Tomorrow I head out to Berlin for the next two months (though will be back in London for next week’s #geomob.

We’ll be living in Moabit, not far from Hauptbahnhof and the Spree. There will be a bit of holiday, but mainly it is just a chance to live and work in Berlin. I’ve visited many times but never actually lived there, and I want to explore the thriving tech scene. Here in London we hear more and more about Berlin. As someone who runs a company of 20 people in central London the costs here are crippling. While I hear that things are getting more expensive in Berlin, frankly a cosmopolitan city with much lower cost of living is very, very appealing - und dass nicht nur weil ich deustch bin.

Which brings the second major reason for going - so that my son gets more exposure to deutsch. Right now I’m basically the only one he learns German from. Given that limitation, he’s doing great, but I see his deutsch more and more falling behind his English as he spends all day in an English only nursery.

Another major reason to go “away” for two months is to test how well the Nestoria team fares wthout me. For some time now I’ve been trying (with good success) to get out of the day to day operations, and focus more on OpenCage. This will be a real test, and one I am confident the team will pass with flying colors.

Anyway, I have a fair number of meetings set up already, and next week I’m speaking at csv,conf. If you’re doing something interesting - especially around geo, data, or online property, I’d love to meet, gerne auch in einem Biergarten am Spree. Please ping me on twitter.

It’s going to be a great summer

I leave you with this gem, Gitarre M.Z.’s “Moabit ist Moabit”