Tag Archives: europe

For the last two weeks I was on an epic work trip.

To Geneva, Brussels, London and The Hague. This is the ceiling of the UN!

You know that movie that you liked when you were a kid, and you watch it now, and it sucks, and it makes you hate it, and it makes you hate your younger self for ever liking it? That’s exactly how I feel about Geneva.

Look how obnoxiously beautiful it is, the whole country is an elaborate commercial for LL Bean.

Even the statues are look passive-aggressive, like, ‘oh you only have one watch?’

Next up: Brussels! The only people who hate it more than the tourists are the people who live there.

The city’s neighborhoods are either dioramas for tourists or slums, nothing in between. Walking long distances is like going from Narnia into Mordor.

Hoping Belgium had more to offer, I took a daytrip to Gent, which is Flemish for disappointment. I ate canal fish and waited for the rain to stop. The local residents have been doing little else for 600 years.

I did go to a great art museum, though, where I got shouted at for taking pictures of a quotidian machine and a projected image.

I have no idea what these signs mean.

Did I mention that I’m a 30-year-old man?

Later that week, I went to a meeting at the European parliament. The wallpaper symbolizes how you can all be the same color, yet still not mix.

This building is only two stories tall, I’m just that short.

Europeans have to color their cities to make you forget how little alcohol is in that hot wine.

London is only photogenic twice a year. The queen alerts all her subjects by text message.

Here’s some graffiti that I thought looked kind of like me. Especially the buildings coming out of the face. 

The Shard was just completed, but it’s being torn down next year because it makes it harder for the pigeons to see St. Paul’s.

Two weeks later, I’m back in Berlin, same as I left it: Cold, grey and covered in cocaine. Thank God.