it even has a
remote; soon will come the day when i will control everything and touch nothing. 

it was great to see some friends again. sarah, a sort-of ex-girlfriend (Long
Story, so you all can shut up), is traveling around europe with the san jose
state university choir. they came to berlin, so i timed my trip so i'd be in
berlin there and then go on up to sweden. the performance was incredible, it was
san jose state, another college in california, a berling choir and the berlin
philharmonic choir in a huge, acoustically excellent church right in central
berlin. a bonus was that also in the choir were several other friends of mine
from high school, some who i hadn't seen in months, so it was fun to see them all
again, meet some of the choir and chat with them about europe. then the next
morning sarah, chloe and i went strolling around, eating pastries and chatting it
up. 

(it was great to see sarah again. we don't see each other that often, but when we
do, it's like nothing ever happened. there's no readjustment, no getting used to
each other again. we just are.)

(did i neglect to mention what happened in vienna? i was meeting up with nadia
and some of her friends at her friend's apartment in the middle of the night, i
get off the subway and am waiting on the corner for them to show up when a small
group of people are crossing the street. when they get closer, lo and behold, one
of them is noah flick, a friend from high school - the middle of the night, no
particular place, a random streetcorner in VIENNA and there he is. very cool.)

so today i'll be strolling around berlin a bit, running a couple of errands
before i take a night train to stockholm, sweden, where i'll be attending a
wedding. after a few days in stockholm i'll probably be coming back to berlin for
a few more days - sarah will be back here and love parade will be going on ("hey,
let's dump 1,500,000 happy people into the middle of berlin, toss in some dj's
and see what happens").

between running into friends, dropping by for performances and going to weddings
i sound like quite the globe trotter. heh, might not seem at all like it's my
first time here. 

- emilio