Lutheran - To be or not to be?

May 2007 in Barcelona
Originally uploaded by amsterboy.

My new Year's resolution last year was not to kill myself with work. I decided to take more time for myself. I must confess that I have not been too successful with abandoning the protestant work ethics. It has been one exhausting April and May. For weeks and weeks my life has been only full-on work which was starting to show on my face, on my skin and on the quality of delivery. In that sense the 5-day holiday in Barcelona scheduled months back really came at the perfect moment.

One of the best outcomes of this work is a network of wonderful people across Europe. My Europe is really a pool of great people. Partying in the middle of the night at the office of my friends' magazine in Gracia is something you just cannot do as a pure tourist. Having a glass of whiskey in your hand, seeing the cleaners wash the silent square and listening to Daft Punk really makes one forget work.

And like we people of the north every year, I went overboard with the warmth and the sun. One just does not learn. In the first two days I managed to burn my chest on the beach, get a decent blister between my toes from the new flip-flops, barely make my way through a completely random absent-minded work call and party until six in the morning.

Barcelona really is high on my list. I think every city in the world should have quiet cool streets, heavy investments in public art, boutiques instead of supermarkets and decent priced food made from fresh ingredients.

This week my colleague and I are in London for meetings and I continue on Thursday to Switzerland to give a lecture on visual strategies of teenagers. The emails keep flooding in but after the holiday I answer them much more in peace.