Some time in Spain

Catching up here on recent happenings post Zurich. Everyone in my family or professional network who I speak with about the current state of my employment situation gives me a wide-eyed look and says “you gotta get out of there” or something to that effect. This was especially true talking to Tony this past weekend whose exasperation on my behalf cracked me up, but also prompted me to wonder if now is the time to really start mobilizing in a different direction.  By conventional norms of business and employment it’s true, that as an employee I am getting screwed, to put it bluntly. I won’t detail all of the associated travails here in case somehow this blog makes its way out of a small circle but in summary there is some serious instability in my current employment, which many of you are already aware of in intimate detail. On that note, thank you to everyone who has listened to me ponder over the last 1.5 years or so. Despite this somewhat self-imposed existential distress, by my ...

Alright I've been negligent in my updates but a lot has happened in the last few days.For now, an update on my trip to Zurich: I spent last weekend visiting family in Zurich. I've wanted to visit Switzerland for some time -- in part because of my friend Marina's tales of the country, and because cousin Sara has been living there with Yura and Inna for several years now. This weekend was a particularly opportune moment to make the trip because of the overlap with Ann, Tony and Shelby being in town to celebrate Sara's end of chemo party.  Overall it was an easy trip from Barcelona, just 1.5 hours by plane -- funnily enough I was the shortest person in the row of seats, squished between two very tall (at least 6'5") European men in the very back of the plane. Yura was kind enough to pick me up at the Zurich airport and we headed to Sara, Yura & Inna's apartment in Leimbach for a lunch of indian food followed by swiss chocolate and espresso. In the evening ...

Alright, nothing crazy since the last post. I have mostly been chilling, working and soaking in a small dose of life in canet de mar. It took me about two days to recover from the ulti tournament. On top of the physical wear and tear, tournaments generally involve a big mental and emotional output. This was one probably particularly exhausting due to residual jetlag and being in a new place, with new people, new language etc. I’ve been trying to get good sleep and eat well since then, though waking up at 5 this morning to catch a renfe to the airport, my brain and body are complaining a bit.  A month is a long time to be away and I imagine I feel like I’ll have a decent sense of this place once I come home, but right now I am mostly aware of how unfamiliar everything is, and the little moments of progress that happen every day (like finding a shortcut to the supermarket, or the pharmacy attendant telling me I had decent Spanish) remind me of the level of familiarity and ease of nav...

Since uploading the last post from my phone while waiting in the Passeig de Gracia train station, I realized I was waiting on the wrong platform and quickly made my way to the other side to grab the R2S branch of the Renfe heading south to Castelldefels. It wasn't long before I spotted a few people wearing ultimate gear with discs clipped to their backbacks heading to the tournament (Copa Tanga). These three happened to play for Bravas which is the Barcelona based mixed-gender team that practices 2x per week -- once on grass and once on beach. We caught the Renfe together and arrived in Castelldefels with enough time for me to change clothes, refill water and find my team (Black Bonzai) which was made up a mix of international players including two from the UK, four from Russia, one from Sweden, two from France, two from Switzerland  and one from Austria. Most of the team were meeting each other for the first time but all had a connection in common with our team captain Nasser M...

I considered getting started on this last night, my first in Spain, as a way of keeping myself awake / giving myself the best chance to sync with a new time zone but was able to stave off fatigue until a reasonable hour by treating myself to a glass from a €2 bottle of local wine, listening to house music and responding to a few work emails.  Between Thursday at 1pm EST and now (8:30 am, GMT) I have traveled approximately 4,500 miles, using 4 separate trains, a bus and an airplane. As I write this I am riding the Renfe R1 from Canet de Mar (where my lodging is) to Badalona where I will transfer to the Metro (purple line) which will take me to Passeig de Gracia where I will transfer back to the Renfe (R2) line which will take me to Castelldefels where I will be for the next few days playing in an international beach ultimate tournament with Black Bonzai, a team of French, Swedish, Danish, Russian and American (me) players. Major shout out to my friend and teammate Nico for getting m...