Okay, so it’s going down. I’m writing this chapter from a room in Adeje, Canary Islands. It’s around 2am, I got new Moneybag Yo in my headphones, fresh sea breeze is coming in through my window, life is good. But before we get to all of that, let me sum up my last days in the Czech Republic.
Tuesday, me, my sis and her fiancée went to the Scala cinema in the city center to check out
this new Tenet movie. Nolan delivered again, although I’m not sure I fully follow whatever that thing is. It might
be because it’s too complicated, it might
need more views to truly get it, but I kinda think it’s purposely overthought so it fucks with people’s heads. One way or another, mission
accomplished. Felt good to be back in a movie theater tho. My dad and his gf
were taking care of the nephew that evening and they did a great job too.
Wednesday was kind of a goodbye day for me. I took the dog, picked up the girls and the little one at a Chinese restaurant around the corner and we went to my dad’s pub. Later on, we got joined by his gf and one of my bros, did couple of beers and spent some quality time together.
I was also moved with how much people appreciate me as a teacher. I have mentioned it here before but I still don’t take it for granted and it does mean a lot. People were really sad that our classes are coming to an end and many of them asked about possibility of some future ones. In lots of cases, they even insisted on continuing online. So even though I won’t have as much work as before (which would be humanly impossible time-wise), I have still managed to keep sufficient amount of it and just teach remotely. This whole adventure is going to be one hell of an experiment in that sense as well.
Anyways, Covid. So the situation in the Czech Republic was getting progressively worse day by day prior to my departure. About 5 days before, we broke 1000 new daily cases. By the time I was leaving, we were over 2000 (and shorty after we jumped over 3000). Just for reference – this past spring, we were around 400 and the whole country went on lockdown and everyone was losing their shit. I say this to illustrate that I wasn’t really fully confident that this thing would materialize in the first place. I have also never received this amount of information and requests regarding any of my travels before. On top of regular safety messages (mandatory face masks etc.) I also had to register with Spanish Ministry of Health, providing all kinds of details, eventually receiving a QR code without which I wouldn’t be allowed to enter the country. I’m just trying to say that by the time I was leaving Brno, there were so many different balls in the air, I wasn’t sure if all the pieces would fall into place.
Well, they did. However, it was a really interesting experience. This was a journey of couple of firsts. First of all, the train to Vienna was almost empty. In my car, there were like 4 people. Same went for Vienna airport. Like 80% of gates were not even operating and it was definitely the least people I have ever seen over there. And same went for my flight. You see, when you fly low-cost carriers, you usually fly stacked-up planes. Likelihood of having a free seat next to you is close to non-existing and your leg space is practically nowhere to be found. Well, not this time. I think the plane was filled by about 15% of its capacity. For the first time ever on such flight, I got actually asked to relocate to an emergency seat so I could operate the exit in case the plane goes down or some shit. Which meant more leg space. I also had both seats next me empty, which meant a comfy sleep for couple of hours. You can tell shit changes.
When I arrived, I waited about 20 minutes for this British dude who runs the center I’m gonna be working with for the next month. He drove me about 30 minutes to Los Christianos, we signed all the contracts, I paid the rest of the money and then he dropped me off at the address of my accommodation. Now, let’s stop here for a minute. As I said before, initially I got offered accommodation by the center. You know, some shit for interns. Pretty okay but no internet and, as I found out this week, like 25 minutes’ car ride from anything interesting. Close to one of the diving sites but fucking forever away from any kind of life. I ended up staying in a great spot – 15 minutes’ walk to the dive school which isn’t even that important, as the owner and his partner drive there every morning passing my compound so they just pick me up and give me a lift. Fucking yay!
But that’s not the best part. Obviously, I had no idea who I was about to stay with. Is he 30? Is he 50? Does he have a partner? That was yet to be discovered. Well, I got welcomed by this elderly Indian couple (I’m guessing in their 60s) with awesome English. And from the jump, they started treating me like their son. They cooked me a dinner, gave me a beer and I spent the first evening chatting with them. My room is relatively small but it’s big enough for me and all my shit, internet is fast, I’m super happy with the set up. Also, the compound has a big ass pool (at least 25 meters) outside which I’ve already taken advantage of. There’s both veggie guy and a supermarket just around the corner. After talking to some guys who actually stay in the provided accommodation, I feel I got extremely lucky.
Another amazing thing was, I started diving right the next day. So Friday, 7:30, I was posted up by a roundabout about 2 minutes away and moments later, I was in the dive school, checking out the new environment, trying to be helpful and shit. Around 9am, me the owner, 2 other dive master candidates (both way deeper into their training) and a wife of one of them were sitting in a van heading to Abades. That’s a small purpose-built village with a church that used to serve as a treatment facility for leprosy patients in 1940s. Outside of that, nothing looks particularly interesting over there. It is the place where the other two interns I have met stay tho. They’re Italian and German guys and both seem cool. Anyways, I got coupled up with one of the more experienced dive master candidates and we got to it. It’s funny how fast people forget shit. I had problems setting the gear up after half a year of no practice. Well, after we got it done, we jumped into our wet suits and entered the sea from the beach. That was also a first; all of my previous dives were from a boat.
Diving is different over here. First of all, the water is about 6 degrees colder than in Indonesia and there’s usually quite heavy wind by the shore. So even though temperatures stay around 30 degrees, you do feel cold. I’m not the biggest fan of that but it’s bearable. And it felt good to be under water again. It’s less colorful, but there’s trumpet fish, there’s turtles, there’s all kinds of sea life. Visibility is okay and there’s lot of sand so it’s really not an issue to kneel down to practice some skills if needed. One of the owners says that it’s a perfect place for training and I see her point. We don’t usually go deeper than 12 meters but it’s all fun. We do 2 dives a day with a short break in between. The first day, I didn’t have time to prepare any lunch so I just ate a bar of chocolate my lovely dad gave me for the road. I did some basic skills with my buddy but for the most part I was just enjoying myself. Honestly, I had no idea that I would start this soon. These dives are basically just to get my number up to be eligible for the dive master course. I will start with my rescue halfway through next week; until then it’s fun dives really. Oh, and the braces are completely okay. I just remove the rubber bands from my mouth. Actually, biting on the regulator with the plastic around my teeth is probably a bit comfier than with bare teeth. All is good.
After we got back to the center, I got into some emails, helped out a bit with needed to be done and got dropped by my accommodation. Before I got there, I received a text from my host informing me that he cooked vegan Indian lunch for me. Now, I love cooking and totally didn’t ask him to do any of that but that particular day, I was super happy about it. After I got back, I had like 15 minutes before like 5 hours of teaching. So having nice warm home-made food felt like fucking heaven. Teaching went awesome but man, in the evening I was done. Chilled out with my host a bit more and then parked my ass to bed.
Saturday morning, I went to the center again. Similar drill, same spot. This time, we had a paying customer tho and on the first dive, they paired me up with her. She didn’t talk much but I found out she was a nurse from Madrid and it was my first time being a more experienced buddy to someone. Besides one point when I drifted a bit further away and got notified by the dive master candidate, everything went well. Now, I’m still not too confident but seeing someone with little to no experience, you kinda realize that you know your shit a little bit. You move better, you seem a bit more relaxed. It just goes.
After the second dive, we headed back, cleaned all the gear,
put everything in order and went for a beer. The whole squad: owners and
interns; crowd of 6 people. We went to this beach bar with an amazing view and
did couple of beers. It’s crazy
that when you do that, you feel like you’re on a
tropical island. It’s hot, people are sunbathing
half-naked, you sweat like crazy. Completely different from when you’re in between the dives hoping to warm
up at least for a sec. Also, Canary Islands obviously suffer from the Covid
situation too. I’ve heard that the spot is
usually packed. Nowadays, it’s super
chilled, lotta joints are closed, it is all very calm. I mean, it’s bad, I get it, but there’s also something cool about it. And
shit is cheap over here. I paid like 5 EUR for the two beers I had. Not bad for
Europe.
On the way home, I stopped by at the supermarket and got me some razors and tofu. When I got home, I found another amazing meal waiting for me. I’m gonna do my best to refill the fridge here and there but so far it seems I’m not gonna cook a lot. I love Indian food and it kinda looks like a beautiful symbiosis. The guy has a bad leg so he doesn’t go out much. He says that having someone to share meals with and talk to is a win for him too. He doesn’t do that to provide service but cause he enjoys it. He almost got offended when I showed up with some food trying to cook something myself. I mean, thank you, universe!
I spent the rest of the Saturday doing transcriptions (I got so much work stacked up, it gives me vertigo) and talking to my people. When I felt I have enough of the computer work, I went to do 1km in the pool and then got back to it. It was perfect.
So here we are. I feel life is being poured back into my system. I do exciting shit, the energy is great, there’s more goals to achieve, more people to meet, new memories to make. I’m positive, happy and highly favored. Sending love to all of y’all! One.
Highlights:
- Finished P-Valley. Just watch that shit.
- CANARY ISLAND.
- Diving again.
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