“What if Justin Timberlake moved to Europe?

He’d probably choose Paris or Berlin”

My ears perked up. I was in my room, pondering where to travel for my birthday. My last two birthdays were spent on the road: I sailed on the Musi river and roamed the Kemaro Island in Palembang when I turned 24 and got spooked out by Semarang’s Lawang Sewu as I turned 25. Although this year I am already away from home, I still felt the itch to venture to an unknown place but had no idea where to go for a short weekend trip.

I was leafing through my Lonely Planet when my playlist arrived to Erlend Oye’s live performance of KAKKMADDAFAKKA’s hilarious song ‘What If Justin Timberlake’ and caught my attention. I’ve been to Paris, but what about Berlin? True, Berlin was not in my top ten list, but this was Erlend Oye speaking.

You see, I worship Erlend Oye. The Nordic skinny musical genius, of both Kings of Convenience and The Whitest Boy Alive, had me hooked ever since I watched him air-trumpeting in the absolute best rendition of Bob Marley’s Waiting in Vain. I also found very soon after that listening to their songs while writing essays make me super productive that I have been able to finish an essay in a day. Even as I am writing this I am still amazed of how the Kings’ tunes carried me through 4,000 words of sexual rights as human rights in less than 12 hours! I am not exaggerating, though. The Octopus is actually trying out my Kings of Convenience quantum learning technique.

But I digress.  The song went on to wonder what would happen if JT moved to Bergen, but Norway is too expensive and only The Claw would want to pay a pilgrimage to Oye’s hometown with me (hopefully by the end of the year, fingers crossed for you, Claw!). I then remembered that Oye lived in Berlin for a while, so it was settled then and there. The Mean Girl, being an absolute Germanophilia, shrieked in glee when I told her about my plans and off we went to Berlin for my birthday!

It was a fantastic way to turn 26. We stood with the birds on top of the frozen river in Potsdam’s Sanssouci Park, were flooded by the wisdom and creativity of the largest open air gallery in the world – the East Berlin Wall, and faced the darkest slice of human history in the Sachssenhausen concentration camp; all of which will be retold in due course.

Why due course, you ask? Because I am going to Madrid and Barcelona for a week with The Mean Girl and The Human GPS, starting from tomorrow! The Spain Stories will too make an appearance here, just wait and see.

Until then, let me underline once again, it pays to listen to Erlend Oye. 🙂

Den Haag, 18 March 2010

A very psyched Gypsytoes