Favorite places:
- Placa del colegio del patriarca
Todo:
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La Romana heladería.
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https://valenciamountainenthusiasts.com/hikes-public-transport/
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Jazz concert: https://www.jimmyglassjazz.net/programacion-3/
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Horchateria Santa Catalina (roots going back to the 13th century)
What is this story going to be about?
I dwell in possibility, poem by Emily Dickinson
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House and pet sit in Billericay, United Kingdom
Beautiful home in lovely village, two easy cats and rabbits. Close to London
TrustedHousesitters
Seeluft in San Sebastian! Meanwhile Emily Dickinson in my audiobook
Theme: I am someone who enjoys a challenge. I want to fail, for without failure, I am much too likely to just exist within my comfort zone. I love the feeling of burn.
Some difficult feelings in the middle. Maybe describe the impact of the book on racism further. What do I make of it? Throw in the Saint-Exupéry misattribution about longing for the sea.
I just arrived in San Sebastian. I don’t think I slept more than an hour or two. Sleepy-eyed I exit… Orange lanterns along the river as far as I can see. I look at my muted, steel blue suitcase rolling behind me. It feels surreal, as though the reality of what I am doing has not yet set in. but then again, most of my life up to this point has felt surreal, so I am mostly amused at my nonchalance.
I sit in a café, Màs Que Cáfe, have the juiciest and tastiest piece of pan plantano ever, topped with thinly sliced, half-melted banana. I listen to the conversations around me. My Spanish is not quite there, I can feel the time my brain needs to make sense of the words. I try to catch a dozen new phrases before I move on with my thoughts.
I compare the overall vibe to what I experience in a café in Zurich. There is a friendliness, openness, and warmth. A lady with a pixie cut and a bandage over hear ear reads the newspaper. A group of two, then three, then four women has an animated discussion about… Something within me softens of which I didn’t know it had been tense. Slowly, the Tresen fills with more and more baked goods. A steady stream of handymen, workers, and… Orders coffee to go in brown little cups, carried out two in the same hand while awkwardly trying to open the door with the other hand without a spilling incident. On the wall, the initials of the café shine as tiny white lights embedded into a wooden slate.
One more paragraph about transition. Some upbeat note built into it. For more application practice, I am applying to the EU AI Office.
Now, a thought that will be one of the reoccurring themes of the foreseeable future: where is the next socket?
In the evening, I explore more of the old town and inevitable find my way back at the beach promenade. I see a guy set up his drum kit. […] At some point, drum guy starts. His thought process must have been: I’m good at throwing things at targets, juggling and drumming. What if I combine the three to jam to Stan Getz at to the beach? Especially the thrown and catchy and the rhythmic variations.
Madrid
Anonima Theater piece teatro Clara, ticket bought 45min before.
Redondeo solidario, 0.1 Euro
https://www.mujeresdecine.com/a-los-libros-y-a-las-mujeres-canto/
I sign up for Langua. Yes, the romantic idea of going out to practice is nice. But my Time is limited and if I mix my goals, I achieve less. So I isolate language learning to an effective manner and then try to have social interactions where I really connect with people. Realistically, I won’t get there in Spanish during my 6 weeks in Spain, but I can still make leaps and bounds with my language skills. The goal is to be at a level at which I can comfortably understand the news, confidently carry conversations in every circumstance I face, and get to a level at which I can follow even the most challenging Spanish movies.
Watch the series Merlí on Netflix.
Sign up for Magnify Mentoring
Book five Alexander Technique sessions with the book author, Marcus James. Schedule for the last week of June and book accomodations in the area? Could be the type of transformative experience I’m looking for? Maybe I’ll even find a house sitting gig in the area and could pay for the entire experience that way?
Alexander Technique Book and it’s impact. Deciding to take one lesson per month, even though it can be somewhat pricy. Paying a few hundred euros to delay and smoothen out the onset of arthritis in my life by several years would be an investment my future self would do in a heartbeat, I believe.
I need to take care of myself if I want to have any hope of having a positive impact on the world. And I do want to be doing more.
Sitting in a Starbucks in Madrid. I watch the cars with their headlights reflected in the rainy street and umbrellas pass by at the intersection below as Frank Sinatra, Ella Fitzgerald, Billie Holiday, and Carmen McRae… Take turns singing about the troubles and joys of life. From time to time I indulge in the various and diverse waves of smells that characterize a Starbucks. I grab my book and clip the little light to it, warm glow. Paying 1.5€ for a single espresso and proceeding to block a table for at least 3 hours rightfully won’t make your very popular at many cafes, whereas it is part of the business model of Starbucks. The lady Infront of mengets up, on her laptop? In bold white letters on black background: Arlo Parks. Below, there is a hint of a picture and to the right of that, some text that is too small for me to decipher.
Starbucks argument: cannot afford to research the policy on laptops every time. It’s good to know in advance that you are welcome and can just work with access to a socket.
In Valencia, I go to the same Starbucks. I try to get a sense for the people who come. The way they carry their bodies. Trying to identify regulars. There is the woman who… There is the 30s guy who… I decide to chat him up.
Valencia
Arriving to large mural and orange trees outside the train station. Things are green.
Empanada con queso vegano. Skyr strawberry. OMG. Probably it’s some A/B testing where they try to see what sells best in a given country? Strawberry is my absolute favorite. I’m going to have a great time here, I can already tell. (Do research on why and how they decide these types per country.) Supermarket around the corner literally called Consum.
Read “Never More Alive” by Kate Mangan to get an idea of what Valencia was like at the time that it was the capital.
Write about going through my notes from Mariana. 133 pages worth of notes. I condense all of them into a neat write-up as I prepare to restart with my singing hobby.
DANA abbreviation for a common weather phenomenon.
I Solo Balboa? Balboa Private?
Create Trusted housesitters Account and get a two week sit in a major city of the world like London. Would save me a lot of money if I could do that, money I could pour into experiences.
End with Barcelona, having a lesson with Mariana, and the dancing festival.
During lunch break: listen to Pete Walker audiobook while doing a workout at home. Gym memberships don’t seem worth the hassle and financial cost given how often I move currently, so I stick to cycling through daily running, body weight strength training, and yoga.
Listen to Last Week in AI to get my work hours in.
Pablo inviting me to join the WhatsApp groups. Beef between dancing schools, socials at the same time. Some things are the same everywhere, I guess.
Journaling meetup.
I got a foldable yoga mat and just had my second private yoga lessons this week. I have been reading up on the history and philosophy of yoga.
Use Yoga to solidify the Alexander Technique notes.
I want a farewell coffee with someone I met!
Throw in doing Anki while waiting somewhere.
Running into Charlotte who is biking by randomly!
As I run through the jardin de Turia and people through fireworks from the bridges above me, I listen to The Untethered Soul.
Untethered Soul notes, integration into Motivation & Meditation Routine is essential.
- Chapter 1: The story and voice in my mind separates me from actually perceiving the world as it really is.
- Opening the hand of thought: what is my default mode towards life Tasks? Life challenges? Talking to a new person? Is my default mode closed and tightening, or is it spacious and open? This is very much in line with Alexander Technique.
- There is a deep tendency to close and it’s one of the key things holding me back. If I could update my Meditation Routine to fuse this more into the emptiness and spacious openness vs closing, I would make a lot of progress growing as a person.
- I want to take the skill of turning the light inward and practice actually doing it more throughout the day to open up and let go of closing tendencies. Let go of identifying with the delusions and stories within my head, just saying: interesting story, bro, and moving on. Currently, I don’t do it much.
- Don’t organize your life around a thorn within you, don’t make other people take care of the thorn or pick people according to it. Take the thorn out.
- Pain is the price of freedom. Fear of pain drives so much. But without pain, there is no true growth. I want this to be an individual entry for my Motivation prompts (use Claude to write something), and I also want this to become part of my daily meditation routine. Meditating on how I will go about various forms of pain throughout the day. Maybe this could become the default for Phase 3? Currently, my Phase 3 is a bit meandering, it could use some default direction.
- Walls I build that constrain me: my entire self-concept and the concept I have of the world, my limitations, and the limitations the world puts on me. If I could let that go on a daily basis and exist in a truly free form, wow!! Imagine how amazing that would be. What would that look like? Make Stage 4 about living that perspective.
- Desire for Liberation. I am realizing that the key thing that is missing in my spiritual practice is a desire for liberation from the countless limitations my mind imposes on me, concerning work, social interactions, contentness, … Don’t try to build a ship, try to yearn for the endless sea. It is only a temporary stepping stone in Buddhist practice, but it would really fuel my growth.
- Self-concept clinging for self-protection.
Sunday journaling.
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Talk to people with schizophrenia
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Absurdly rich American expats
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People grappling with not being able to help their homeless and mentally ill mother
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People enjoying their semester abroad
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Portuguese musicians
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People who like me, fled Switzerland, and people who are trying to move there.
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The Venezuelan woman transitioning to Data Science with whom I’m weirdly vibing
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Arina, the Russian who did an MSc in AI & Automization and who is absolutely passionate about Notion and Obsidian. Great friendship potential there. Also, it was nice to talk with her and the Venezuelan until 5:30pm, so I got a solid 4.5h of quality socializing in there.
The weird Luftpost for money that gets triggered when too much money is in the cashier.
A guy dropping his Bluetooth speakers blasting rhythmic Spanish music onto the metro tracks. Deciding to climb down, he is unable to get back up. Some bemused teenagers who are closer there rescue him.
Ideas I will be taking to Lisbon:
- Silent Book Club Meet-Up
- Journaling Meet-Up (I probably prefer this)
It’s not all rainbow and sunshine.
- The text I sent to Jindra explaining my suicide thoughts.
- Sitting at Starbucks, aguas de março in my favorite duet version comes on. I read the responses on my reddit post. Material for my next therapist, for sure. I contact Marcus James for therapy. I realize Keiryuji has taken their webpage down completely because they failed the inspection. I review Anki cards on phonological alternation in Spanish.
People watching at Starbucks
- Homeless musician (very smelly, stylish hair with a blonde streak, carries arround a Verlängerungskabel, three chargers, and charges three devices simultaneously. Shaking his head with a passion and … that I have seen few people, even musicians in the zone, do.
- Business folks
- A mom with a smartphone holder attached to the handle so her child can watch videos. I mean, it’s language education, I’m not judging. Just surprised but not surprised this is a thing.
- The artist with the shit ton of pencils and a huge A5 folder with drawing paper, various notebooks.
- An entire family, all on their phone, quietly eating their muffins.
- Outside the, delivery people chatting with their e-scooters. One of them comes speeds down the roads and ducks below a pigeon that would otherwise have decorated his face.
- An entire school class
- Next to me some girls very passionately discuss the love troubles one of them is having
- Reading
A Valencian “friend” of mine once told me “we welcome people with open arms, but then we don’t close our arms” 😅
At the metro station Ayora, heading to dance practice. Partial metro strikes on April 9 from 1pm until… the board stutters, gets stuck. Until when, my mind screams at it? It goes blank, guess even info boards are part of striking culture.
Last dance class:
- Water coming down
- People telling me goodbyye
- Pablo found a new job
- Vincent offering me to stay
- Even ran into Arina one more time at Starbucks on Monday and she was super friendly!
Barcelona OMG:
- really cool concepts and moves; feel as though I really learned something
- Really good switch dances (an amazing blonde girl from Genoa, Marion from Konstanz, Diana from Frankfurt, …)
- The best dances I had with Emily (Parisian living in Copenhagen, OMG!), Megi from London (we vibed really well and she was grateful for my feedback about her belonging in the advanced class), as well as the Spanish girl from Zurich who moved back home to around Barcelona (I think her name was Paula)
- Exchanged numbers with Tintin (offered to host, spare room), Malin from Stockholm, Megi, Emily, Wilhelm from Sweden (promised to send him hiking info!)
- Bonded more with Kerstin; she wanted to spend a day with me and we also had dinner, just the two of us. She also said that she would consider coming to Valencia if I was gonna be there which actually means quite a lot to me? Didn’t realize that this friendship might be going places, but I think I am beginning to have dancing friends!
It’s the Tuesday morning after Easter now. As I enter the elevator inside the metro station, the LED display that would usually inform me of the level I am on is broken. Instead, the LEDs come together to form a friendly smiley face that rhythmically blinks at me.
Valencia gave me a new therapist, new medication, new friends, a new sentiment de vivre, chance encounters, a new approach to learning a language that will have a lasting impact. One year from now, I should have a really decent level in Spanish and I have already implemented the same language learning strategy for Portuguese. My passion for dancing was also reigniteed and I will really work on embodied approaches to therapy, solo jazz, and I will also learn Balboa to become an even better dancer.
I get into the train to take me towards Lisbon and it leaves the station. Had it been dark when I had entered the train station, the Sun had now risen, though little was to be seen of that in the overcast sky. My train takes a corner and outside the window I see
I catch glimpses of the sea in the distance. The Sun is now behind the diffuse mist above the cloud front, casting the valley below into a diffuse light. After a while, my train takes a gentle turn and the Sun disappears. That’s my cue to get out my laptop and get to work.
Next up: Lisbon