NEW YEAR'S: 200NEIN

I leave for Berlin in three days. I've been trying to get ahead on some school work so I'm not stressed with it while away. I rented a flat for 3 weeks in Berlin-Mitte, but don't know anything about the city. Apparently Mitte is a cool area to be in-- and there is a real cool DIY punk spot down the street. My phone won't work, but my e-mail will. Send me your address and I'll mail you a postcard.

Oh, yeah: I impulsively booked a ticket to see Morrissey in Paris this June. I might see him in May, so I'm not sure how that's going to work-- but I tend to figure these things out.

See ya.

Lectures/Leeds/London

It's been a really busy week, so I haven't had much time to take pictures.
I spent a lot of last week dealing with my final assignments-- either by worrying or working on them. But, Monday night I met Craig at the Nelson before heading to see Municipal Waste at Casbah. Tony hooked me up, and the night turned out pretty good-- people over here lose their shit for them. Ken got drunk and enjoyed the Waste's rider-- drinking free booze & sandwiches.
On Tuesday, I got up early to head to Leeds. First, I stopped at Bramley to check out the Bob Jackson factory. One or two of my friends ride their frames, and I've always wanted one. It's a tiny shop and the 10-year-plus tenured mechanics were almost naive to the company's notoriety in the States. I headed back into Leeds-- cities in England get pretty serious about Christmas. I managed to find one of the few pubs in the city centre that isn't a chain and a really bad Chinese buffet. Part of the reason I made this trip was to pay homage to the Pizza buffet connected to a Curry buffet connected to a Chinese buffet-- sadly it is closed.
Throughout the week, I went to Dan Cruickshank's really bad lecture on architecture (or perhaps, really great lecture on self-promotion), a cool lecture on A&E services, and we lost our 3rd consecutive football match. On Friday, I grabbed a drink and went to see Discharge. I went with Fry,who probably took a lot more pictures than I.
I left Saturday to spend the weekend in London-- I met Tom for beers and watched football in Shoreditch. Ken's band was playing around the corner, but the neighbor shut the show down. Julia, her sister and Tim met up with us and we headed to the Foundry and the Intrepid Fox-- this turned out to be a long night.
On Sunday, Craig, Janine, Ken and I drove back north after pizzas and football. I've spent most of this week trying to wrap up school, but found time to get cultured.
Oh, yeah-- and apparently I was not the only person excited about those avocados!

Thanksgiving in Sheffield

So, I got back from Spain last Tuesday and was pretty wiped out-- I spent the next few days getting back into school and taking care of stuff around town. I started volunteering and helped Craig pick out the new Google phone. On Thursday, I celebrated Thanksgiving at the No. 1 Oriental Buffet-- typical. I organized a 5-a-side football team; we played our first game Thursday night. I didn't do too much on Friday, but one of Tom's friends was DJing at the Harley.On Saturday, I met Tom and his friend Jim for the Sheffield Wednesday-Norwich City game. Jim's from Norwich, so we sat in visitor's seating. The fog came in super thick, and Tom introduced me to my first Bovril-- traditional England. Wednesday won, but it was a real good match.
That night was Stu's birthday-- he's an old friend of Ken's that I met in London a couple weeks ago. John came up from London and we all met at the pub for dinner. We went over to the Washington and then on to Corporation.
On Sunday, I watched the Chelsea-Arsenal match and then gave this African spot another chance. It was okay, but every time I go with someone from Africa, they're not impressed.
This week, I've been studying a lot. Liaquat made Hennock and me Pakistani food. I had some bad sushi and a beer or two.
Oh, and, it is now officially cold.
Last week turned out pretty good. On Thursday, Emmanuel made Indian food and his flatmate made a Colombian dish. Unfortunately, eating well didn't last long-- I found myself at the Devonshire Chippy twice over the course of the weekend.
After our second lost football match in as many weeks, we had a team meeting-- there's always next week. On Friday, I went out to a few pubs with Tom and Jamie. Old House for cheap beers, the Frog & Parrot had good music and Tom caused a blackout at Bungalows & Bears 2nd birthday party. After a mandatory beer at Wetherspoon's, I beat them at foosball while Ken played records at Casbah.
On Saturday, Tom and I wandered the city and watched Match of the Day at a friend's house before going back to my place. On Sunday, we headed to the Peak District. We took the train to Hathersage and wandered around the village-- a lot of proper English countryside pubs, good food and cool things to see. There weren't many businesses in Hathersage, but everything was interesting.