Semester 17 Chapter XVI: Shout Outs

It’s fucking crazy how time flies. Here I am, writing the final one of 2024. Recently, some memories of Shanghai popped up in my head and the truth is, the more time passes, the more unreal that whole era feels. It’s been about 5 years since I left the place for good. Jesus. So yeah, sending some love to everybody out there who was a part of that. Hope y’all good.

 

What I’ve been up to here tho. The rest of Christmas time was pleasant. More hangouts with family, more good food, more walks with the dog, all very enjoyable. I also got myself a week pass to this Yoga Garden studio nearby and so far, I’ve taken three classes. I was (positively) surprised they were in English. Didn’t like them as much as I do the ones in the Hague but they weren’t bad. They were all taught by the same teacher; today I’m gonna try some with different ones so we’ll see how that goes. I’ve also done only hot yoga over there so far. Which has been pleasant.

Friday afternoon, I took the doggo and hopped on a train to a town about 40 minutes away from Brno where we got picked up by one of my best friends. I spent one day at a cottage he was staying at and it was fucking perfect. Long walks in the nature, long talks, music played off a gramophone; welcomed change after all the Christmas stuff. Got back yesterday, watched a movie with dad and his partner and went to bed quite early. It’s Sunday morning now, I have another yoga class coming up, feeling good over here. 

 

Let me close this one with some shout outs. Shout out to all my people. My fam, my day ones, all the new people in my life, everybody that’s been around. Shout out out to all the people I don’t talk to that often anymore, too. Happy I got to reunite with some of my Shanghai squad in Tokyo this year. Shout out to my people in Canada; the whole Japanese trip was epic. Shout out to yoga. That thing has really poured some new energy into my day to day routine. I’m grateful for being able to experience everything I’ve gotten to experience these past 12 months and for being healthy and shit. All the physical activity, all the traveling, all the music, all the love. And I am excited about what comes next. And to everybody out there… Keep it positive, don’t entertain bullshit and never ever let anybody fuck with your inner light. And that’s on everything. Happy new year, I’ll talk to you in 2025. One!

 

Highlights:

• Countryside.
• Yoga.
• Some new raps I put together.

Semester 17 Chapter XV: One Love

One thing I forgot to cover here is the whole case of Luigi Mangione. If you haven’t been living under a rock, there’s no way you missed it. And yeah, I obviously don’t condone murder and all but this thing right here is interesting. There’s a lot to uncover there. First of all, the fact that the killer is a young white man (can’t stress enough how different the whole narrative would have been if he wasn’t) from a wealthy family is key here. He’s also neither extreme left nor right. He’s an Ivy League University educated guy with a strong opinion on the U.S. healthcare insurance system. And he decided to carry out an extreme act. But the fascinating part was the public response. The guy immediately became a hero for pretty much everybody on the whole wide political spectrum. People celebrate him, people adore him, people share horror stories of their family members suffering and dying because the insurance company in question (which is seemingly the fucking worst of them all) wouldn’t cover needed healthcare. They deny a third of all claims and make the process so complicated and horrific that it can take years for people to get down to anything. People selling fucking houses, going bankrupt, breaking families… Just to help a family member or a friend in need. And on the other side of the fence, you got people like the gentleman who got killed. People who award themselves with million dollar bonuses, who buy yachts, who are getting so rich of all the people they fuck, it makes you nauseous. It nicely illustrates the grand scheme of things. But this situation right here might be a historical moment. It’s very difficult to push anti-corporate and anti-capitalism agenda because people in power also usually own media and because in the age of social media it’s very simple to blame immigrants, gays or single moms for everything. But with this assassination, it seems people from all different backgrounds got together. Now, I’d like to live in a world where things like this would not happen but I guess things have to get worse before they get better. As one of my favorite comedians put it: “A killer killed a killer.” Let’s see what happens next and if there’s any lesson to learn here.

 

Okay, back to this thing. I’m a bit delayed with this one because my time in the Czech Republic has been flying like crazy. It’s all been pretty overwhelming in the best sense of the word. Monday Evening, my dad took us to this concert. We did the same shit last year and so it’s slowly becoming a tradition. It’s his friends’ band, they’ve been around for about 50 years, they are all really good musicians (I honestly don’t know many Czech ones better than them), it was all very pleasant. Tuesday afternoon, I attended my nephew’s performace at his kindergarten. That was a shit show. Very cute shit show. The kids were sitting in line attempting to sing Christmas carols with some of the teachers accompanying them on musical instruments. And boy, did they have a hard time doing so. Some kids sang double tempo, some sang super slow, some forgot they were there and just starred into a wall, everybody was off key. It was beautiful. And it also made me appreciate the teachers. Dealing with 15 of those devils full-time gotta require nerves of steel. I hung out a bit more after the show, had a nice talk with one of the teachers (about many things including psychedelics) and then I hopped on my bike went home.

 

Wednesday evening, I reunited with three of my close ones. Thursday afternoon, I went to a swimming pool with one of them to do some laps and Friday, I went to the same spot (Kraví Hora) for some wellness. That one I did by myself and it was great. Love the place, love all the saunas, love the views. 

 

Saturday morning, I was on a bus to Prague to spend the weekend with one of my day ones. Lotta catching up, good food, trips to very remote places, music, movies. Happy we managed to make that happen. I returned to Brno Monday morning and immediately jumped into it again. Another of my closest friends had gotten in town so I caught up with him, I did a coffee with some more of my people and in the afternoon, I went to yoga with my sister. Which was interesting as I had never done yoga in Czech before. The studio (Lidická) isn’t bad. It’s a lovely spot in the center, it’s all nice and clean but since it’s in the basement, it has no natural light. We came in the evening tho so there was no natural light anyway. What I didn’t like was that they schedule classes one after another. So there’s no space for you to stretch out or try some things before it all starts and there’s also no way to stay there for couple more minutes after it finishes. It all feels a bit rushed. In The Hague, there are 30-45 minute breaks between classes specifically for those reasons. The class itself wasn’t amazing but it wasn’t bad neither and I was honestly just happy I was back at it. After that, me and a friend of mine did another sauna session in Lužánky and then we both went on to say hi another friend of hours who happened to be around.

And then there was Christmas Eve. I went to my sis’ around noon, we hung out with the nephew and then we all headed to my dad’s. Me and nephew split on the way as my sis needed to prepare some things for the evening. My nephew still believes in Baby Jesus bringing presents so it’s better for him not to see all the people working their asses off to make it happen. So I did a tour around churches for him to show him all the Christmas decorations and all. It was a bit of a trip. Last time I had done it was when I was like 10 and that was with my dad. He would take me and sis out for the before things got ready at home, too. Being in a position of the adult in this scenario felt nuts. We had a good time tho. My nephew is in his “why” phase so you get a lot of that. And the thing is, if you as “why” over and over, you eventually get pretty deep into philosophical shit no matter what the initial question was. 

 

The evening was lovely, too. Lotta great vegan food, lotta vegan sweets, the core family plus kids of my dad’s partner some eventually some other people. My nephew being hyped about all the present. Some singing, shooting jokes… Really good vibes. Around midnight, I got out to say hi to some of my people in a bar nearby but I didn’t stay long. Was good being there but it felt a lot like an alcohol-powered night and I’m not really into that.

 

Brno is cute around Christmas. Apparently, we have won a prize for the nicest Christmas markets in Europe and it does look nice. And that’s coming from a guy who doesn’t really give a shit about Christmas. And these past 10 day have been awesome. Still not ready to live in this country (which might totally change) but always happy to come back. I do have a very solid base here and I’m super appreciative of that. So shout out to everybody! It’s really all love.

 

I also managed to make some doctors’ appointments which went well. I’m getting old so I gotta make a bit more of those but apparently, I’m still pretty healthy. Oh, and I’ve been also working out a lot and even managed to do a run. And I'm walking my dad's doggo here and there again. Yay! It’s almost 9am, it’s Christmas Day and I have another yoga class ahead of me. One of my friends wanted to go so we’re making it happen. Different studio, hot yoga, 90 minutes. Let’s see how that goes. It’s nice not working too much these day but it’s always a bit of a double-edged sword for self-employed. You got some time off but you get no money. It’s all needed tho. Hope you guys are having lovely holidays. Sending love everybody out there, shout out to all my readers and extra love to all my vegans. One!

 

Highlights:

• My people.
• My people.
• My people.

Semester 17 Chapter XIV: Swiss Vibes

Hello world, here we go! Another week has passed so we’re back on this. Today I’m checking in from this lovely vegan restaurant in Prague. Used to be Loving Hut, now it’s called Loving Bistro and I feel like I wanna start this one with some light appreciation towards small things. Had a couple of conversations with some of my close ones on this topic recently and I feel it’s only right to address this here. We do live in a world that sometimes truly seems like a fucking joke. Like a South Park episode going bad. Like a really bad trip ran by greedy imbeciles playing gods. Which might actually be the case from where I’m standing. And it’s a source of anxiety, pain and fear. To most of us. It’s hard to see a way out of most problems we are facing and it’s really difficult to downplay their magnitude. I remember having pretty fucking dark moments back when I was turning vegan. It feels like no matter what you do (and this goes beyond aligning your dietary choices with some basic respect for animals), it’s never enough. The machine is too big, the momentum is too strong, the pain is overwhelming, it’s a lot. To the point when you cannot really allow yourself to focus on most of it too much and simply carry on living life. Which is perfectly fine and understandable. And I’m talking geo-politics, social issues, wealth distribution, all that. But I also believe it ain’t really over till it’s over. Yeah, it doesn’t look great but I recently saw a doc on Jane Goodall and she (being a scientist) said that people sometimes don’t realize how much difference can all the small choices we do everyday make. Some of us are fortunate to have enough freedom there, some of us are less, but we can all draw our lines in the sand, set our principles and live by them. So yeah, it does matter how we treat one another, how we treat less privileged or marginalized. It does matter what we support and what we eat and consume. It does matter when we choose not to close our eyes and disconnect because “that’s what everybody does”. At the end of the day, the optimal amount of preventable suffering and death of any living being is zero. And that should be the end game. Nobody is perfect (and we shouldn’t be too hard on ourselves neither) but everybody can contribute. Cynicism and disconnecting won’t get us anywhere; compassion, hope and love might.

 

Okay now when I got this off my chest, let’s move on to what I’ve been up to (shout out to all of you who still care). I spent the first half of the week in The Hague. Business as usual. On Wednesday, we went to this Vegan Pizza joint for the first time. We had ordered some of their amazing pizzas before but we had never visited. It’s a really cozy place, the food was delicious, definitely can recommend.

 

And then there was Switzerland. Left The Hague Friday evening, arrived to Geneva couple hours later and then it was all just awesomeness. Apart from the expected trauma caused by Swiss prices. It’s really a different planet and what you spend on a few pretty short train rides would normally cover your whole life existence for a week in most other places in Europe. But yeah, got to swim in the Leman Lake (8 degrees Celsius), got to attend a really cool birthday party, got to go to this squat rave, went to sauna, had tons of good talks with some lovely individuals. All really nice. Grateful I got to experience that. The rave was an interesting moment tho. They were raising money for some cause and prices of everything were optional. You could technically drink as much as you wanted without spending a penny (although I doubt that most people did). Pretty cool vibe. When we arrived, there was this hip-hop collective performing and boy, that shit reminded me of some Brno hip-hop 20 years ago. Like 5 white dudes with a stone age cadence doing lots of not very exciting rapping, super long songs and very very aged flow which would not change ever. I understood nothing and I’m sure they were rapping about something important but musically it was hot trash. After that, there was a pretty entertaining DJ which turned the spot into an actual party. Left Switzerland after lunch today, arrived to Prague about 90 minutes ago and I’m catching my bus to Brno in about two hours. Gonna spend some time back in The Czech Republic now.

 

Before I close this up, I really want to highlight Kendrick’s Reincarnated. That song is a gem. The more I listen to it, the more I love it. That nearly fucking perfect instrumental aside, it’s the storytelling and insight that kills me. And the last verse is a trip. “Every individual is only a version of you.”

 

So yeah, really happy about these past couple of days. Shout out to everybody who I had a chance to talk to. Some proper good energy right there. Shout out to all my loved ones, all my people, all my vegans and everybody fighting the good fight. One!

 

Highlights:

• Switzerland.
• Lake swim.
• Czech prices. After two months in The Netherlands and a weekend in Switzerland, this shit is bomb. In a really nice restaurant in the center of Prague, I immediately treated myself with a massive dinner and some chocolate cake. My money means something again.

Semester 17 Chapter XIII: Winter Cycling

What’s up everybody, here we go again. Another week has passed so I got some ammo for this thing right here. Let me start by saying that these European winters can be quite draining. I don’t really miss Tenerife overall but I do miss the climate a bit. Waking up into dark sucks and all the cold doesn’t make it much better. Having said that, Netherlands has its perks. It is a bit warmer than Central Europe and with all the cycling infrastructure, if the weather is in your favor, you can do nice little trips between towns here even in December. We did one yesterday and it was really pleasant.

 

Apart from all the usual, I did manage to do a pretty cool dinner at this vegetarian place called Symbiose. That was Friday. The place is not fully vegan but they do provide some solid vegan options. It was also the closet I’d been to fine dining in ages. I’m talking 4 course menu, everything arranged in a visually pleasing manner, nice little set-up with an open kitchen. Kind of an experience. The dinner then transformed into a pretty long night so Saturday was mostly chilled.

On Sunday, we decided to do the bike trip to Leiden. It’s like 16km and on one of my bikes I got back in the Czech Republic, it would have taken 30mins tops. On these Dutch heavyweights, it’s a bit of a different story but at least you got time to soak everything in. The weather was great, the route was mostly beautiful (sunny fields, woods...), it was all very rewarding. In Leiden, we checked the Rijksmuseum and then we hopped on a bus to Katwijk for our evening sauna session. You see, Kuuma opened a new one over there and since The Hague was fully booked, we decided to give it a shot. We took a train back home, made it there around 9pm and I felt very comfortably tired. One of the good days.

 

So yeah, new week on deck, lotta traveling planned out for this one… Time flies, things are moving. Enjoying some last local yoga sessions before a longer break, working as usual, all is well. Hope y’all good, hope you keep it positive and focus on the good. Sending love to everybody out there. One!

Highlights:

• Bikes.
• Fine dinners.
• Saunas.

Semester 17 Chapter XII: Family First

Hello everybody, here we go again. It’s Monday morning, I’ve had some cancellations today so my schedule is not too tight, lunch is being cooked on the stove, just finished one of my classes, all is good. It’s kinda difficult to believe we’re in December. What a fucking year. Anyways, it’s time to sum up whatever has been going on in this life of mine. Let’s get to it.

 

Last week was pretty normal up until Thursday evening. Work, yoga, workouts, some running. Staying healthy, fit and paid. Things took a welcomed twist when my sis arrived to the city along with her girlfriend. I picked them up after 8pm at my favorite Chinese restaurant and we proceeded to secure bikes. First, we tried to get some from the Dutch Railways. Technically, it seems like an easy thing to do. They say you need their card (which I had) and then you just come and rent up to two bikes for as long as you want. Once we got to the bike spot, we were also told that we might not even need the card and that our credit cards should do. Well, that was a lie. Credit cards won’t cut it. A very irritated lady at another counter then told me that the card I got can’t be used for bikes for some mysterious reason neither so that was that. Luckily, after short research, we found out about this Donkey Republic company that also rents bikes, we installed their app and in couple of minutes we were all riding around the city. No special card, no face verification, no confusing rejections, very straightforward. So yeah, shout out to Donkey Republic.

 

The whole weekend was very pleasant. It was my first time showing people around here and I think I did a pretty good job. We did the observation tower downtown, we walked around the beach, we hung out at some of my favorite cafés… My sister is a great cook so she cooked a lot, too. On Saturday we all went to the infamous beach sauna place and in the evening we all took it to the Bler Karaoke. First time me doing shit like that in Europe. And it was as fun as expected. Sunday we did brunch, enjoyed nice weather in the neighborhood and I accompanied them two back to the station. Everything worked out, everybody was happy and the weather could not have been much better. It is cold but not super cold and there was virtually no rain whatsoever. And since my sis had b-day yesterday, it felt like I managed to contribute a bit to her spending it in a fun way.

 

So yeah, today it’s back to normal but there are quite exciting things on the horizon. In 10 days, I’m going to Switzerland for couple of days and then it’s back to Brno. We also planned a pretty exciting trip to Africa for late January and apart from many other things, it seems I might be able to a dive there after like forever. We’ll see how everything goes. Hope you guys are doing great, sending love to everybody out there. And some extra love for all my vegans. One!

Highlights:

• My sis’ visit.
• Karaoke.
• Sauna.