Flogsta memories

When I entered the lobby of the building I found lying on the floor a girl that had tried to commit suicide. She shuddered in fear... death was coming! She was crying black tears. Her friend was there too, a little girlish boy in panic. He was sobbing like it was the end of his very own life, absurdly out of control and disoriented. He was holding her left wrist up, where she had cut herself, tightly with his hands to stop the blood flow. A third person was there, a man on his mid thirties, who was in control of the situation and, thanks god, did know what to do. Once I stepped in the lobby he said with a commanding voice, “take your jacket off and put it on her,” then he called the ambulance. It was about 4.00 in the morning of a Saturday or Sunday, I do not remember. A few minutes later, the ambulance came, the paramedics asked the boy to release her arm, and at that moment I saw the cut, remembering it gives me the creeps. She had lost a lot of blood, but by the look on the paramedics' faces it seemed there was not a risk of her dying.

Welcome to Flogsta baby!

I lived in Flogsta during all my stay in Sweden, about five years, from the 1st of December of 2004 until the beginning of February of 2010. It was my first time living alone and I was 21 when I moved in. Living there was pretty crazy, crazy people and crazy parties, that's what Flogsta is all about. Also known as the student ghetto, it is a neighborhood of Uppsala about fifteen minutes by bike from the city center. The entire neighborhood could be divided in two, the 'high houses' (at Sernanders väg) and the 'lower houses' (at Flogstavägen). The former are sixteen tall buildings where the majority of the students lives, the lower houses are for those students that are looking for a quieter social experience. From the sixteen buildings, houses 1 to 10 have 'corridors', that means a long corridor with twelve rooms, each room with its own toilet, but kitchen and living room are common spaces. Each floor has two corridors connected by a small balcony and the room where the freezers are. Houses 11 and 12 are for students too, but each room has its own little kitchenette, with no common spaces. Houses 13 to 16 are private accommodation, mostly inhabited by immigrants. They are called houses because each building is called in Swedish hus, which is translated as house. I lived two years in house 9 and the rest in building 11.

A picture of house 10 from my room in house 9

The crowd at my corridor was very picturesque. There was the semi-hippie bearded Italian womanizer, the forty years old “student” that had been there for twenty years, the hot Swedish smuggler girl of Russian parents and with personality disorders, the Belgium nineteen years old girl exchange student tasting freedom for the first time, the socially awkward computer geek, the lonely philosopher metal guy, among other less remarkable people. All of them very nice in their own way and all of them mad in their own way. Then, the Colombian Rastafarian scientist arrived to add some spice to the mix.

 Sharing in the kitchen with my corridor mates, how many memories!

When I first went in the corridor I was hit directly by the stench of garbage. Since in Sweden recycling is very important we had two supermarket carts, one for tetrapacks and cardboard (mostly from milk boxes) and the other for newspapers and paper advertisements. We also had common baskets for metallic cans, colored glass, and non-colored glass, one type of plastic and another type of plastic, and some other categories that I can not remember anymore... all of them lying on the corridor contributing to the reeks. In theory someone had to take the trash once a week, but in reality we emptied the carts when they were overflowing with trash and the bottles were starting to hinder the free passage through the corridor. Eventually, I stop feeling the stench, so I guess it was OK.

Perhaps one of the coolest things of living in Flogsta are the infamous corridor parties. Every weekend, a corridor would organize an open party where anyone is welcomed: anyone is everybody in town. In my time, before facebook got so popular we pasted posters in the elevators of each building advertising the event; I wouldn't be surprised if posters are nowadays replaced by facebook events. The only rule was BYOB (bring your own booze). The hosting corridor moved apart the furniture and set up the music, then opened the doors and let the party begin! You arrived alone or with friends and you just had to be social, most of the people did not know each other in any case, so it was a great way to make friends. The corridor filled up until there was no space left to squeeze another student. Awesome fun and great mischief.

Yeah, that was my party in association with a corridor mate. Killer combination.

Another peculiar thing about living in Flogsta was the “Flogsta Scream”. At exactly ten o'clock in the night, you were allowed to scream to the top of your lungs. Every single day you heard someone screaming, another one answered in the neighbor building, then another and another. During final exams days the screams rose the loudest! There were many legends explaining how this tradition began, probably none was true. I thought first, someone must have been murdered, yet eventually I screamed my fair amount of times. There was always a reason to scream your lungs out.

My experience in Flogsta marked five years of my life. There I met amazing people from all over the world, there I learnt to speak English, there I learnt to flirt and to love, to dance, to be open minded... There I lived unbelievable adventures, and there I had the greatest of times as a student in Uppsala.

I will never forget those days.

The paleontologist who leapt through time

Dr. Cortés received a package from an anonymous sender. He opened it and found a time machine. He knew it was a time machine because it was written on the futuristic looking box that contained it; time machine, it read in capitals with big black glossy letters. Dr. Cortés was so incredibly excited, he had been a paleontologist for almost two decades and since he was a boy he dream with seeing dinosaurs alive. The time machine was a very simple machine indeed, it was a tablet the size of half an A4 sheet of paper, made of a transparent clear blue material, lighter than glass but heavier than plastic, a touch screen. The time machine activated with his touch. Stylish and shiny white letters appeared in the screen, input travel date, and below there was a numerical keyboard, there were also two buttons, one read to the past and the other to the future. Dr. Cortés did not give it too much thought and rapidly typed 67000000, he counted the ceros just to be sure, and pressed to the past, just two million years before the asteroid strike that marked the end of the Cretaceous. It all happened in an instant. First it came the panic, a panic like he had never known. Then, the sudden realization that he was on the seventh floor of a building in Bogotá, then it came the realization that Bogotá was 2600 meter above the sea level and that during the Cretaceous Colombia was still underneath the ocean. The universe around was a perfect blue, a darker one down below and a clearer one above, there was not a single cloud in the sky. This is it, he thought feeling the vertigo as he fell, this is how I die. Then he noticed the time machine was nowhere to be seen, probably he dropped it in the very first moment of panic. The sea got closer and closer, the waters were calm, gentle waves left a trail of white foam. A good day to die. He breathed deeply, closed his eyes, and dived into the water, feet first, like a bullet through polystyrene. He reopened his eyes despite sting and irritation, and forced himself to keep them that way. The playful reflections of the sun in the surface told him where was the way up. Then he saw a shadow in the distance, large, very very large, it looked like the silhouette of a crocodile, only thirty times bigger and fins instead of limbs. Mosasaur, he thought, this is not my lucky day. He tried to scream flailing arm and legs in desperation but salty water rushed into his lungs as if he just inhaled fire. It was darkness next, a row of three sharp teeth pierced through flesh and bone, taking Dr. Cortés' life in an instant, mercilessly. Only a purple cloud of blood and a foot with its shoe still laced tightly were left.

The Lily and the Hummingbird

“Why do you cry?” asked the white lily to the hummingbird. Her petals were immaculate ivory, pure snow, her anthers were overloaded with pollen like shiny beans of gold. Bees would play with her all day long and tickle her to laughter, she would reward them with the sweetest of nectars. “This pain is unbearable,” said the hummingbird sobbing. He was perched on a windowsill, gloomy. His feathers that once were, lapis lazuli, emerald, and jade, had suddenly turned the color of old dry moss. He was consumed by tedium, his heart ached, icicles hung down from his soul. “What happened sweet little bird?” said the lily full of compassion. “My love has withered, she's dead, and nothing could bring her back to life.”

The hummingbird cried for a morning glory that had perished to a viral infection. The remembrance of her crimson flowers with fuchsia stars and gleaming white throats made his heart throb with grief. Every morning the little bird would visit the morning glory, he hummed from flower to flower drinking the plant's nectar. Her nectar tasted like love and life, like the warm winds of summer, like a bright sun at noon and the tenderness of its beams of light upon his feathers. Her nectar tasted like peace, like the meaning to be alive, like the meaning to be in love, like happiness. The hummingbird would fly right after dawn to visit her beloved. And everyday at dusk he went to sleep with the memory of her flowers in mind and the anticipation of a new visit in the morrow.

The snow white lily understood the hummingbird's pain. “I can put you out of your misery,” she said, “I know a mystical spell passed down generations of flowering plants since the end of the cretaceous.”

“Can you... can you bring her back to life?” asked the hummingbird incredulous. “No,” answered the lily, “but I know where she is and I can take you there, if you want.”

“I do, I do!” The hummingbird felt a crumb of excitement, perhaps there was hope, perhaps not everything was lost. “What do I have to do?”

“It's very easy, you will come at midnight and you will drink of my nectar. I will do the rest.”

Exactly at midnight the hummingbird visited the lily. The night was clear and the stars shone weakly drowned by the city lights. A half moon spread its milky light and made the lily's petals appear silvery. The little bird had nothing to wait and hummed right in front of the flower, with his thin and long tongue he licked repeatedly the tip of the lily's stigma dripping with a yellowish liquid. The nectar was salty and bitter. Something was wrong, the bird suspected, but he kept licking the tip of the stigma as the drops of yellow nectar flowed. In a flash, the lily closed her ivory petals trapping the bird inside ever so tightly. The hummingbird flapped hard trying to release himself from the lily's powerful grasp, but he knew it was impossible. He started to suffocate while an extreme ardor burned his bowels, his lungs were collapsing as he struggled for air, the fire spread to his chest, then to his throat until he coughed blood. He coughed and coughed, throwing up at the same time an intense ruby blood. He knew then it was useless to fight, he understood now what the lily had meant with putting him out of his misery. Soon he will be reunited with his eternal love, his morning glory of crimson flowers. The bird died, yet the blood kept on flowing through his mouth soaking the lily's petal in that vital fluid. When the sun shone the next morning the lily released the corpse of the lovely little bird as she opened her long proud petals, now the color of love.

Inspired by Oscar Wilde's 'The Nightingale and the Rose'.

Bogotá Dreaming

The very first thing he saw in the morning when he opened the door was a freshly deposited mountain of shit in the sidewalk right in front of the building. For a moment Tanai wondered whether the excrement was human or canine, but an invisible cloud of fetid gases made him rush away. The answer came a few steps later when he saw a paper flier with a dark brown smear. Certainly, dogs do not often choose to clean their arses after doing their business. He kept on walking down Carrera 15 trying to forget such nasty images of human misery. This side of the street featured old houses with some kind of English design, mostly made of red bricks, or so his aunt used to say. He had been in London a couple of times and although there was a reminiscence, the architecture of the houses in this neighborhood were a lot less elaborated in comparison. The sight of the sidewalk made him upset, the concrete was cracked everywhere, patched hundreds of time, and every time the sidewalk was left worse than it was before, neglected for decades, the iron lids that protected the water meters from the aqueduct were missing, stolen by someone to sell them as recyclable material, and pieces of trash and broken glass were scattered everywhere. It disgusted him, a decade ago when he was permanently living in Bogotá he did not even noticed the decadence. He doubted ten years ago the sidewalk was in any better condition. 

At the end of the street there was a pharmacy and hanging from a poster by the entrance he spotted the winning lottery number. He had not bought a lottery ticket this week, the full prize was almost thirteen millions euros. What would he do if he won the lottery? He asked himself. There was a one in eight million chance of winning, he knew, a slim chance but not an impossibility. If he won, he would give one third of the money to his mother, one third to his aunt, and one third to himself. He tried to calculate in his mind how much there was left for him taking into account that there was a twenty percent tax on the full amount. Roughly three-and-a-half million euros, he calculated. He thought he would not quit his future job in London, he would buy a nice house there though, not too big. And he would take his girlfriend to holidays in Bora Bora, he imagined himself with her living in a little wooden hut built over the crystalline turquoise waters, just as they had seen online in some pictures. He missed her dearly and promised himself he will take her to Bora Bora whether he won the lottery or not.

He crossed the street, right in front of the pharmacy there was a busy bakery. Standing by the entrance there was a beggar. An old man, fifty or sixty, he had a long white bear, and although he was balding the remaining hair in his head was still black. The old man clothes were ragged and discolored, they might have been black once, now they were a sad pale green. The old man muttered to a woman that was exiting the bakery with a bag full of bread, “madrecita, a coin or a piece of bread, I'm hungry, god bless you,” his voice was barely perceptible. The woman ignored him completely and after she had passed away, the beggar started whispering a hundred different insults. Tanai was not surprised and just kept on walking east along Calle 28. When he reached Caracas Avenue he saw the giant Transmilenio buses, packed with passengers beyond maximum capacity, flying, fast like red thunder. A few million years ago our ancestors were hanging from tree branches, now we hang from bus handrails. He thought that was really funny. As he waited for the traffic lights to change he focused his sight on a gray pillar with thick bold letters that read Calle 26, by the Transmilenio station. A decade ago there had been analogue clocks in each pillar of every station, now there were none. He wondered if it had been too troublesome to keep the clocks working that they decided to get rid of them. What does that say about people in Bogotá? He reflected. The traffic light for pedestrian shifted green, he crossed but before he was on the other side of the street the pedestrian light had already changed to red. How annoying! Who the heck timed this lights? He thought.

The other side was full of street vendors. A tiny old woman was selling yogurt with cereal in plastic pint glasses, some had green yogurt and some had pink one. Thirty meters further away from the tiny lady a man was selling snail slime. The man was wearing an ancient suit and in a little table to his right a plastic box was full of lettuce and living snails the size of a fist. Hanging from the table a poster depicted images of skin aberrations, before and after the application of the potent snail slime. Tanai wondered if there was anyone crazy enough to buy and use his product. Across, a cart was selling gargantuan hot dogs. The image of Swedish hot dogs came to his mine, a tiny bread and a sausage, “ketchup, senap?” the fat vendor outside the student nightclub asked on a not so cold spring night in Uppsala. “Bara ketchup,” he used to answer handing him a twenty Swedish crowns note. That brought Tanai the memory of V-dala nation, the line of students waiting to get in, one million bikes parked everywhere. Colombian hot dogs were completely different than Swedish ones. Besides bread and sausage, there were onion chopped in little pieces, potato chips in crumbs, ground cheese, ketchup, mustard, mayonnaise, and to top it all, three quail eggs.

Tanai waited for another traffic light to change, yet a chubby little woman dashed across the street in a hurry. She was wearing a tight black dress that accentuated the excess of fat molecules accumulated around her waist, abdominal area, hips, and chins, all three of them. She was wearing high heels, about ten centimeters tall, yet one of them seemed to be tilted around thirty degrees to the left of where it should be. The other had dry mud. Tanai wondered if she noticed whatever was going on with her heels. He knew her feet were in pain already by the way she leaned forward as she walked. Poor lady, he thought.

He entered a small stationer's at the side of the street almost at the level of Carrera 13. “Is it possible to print some documents in here?” Tanai asked as he showed his digital camera's memory card where he had stored the pdf files. The young woman at the other side of the counter answered: “Sorry, my love, the memory card adapter is broken.” Tanai hated to be called “my love” by strangers, a very common practice in Colombia. “I'm not your goddamned love,” he wanted to say but did not. As he left the stationer's Tanai thought how only two people have earned the privilege to call him my love in this world, his mother who had being doing it since before he remembered, and his girlfriend. The thoughts of his girlfriend flooded his brain again. What is she doing right now? Is she thinking of me at this very moment? Then the image of her appeared in his brain screen. He imagined himself with her again, taking her in his arms and kissing her passionately, her hair caressing his face. He remembered that day in Helsinki when she called him my love for the very first time. It had been a month since the last time they met. It was going to be more than a month before they met again, probably in London. What if for some unexpected reason the visa for the UK was rejected, I would be stranded in Colombia unable to travel, with no money, and no job. He thought he would probably never see her again. As the thoughts filled every space in his brain, he felt a sudden emptiness in his diaphragm, “No!” he screamed in his mind, “that won't happen, be strong Tanai, you have to be patient.” The loud horn of five buses, all of them probably older than himself polluted his ears. He thought he should write a great blog post about patience, a life changing one, but he knew it was difficult, he had tried before, he had tried defining patience but the right words always eluded him, yet he was certain patience was essential in his life journey, essential to remain happy and essential to make his dreams come true. Patience, what a mysterious quality, he reflected.

Paris nightlife guide for international guys visiting alone

I lived two years in Paris and I must tell you that nightlife in Paris could be both extremely awesome and incredibly frustrating. Particularly frustrating if you are a guy alone, or a group of guys, and you are not French. This is because even the crappiest, stinkiest, and most unremarkable bars in Paris might have a bouncer that will not let you in. If you are a guy alone or if you come with a bunch of guys the main two excuses for not letting you in nightclubs and some bars are: either you do not have female company or you are not dressed “well enough” for that place, but mostly the former. However, it is not always like that, there are great places open for everyone and here I will share with you some of the places I had the chance to visit. I will focus here mostly on a few clubs and bars that are inexpensive, easy to access, and where it is easy to meet cool people, plus a couple of cheap restaurants of my liking, and some strategies and advice that could come in handy. This is not a guide to fancy and stylish places in Paris, thought I have the chance to visit a few amazing super exclusive clubs and bars too, so I might do another brief guide for the other end of the spectrum later.

There are two cool streets where I used to go out for drinks often, mostly because I used to live close by. One is Rue Mouffetard in the 5th arrondissement, also known as the Latin Quarter, and the other is Rue de la Butte-aux-cailles in the 13th arrondissement, close to Place d'Italie. Rue Mouffetard is a great place to go out for drinks and meet some cool people. If you just stroll along the entire street you will find many bars. There are a couple of those that have tiny dance floors in the basement, like Cap Rougue (23 Rue Mouffetard, 75005), but these places are not really places for dancing, this places are good to get a pint under ten euros and cheap mojitos. These are bars for students, no dress codes, just beers, laughter, and casual fun. The bars along Rue Mouffetard are small and crowded, there will be plenty of international students, so it is extremely easy to start conversations with pretty much anyone, there is absolutely no need to know French. Most young people in France do speak English and as I said, there will be many internationals. A good place for a pint is Le Requin Chagrin (10 Rue Mouffetard) and Le Mayflower (46 Rue Descartes). There are many more bars though. There are also many restaurants, creperies, sushi places, kebab places, and so on. An extremely good restaurant in the area is called Bonjour Vietnam, Vietnamese food (6 rue Thouin, 75005), it is tiny yet beautiful, I counted only 12 seats total, and the food is DELICIOUS!  Rue de la Butte-aux-cailles is also very similar to Rue Mouffetard, many little tiny bars and pubs along the street; however, it is a bit isolated, so while from Rue Mouffetard it is easy to just walk to other touristic places in Paris downtown or to move to another area for drinks, from Butte-aux-cailles you probably will have to take the metro and if it is beyond 1.30, then you will have to take the night bus or rent a bike.

Starting early at Rue Mouffetard, sitting by Le Requin Chagrin

Everywhere around the 5th arrondissement you will find bars and pubs, two fun places to go for drinks and to make new friends are The Long Hop (25 Rue Frédéric Sauton) and Le Violon Dangue (46 Rue de la Montagne Sainte-Geneviève). The first one closes at 2.00 while the second is open until sunrise; many times when The Long Hop closed, we moved to The Violon. The Long Hop is a small pub, it has a dance floor and the crowd is very international; it's a fun place to go. The Violon Dangue is a lot bigger and it has a disco in the basement, if you want to go to the disco you have to pay ten euros if you are a boy and it is free for girls.

Finnishing late in the Latin Quarter, this is by the Pantheon

Other good area to find a few good bars and restaurants is around the old opera house, the Palais Garnier, in the the 2nd arrondissement. Very often what I and my buddies did was to start with dinner at a very authentic Japanese restaurant, actually my favorite restaurant in Paris. The place is called Sapporo Ramen and their specialty is, as the name implies, ramen. I know two Sapporo Ramen, the first one is located  very close to the Louvre Museum; 276 Rue Saint-Honoré, 75001. One huge and delicious bowl of ramen will cost from 7-10€, I recommend you to order the Sutamina Ramen. From there we walked north along Av. de l'Opéra, almost until reaching the Palais Garnier, we would turn west to Rue Daunou. This street has two remarkable bars, the first one is Footsie (10-12, Rue Daunou ,75002) and the second is Harry's New York Bar (5 Rue Daunou). I have already mentioned more in detail these two bars in another post, check this link out. The former is a tiny bar, good for a pint, the latter is a cocktail bar, pretty famous for being the place where the Bloody Mary was invented and because it was a regular hang out for Hemingway and Coco Chanel. These places are beautiful, a bit expensive but worthy, there is no dress code or anything like that... but fun for one drink. Footsie is usually crowded from Thursday to Saturday after 22.00, I recommend you to arrive earlier than that, otherwise the place will be full and you will not be able to get in. Harry's bar is a pretty calm place, awesome cocktails, great for conversations or just to check it out, not really good to strike random conversations. In this street you will also find the second Sapporo restaurant, the thing about this one is that they do not have my ramen of predilection, Sutamina.

Always start a night out with a full belly

At Harry's New York Bar, basement.

Another bar very close by is called Le DOCK (25 Rue Louis Legrand, 75002). This one has a small dance floor in a basement as it is typical from Paris. The place will be crowded during weekends, more casual and cheaper than the two I mentioned above. It is also a good place to start conversations.

An amazing restaurant in the area that I strongly recommend you to visit is called Le Paradis du Frutes (23 Bd. de Italiens, 75002). Their menu is exotic and the food is cooked with a variety of fruits. I suggest you to start with some taco with guacamole, exceedingly delicious, and then the Mamasköl for main dish! So good. The place is cool and the price is convenient. Not the cheapest but not unreasonably expenisve either.

The cheapest pint in Paris is also in this area. You should follow Bd. de Italiens towards east, it turns into Bd. Montmartre that changes a few squares later into Bd. Poissonnière. At the level of Bd. Poissonnière you will find many pubs, an Irish and an Australian one among others, the one I recommend is called James Hetfeeld's Pub (17 Bd. Poissonnière, 75002). There are two good things about this bar: it has the cheapest beer in Paris, just 3.50€ all night and you can drink outside in the sidewalk. Extremely easy to meet new people in here. During weekends it will get very crowded and they close at 2.00. The reason why the Irish (O'Sullivans) and the Australian (Café Oz) pubs suck is because they close doors, so after 21.00 there will be bouncers and if you are a guy alone or just a bunch of guys they will not let you in. There are several of these pubs in Paris, all of them work in the same way. They are big and around midnight there will be a pretty fun party until sunrise, a lot of international people, these are indeed great for socializing. If you want to party in these places the best thing is to arrive before 21.00 and wait, if you are alone or just a couple of guys it might get boring before the party actually gets good... I forgot how many times they did not let me in to these pubs; which in style, music, or crowd, are nothing remarkable at all. On the other hand Hetfeeld's has no bouncer and open doors all night, the party here also is pretty good. The place has a Rock theme, but during party hours they will mix it with regular dancing music, whatevere there is in the charts.

In this same area you find another place worth mentioning, it is a pub called Le Truskel (12 Rue Feydeau, 75002). This place is not so full of internationals as O'Sullivans, or Café Oz, but it is a fun place and a great venue to meet young French people. There are often live bands playing, and the music is mostly Indie Rock or Indie Pop. During the weekends after 22.00 or so there will be a bouncer outside, they will give you troubles if the place is too full. I recommend you to arrive there before 23.00, but they are open until sunrise.

There are two other bars I like that I think are great for meeting people. One is called Le Prohibido in Montmartre (34 rue Durantin, 75018). This is a tiny place, but it gives such positive vibes that it becomes extremely easy to start conversations with strangers. You can also drink outside in the streets, which is ideal during summertime. The other bar is even better, called Point Éphémère (200 Quai de Valmy, 75010) and this could be one of the coolest bars in Paris. Cheap beer, a lot of laid-back people, it has some kind of gallery where they feature art from cartoonist and illustrators. This space offers a unique opportunity to meet cool people, since you can easily start conversations by commenting about the exhibitons in the gallery. They also have a small dance floor and spaces for drinking outside. Another thing great about this place is that it is by the Canal Saint Martin, which makes for a good urban landscape to admire.

Point Éphémère

There are many more places where you could find bars and restaurant around Paris, pretty much everywhere in the city. These were some of the once I visited most frequently and where I had pretty good times.

My last advice for you is to check out this expat group: INTERNATIONALS in Paris. This is a huge group of expats that host many events at bars and clubs in Paris, about twice a week. It is meant for internationals and locals that want to meet new people and network while you drink and party. The crowd is a little older, mostly young people that came recently to work in Paris (25 years old and above, I would say the average would be around 30-33 years old). I suggest you to join the meetup group and check out the schedules, you might be lucky and find an event during your stay in Paris. The events are usually hosted in really nice venues and you will meet new people FOR SURE. I made great friends through this meetup. It is excellent.

That's all for the moment, I hope this was useful!

How to be strong in difficult times

Imagine you are a rabbit on an open field. Your fur is a glossy brown, your muscles are strong and life flows through your veins like a rowdy river. The scent of wildflowers is so delicate yet intensely pleasant. The morning dew still dangling from the fresh grass leaves caress your fast limbs. There is not a cloud in the sky and the sun has just woken up lazily. The beautiful happy melodies of many birds play with your long and alert ears. All is perfect as you jump frolicsome with your rabbit mates. A loud shriek cuts your reality like a sharp sword cutting through straw. It is too late, rapid like a locomotive in a furious march your muscles propel you into a dash. Fear gets a hold of you, a fear like you have never known before, the fear of losing it all, of losing life. So fast yet not fast enough, talons pierce your soft and tender skin, the pointy end of the beak plucks your eye out, and then death.

Sometimes, when I'm afraid I feel this huge emptiness right on my diaphragm. The same kind of feeling when you're in a plane and it suddenly loses a bit of altitude during turbulence. Like the little rabbit about to die. A sudden cold sensation, heavy uneasiness, spreads from my upper back towards my neck. It seems as if all the air is leaving me and it becomes hard to breath. Simply terrifying. I feel like the building will just crumble down while I rest in bed, a hopelessness that takes you to the edge between crying and screaming. It does not matter what you try it seems as if you can not shake the feeling of powerlessness.

How do you summon strength before great adversity? How do you find courage when you are freaking out? How do you remain coolheaded when you are losing all that is cherished? What if everything was taking away from you; your job, house, money, and personal belongings gone, your husband, wife, boyfriend, or girlfriend, gone, your relatives gone forever, your friends unreachable. Would you be afraid? How would you feel if you wake up today knowing that you don't have any money to buy food for lunch and your belly is already growling? How would you feel if someone you trusted scammed you in some business and you lost all the money you had saved and you are left in debt? How would you feel if your better half dies or was kidnapped by FARC? How would you feel if the person you were in love with happened to be cheating on you? How would you feel if both of your legs had to be amputated today? How would you feel if your child was abused sexually?

It could be so horrible that I feel I have no right to write about this, not even mention it. It could be so distressful that I feel scared just to type it down. Is it even possible to remain cool and positive against such terrible events?

When I was living in Bogotá, during the last two and half years of university, I experienced some level of adversity. We had no money at home, I had not a single penny to take a bus to university. We didn't know how to collect enough money to pay the very expensive tuition fees of the university. I had to walk two hours a day, to go to university in the morning and back home for lunch, then go back to class for afternoon lessons and back home again in the evening. The sole of my shoes was so worn out and deformed that once I took a nap after my usual walks and when I woke up I had such a strong pain in my legs that I was not able to walk normally for days. We reached a point were at home we were having for lunch just rice with a couple of slices of plantain, absolutely nothing else. The lack of money also isolated me from my friends, since I didn't have a way to pay for a beer or for the bus to meet them. My father told me he was not going to aid me economically if I went to private university. Besides that, I was lonely, I had passed teenagehood and I had yet to kiss a girl, I had yet to hold hands with a girl. I felt I could not be loved by any woman. My self-esteem was at the lowest possible level. I thought life sucked, I thought life was unfair. I was unable to see all the riches and abundance that surrounded me even during the hardest days; such as my own life and the best education possible in Colombia. I had a very pessimistic outlook on life. I was so confused and in so much pain.

Things changed. I moved to Sweden to start my PhD, that was a huge boost to my confidence. I was getting paid a fair salary so money was plentiful. I started meeting a lot of people and I lost my virginity. I put a lot of effort into changing my way of thinking, but surely the favorable conditions facilitated it. Next thing I knew, being positive and having and optimistic outlook seemed so obvious, it came so naturally easy. I felt like no obstacle was insurmountable, like nothing could hurt me or made me kneel before the challenges of life. I felt so strong, I believed that my strength originated from my amazing personality, insight, and wisdom, and not just from the fact that I had money and access to everything I wanted, and the validation of friends and women.

One day I wondered whether my strength was real strength coming from within, from my own inner value, or if it was just an illusion of the circumstances. If I peeled away all the layers, friends, financial stability, a professional occupation, the support of my family, what would be left? If everything was taken away from me all of a sudden, would I break? Would I be depressed? Would I be angry and desperate?

I think true inner strength originates from two qualities: self-knowledge and patience.

Self-knowledge in the form of knowing what you are really worth, unbiased by the availability of material resources, unbiased by the validation from people around you. If I lose all my friends, am I capable of making new ones? If I lose my girlfriend, do I know I am able to love again and be loved in return? If I lose all the money, do I know I am able to make some more? Do I understand that it does not matter how bad it could get, I will never be alone and there will always be someone by my side? If my legs get amputated and my wife left me because of it, am I sure that my friends will never abandon me? Am I sure I will be able to find someone that loves me beyond my crippled body?

Patience in the form of knowing that no evil or unfair circumstance will last a lifetime, that any obstacle can be overcome, that every hardship can be withstood. Solace can be found in the realization that one second will follow another, that time will never cease to move forward, that there is no shame in beginning again, that we can recover from any blow life throw at us. Impatience is such a woeful quality, it is the source of every bad decision we could make, I have said it before in another post. In my personal case, for example, I've been waiting for almost four months to begin my new job, delays after delays, and expense after expense have left me broke. It is not just me who has to withstand this but at the same time I must take care of four month's of my mothers rents and bills. It's impossible not to feel sometimes that at any moment things will go wrong, which is simply maddening. The only way to fight this hopelessness is by being patient and doing everything at the right time. If I become impatient and decide to submit a visa application without really fulfilling all the requirements as it should be, I would most certainly get the visa rejected and thus I would lose the job possibility with all the consequences that would bring. It happens to people all the time.

Knowing your worth will be your shield, patience will be your sword. Combined they will be your true strength, the true strength of your heart. That is my recipe to remain calm on the face of the great perils of life.

Eternal Happiness

I want to share with you the very first poem I ever wrote. I wrote it fifteen years ago, more or less, I don't remember exactly and I didn't date the poem. This is the translation but you will also find the original unedited, below. I made a lot of rookie mistakes like using too many archaic words, overloading it with adjectives, and funny punctuation... but hey! It was the first one. I hope you enjoy it.

Elusive as a tiny cloud
          faded and hidden by the wind.
Something impenetrable, cold, and imperceptible chains me undountedly
          to the bowels of my being.
My noble heart like a loyal knight brandishes its sword
          against the inexpugnable rock where I lie hopeful.
These blind eyes in a heretic world glimpse the obscure
          still enjoy the fantasy of the winged being.
But that something does not let me excogitate
          the rose that pierces my soul.
My blows seem useless
          before the sinister chain that punishes my freedom.
The fight is slow and arduous the enemy.

The valuable gem I long for protects me.
An accurate spear by my side would make me victorious.

But warriors are few
          and cowards many.
the unwithering rose knows my true path
          uncertain and stony.

Oh, elusive happiness!
          Why do you hide behind invincible walls?
One day I will have you
          my destiny augurs freedom
                    my soul clamors for freedom
                              and joy abounds in my being.
The chains will remain broken
          life, insurrected eagle
                    sword brandished in the sky.
Divine love, fleeting life, eternal happiness.


Spanish version

Esquiva como una pequeña nube
          desvanecida y oculta por el viento.
Algo impenetrable, frío e impeerceptible me encadena impertérritamente
          en las entrañas de mi ser.
Mi corazón noble de fiel caballero blande su espada
          contra la inexpugnable roca en la que yazgo esperanzado.
Ciegos estos ojos en un herético mundo vislumbran lo obscuro
          gozan todavía de la fantasía del ser alado.
Pero ese algo no me deja excogitar
          la rosa que atraviesa mi alma.
Mis golpes parecen inútiles
          ante la siniestra cadena que fustiga mi libertad.
La lucha es lenta y arduo el enemigo.

La valiosa gema que ansío guarda solaz de mi.
Una lanza certera que a mi lado venga me haría victorioso.

Pero los guerreros son pocos
          y los cobardes muchos.
La rosa inmarsecible conoce mi verdadero camino
          incierto y pedregoso.

¡Oh, felicidad esquiva!
          ¿Porque te escondes tras invencibles murallas?
Poseerte algún día lograré
          mi destino me augura libertad
                    y libertad clama mi alma
                              y regocijo abunda en mi ser.
Cadenas quebrantadas permanecerán
          vida, águila insurrecta
                    espada ceñida en el cielo.
Amor divino, vida fugaz, felicidad eterna .

 The rose that pierces my soul

My Finnish experience

As unlikely as it sounds, there has been some relation between Finland—some of its people―and I. Some mysterious connection: a part tragic, but mostly wonderful. This is the story of my Finnish experience.

It all began before I actually left Colombia on my trip to Sweden. Just a few months before my travel, I saw in Bogotá The Man Without a Past by Aki Kaurismäki. This was around summer 2004. At that moment I didn't even know where Finland was, I didn't even know the movie was Finnish, and as a matter of fact, I didn't even know it was spoken in Finnish. I did notice that people in the movie behaved extremely weird, on the 'way below average' part of the spectrum of social awkwardness. They were like robots with a very limited capability of expressing human emotions. I left the cinema wondering if the people in that country really behaved in such an unusual way... it wasn't until spring time 2005, that I met the first Finnish people. I was in Riga taking an international course on Biohydrogen Systems Analysis. Talking with them I found out for the first time that Aki Kaurismäki and his movie were Finnish and came to the realization that unlike the movie, Finnish people seemed pretty normal.

Later during the winter of 2006 (at the beginning of the year) I was sent to Turku, by the Finnish west cost, to join a laboratory for a couple of weeks in order to learn some new techniques. In this laboratory I was going to be trained by a Chinese senior PhD student, who I'll call here Miss MaoMao; she was on her early thirties and was always on turbo mode. There was also another woman that instructed me, this one from Russia, probably late forties or early fifties, let's call her Mrs. Stalin, she had short hair, probably more muscular than I was, she reminded me of a soldier, no one ever taught her how to smile. As you might have started suspecting, my days in Turku suddenly became a torture, thanks to these two women. About twelve hours of work a day including Saturdays! My only repose was when I arrived home every night exhausted.

For some unexpected reason Mrs. Stalin hated me at first sight. The first thing she said to me when we were introduced was: “here we are very clean!” I can still see her rigid stony face. Then I had dreadlocks... the reason of her hatred? You don't need to be very open minded to be a scientist, I concluded. Later on, I was going to use a piece of equipment to measure the pH of a buffer solution. The machine was switched off and because I was a stranger in the lab I didn't dare to use it on my own. To my misfortune the only person in the room was Mrs. Stalin. I asked her: “Excuse me, Mrs. Stalin, do you know how to use this pH-meter?” She turned red, she was furious, walked towards me with huge strides and yelled waving her hands in desperation: “TANAI! YOU DO EVERYTHING WRONG!” I was startled. What was wrong WITH HER?

At the same time Miss MaoMao didn't give me a break. She would repeat every five minutes: “it is not like that, that's wrong.” The last day at work I was about to explode in anger. If it was the middle ages I could have probably cut them half with my two-handed great sword of justice! I still don't understand why they hated me so much. Perhaps they were overwhelmed with my amazing personality or maybe they were intimidated by my blinding handsomeness? I'm not really sure.

It was not all bad. There was somebody that made my days a little lighter. Let's call her Josephine. She was the stereotypical Finnish woman, thirty years old but you wouldn't really know, blond, blue-eyed. She was slim, cute, nice for a change. Besides, her Spanish was perfect, she told me she was in a relationship with a man from Ecuador and had visited South America a few times. She was really kind and invited me to join her to a salsa night on a club. It was a Latin night and she was going with her Peruvian girlfriend, who was a salsa instructor. In the nightclub we met her students. The salsa students were hilariously awkward, they came straight out from a Kaurismäki's movie.

At that time I was going out with this Swedish girl. We had a very special connection and I was very attracted to her. She was not your stereotypical Swedish girl, she was brunette, her skin was darker than mine, very prone to laughter, exceedingly hot. We flirted a lot but nothing really happened between us because she had a boyfriend in San Diego. We hung out very often, yet she had to wait for me to go to Finland to send me a text message saying the following: “Tanai, I have feelings for you”. I couldn't believe my eyes when I read that message, it drove me crazy... in my inexperience, I answered that I also had feelings for her. She replied to that: “but it can not be because I have a boyfriend.” Bullshit... I concluded she was just playing with my feelings.

I left Turku without any more crazyness. I met Miss MaoMao and Mrs. Stalin many times again at international conferences. Contrary to my first impressions Miss MaoMao was a pretty nice woman, a little out of her mind, but nice... I think Mrs. Stalin still throws knives to a picture of my rasta face every night before going to bed.

A year later, there was a conference in Uppsala organized by my lab. All of them were there, including Josephine. I was never interested in her, however I was about to discover that she was infatuated with me even though she was seven years older. During the entire conference I paid her almost no attention at all, but she had a plan... there was a banquette the last night of the conference, and once the dinner was over she made her move and invited me to dance. I accepted gladly not knowing her true intentions. After that we and some of the young people went to a bar to continue drinking... she got drunk and very bold. I don't have to describe what happened later... that night the boy died and a man was born. She was that good.

A year later, more or less, I met another Finnish woman. She was friends of friends. This time just six years older than me. I remember when I saw her eyes for the first time, I was stunned, I had never seen such color before, her eyes were yellow, as if made of gold, really beautiful. It was midsummer day, we ended up wasted on wine. I ended up at her place but we were way too drunk for any real action to happen. After that I invited her for dinner at my place, I tried to reignite the fire, this time sober, but she rejected me. Nevertheless, things didn't end there... a pattern started to arise: we always met at our friend's parties, got wasted, danced, made out, but nothing really happened. We never got any more serious than that. I don't know for how long did that happened. In any case, she became a good friend, she had a hard exterior but inside she was very sweet.

Yet all those past memories are shadowed now. Shodewed by the sun of my days, the moon of my nights, the woman I love, she who was born from ice, the Finnish woman that stole my heart. I told you before, dear reader, how I met her. She was on holidays in Paris and the day we met simply love was. How unusual is that? How unlikely? Montería, Tornio, Paris. It's extraordinary and amazing because, regardless of our different cultures and radically different origins, it's as if we always knew how to love each other right. When could I have imagined I was going to find that on a person from Finland? Now she's changing my life in unpredictable ways.

So the Finnish experience goes on.

Bob Marley and my dreadlocks experience

Bob Marley literally changed my life. His music and message had a profound effect on my personality and the way I see the world and experience life. I feel it saved me from utter sadness and a bleak life.

As I grew up I developed a very introvert, reserved, and shy personality. I had rejected happiness, I had rejected love, I had rejected my dreams, I had rejected even music. The way I felt about life and about myself stayed engraved forever in a poem I wrote when I was seventeen or eighteen years old. I have translated it below into English:

Not even a murmur
nor my voice says
The crying is not heard under the morning light
The smiles are not seen under the tardy twilight
Silence
The infinite silence of the soul, where a worthless treasure rest comfortably

Everything is silent
It seems as if the true sense of living is hidden

And we rest in a bed of lairs

It is the inaudible sound of this motionless body

It is the inaudible sound of this rational soul
It is the vivid meaning of death

The catastrophe of dreams
Silent soul

The poem meant that I was trapped in my body, unable to express myself to the fullest of what I am. If I was trapped within myself, failure in all senses of the word was guaranteed and thus there was no difference dead or alive.

During those days the only type of music I would listen was classical, music from the great composers, Bach, Mozart, Beethoven, Schubert, Schumann, List, Chopin, Dvorak, so on and so on. Nothing else I liked to hear, I did not like Colombian traditional rhythms nor Latin American music in general. As a teenager I did try to explore other genres, actually my cousin used to hear trance, I was very curious about it and borrowed a CD from him. Once my aunt realized I was hearing trance she lectured me angrily, telling me how my soul would burn eternally in the lowest pits of hell if I listened to trance. A few years later, a good friend of mine, a friend that have been a very good influence throughout my life, recorded for me on tape Bob Marley's most popular album: Legend (1994), a compilation of his most popular songs. This was perhaps the beginning of my transformation. I was also influenced by the group of people I was hanging out at the time, many of them listened to Bob Marley all the time.

I felt identified with his music. Bob Marley understood the pain and sorrow we bear on our hearts, but he didn't linger in that pain eternally. He rose up, he fought, he was not defeated, he was victorious. For example, in the song Concrete Jungle from the album Catch a Fire (1973) he says:

No sun will shine in my day today
The high yellow moon won't come out to play
Darkness has covered my light
And has changed my day into night
Now where is this love to be found, won't someone tell me?
'Cause life, sweet life, must be somewhere to be found
Instead of a concrete jungle where the livin' is hardest
Concrete jungle, oh man, you've got to do your best

No chains around my feet, but I'm not free
I know I am bound here in captivity
And I've never known what happiness is and I've never known what sweet caress is
Still, I be always laughing like a clown
Won't someone help me?
'Cause, sweet life, I've got to pick myself from off the ground

Say for example, from the album Survival (1979) and the song of the same name:

We're the survivors, like Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego
Thrown in the fire, but-a never get burn
So I Idren, I-sistren,
The preaching and talkin' is done;
We've gotta live up, wo now, wo now!

As I started listening more and more of his music, a seed was planted in my soul, a wish to change. Yes, I was far from the person I wanted to be. Yes, I was unhappy with myself and my situation, but life is a fight, I had to get up, I had to stand up, I could not give up the fight.

When I was about twenty or twenty-one years old I attempted for the very first time to get dreadlocks on my hear, but I was unsuccessful. My technique “back-combing” was not very efficient and after a few weeks my hair would go back to normal. I tried a second time right before I traveled to Sweden but unsuccessfuly. In Sweden, this was the beginning of the year 2005, I tried once more but they were still not strong enough. 

It was early March, the winter was at is coldest, way below zero. I had decided to go on a trip with exchange students up north, across the polar circle to see the northern lights, the aurora borealis. All the students got together at Norlands Nation (one of the student associations in Uppsala) to take the tour bus up north. All of a sudden my eyes caught sight of this tall Italian chick with beautiful long blond dreadlocks! I thought she was extremely cool, but didn't dare to talk to her at all. I was still too shy to approach her. Like Mr. Marley said: and what is to be must be, it was for me to befriend her. On one hand, I did not know any of the exchange students and was too shy to integrate, on the other hand the dreadlocks chick was too socially awkward, so eventually we started hanging out together. She knew a great technique to make dreadlocks, it was using a crochet needle and with it you would pretty much knit and knot until the lock was strong and secured. She promised to do dreadlocks on me and once we were back to Uppsala I visited her every night from eight to ten to get my dreads done. It took about too weeks but finally they were completed. At the beginning they were just a couple of inches long, after five years they reached below my waist.

Tanai with baby dreadlocks, about six months old

Having dreadlocks was an amazing journey. Contrary to expectations people loved them, everywhere I went my dreads were the object of positive comments, men and women would come to me just to say “nice hair”, “cool hair”, “I love your dreads”. Once on a bus, an old lady, perhaps around 70 years old sat down by my side and told me that she had been to a Bob Marley concert in Stockholm, the year 1980. She said it had been an amazing concert, I believed her. I never imagined how attractive would be for some women my dreadlocks, more than you would bet... they were like fishing rods, every single one of my 37 dreadlocks. Once I was at the nightclub from Snerikes Nation (another of the student associations from Uppsala), I was leaning my back against the wall close to the bar, waiting for my friend who was buying some beers. All of a sudden three gorgeous Swedish girls stood in front of me and started rapping some Swedish hip-hop song, all giggly and excited. Those are just a couple anecdotes...

Perhaps the only negative side is the stereotype that every person with dreadlocks smokes marihuana. Some times people, mostly teenagers, would come to me asking if I had marihuana or if I knew were to buy. For your information, I never have smoked marihuana, as a matter of fact, I have never smoked anything at all.

Then one day I realized that things had definitively changed for the better. I was stronger, my self-esteem was healthier, I was experiencing a confidence I had never known before. I was enjoying my life, I loved the person I had become. So after almost five years of being a rastaman I decided it was time to close that chapter and start a new one, and so I went to a saloon and got them cut.

 Bye bye dreadlocks (R.I.P. 2009)

Long-distance relationships

Have you ever been in a long-distance relationship? I have. Actually, I am currently in one and it is not the first time. LDRs are less than ideal situations, they happen because for some unfortunate reason you can not be together. They could be hard to keep intact, they could be traumatic and painful; yet they could be very positive too, because each second together will be a precious treasure... it takes something to make it work, it takes real love, otherwise it will not happen. I will share here some of my experiences and what I have learnt from them.

The first time I was in a LDR, I was 22 years old. I was inexperienced and I did not realized what was going on until it was already too late. This was the year 2005 before facebook was popular; at that time I had an account on a similar site called hi5. I was already living in Sweden and I was using the site—unsuccessfully—to get some dates. Once I received a little message from an apparently cute girl in America. We started emailing each other, and day by day the letters started growing longer and longer. Everyday we messaged each other and she told me every single little thing she did during her day. Her brother was on drugs, which caused her great distress. We started chatting and talking over the internet. She even played the clarinet for me online. After a while, she literally fell in love with me, even though we never met personally. Eventually she confessed her love and to certain extent I corresponded her. However, she became overwhelming, she would write me books day after day until it became impossible for me to keep up. She was so in love that I got scared and could not correspond her feelings any longer, or was she? Later I found out that her pictures on the website were a century old and she was twice my weight. One day I said to her that the relationship should not go on, that it should stop right there, that there was not future in that. Six months later she was getting married to a guy from the navy. Creepy.

The second time, I met her at a student nightclub. She was an exchange student in Uppsala and she was staying just for a semester. She was tall and beautiful, at least three inches taller than me, of fair skin, seductive black hair, full lips, with a gentleness and delicacy that melted even hearts of stone, she loved Neruda and Klimt. When I first met her it was mid October 2006 and she was leaving back to Italy in February of the next year, never to return. We kind of knew from the very beginning that things had to end when she left. On one hand I was just starting with my PhD and had more than three years to go; on the other, she had to be back to finish her career and graduate. I was very attracted to her so I did not care about what would happen after she left. I decided that I was going to enjoy my time with her, that I was not going to hold back any little bit of my body and soul. I loved her passionately until she had to go. By the moment she left, I knew she was coming back two months later to celebrate Valborg at the end of April. During those two months apart we talked almost everyday on the phone, we spoke for a couple of hours, we also wrote and chatted all the time. Since we kept in touch and everything seemed to have been going well despite the distance, I thought things were going to be the same when she came back, however I found her a bit cold. When I tried to kiss her, she dodged. I was so infatuated that I paid really no attention to it, I just took it as a challenge, and at the third try she accepted my loving lips. The fire reignited. Then we had to say goodbye again, this time for good. After she left, at the beginning we kept in touch as we used to, talking everyday, chatting, emailing... I tried to plan a trip to visit her in Rome but because of one or another inconvenience it was not possible. Little by little the relationship started to fade away, the calls became less regular, the letters more spaced in between, until we stopped talking at all. That's how it ended. When she left Uppsala it was painful, the weeks before she left we would cry on each others arms knowing that the end was near and unavoidable. I and she went on with our lives separately... and I swore that never again I would be in a LDR, yet I broke my promise four years later.

The third and last time it happened in Paris. It was my last year in the city and it was the summer of 2011, beginning of August. I met her at a small bar, it was about two in the morning and we were both extremely drunk. This time she was Finnish and was visiting Paris on holidays, she had come for about three weeks to visit her cousin. The chemical reaction when our hearts met was immediate, catalyzed by that energy from hot and sunny summer days and nights. She was brunette, about my size tall, with gorgeous blue eyes decorated by a subtle gold ring around the pupil, and lips that were made only to be kissed and adored, she had that femininity that is almost irresistible and an aura of sweetness and tranquility. I do not know how much time passed between we said hello for the first time and our first kiss, but it had to be pretty quick. We spend that night together until the sun shone hot in the sky. I left with her phone number and texted her expecting that she would never answer me back. Against my expectations, she did not only answered but was excited to hear from me and looking forward to meet again. Unfortunately, in the following days she was traveling to the French Riviera, so we met about a week later just before I went back to Colombia for holidays. By the time I was back in France she was already back to the Finnish North Pole, where she was born. I thought that was the end of it, yet when I was in Colombia I received another text message from her and from then on we kept in touch. I noticed something in her that I have never found in other women (what exactly, that I will keep to myself), and that encouraged me to keep in touch. I came back to France and we started chatting and skyping, things were getting intimate and our feelings for each other were shared openly. I thought, if this relationship is to go on we have to meet again soon. So I proposed that we should meet in Helsinki, I would go from Paris and she would come down from the North Pole, so it was fair. I said to myself that if she said no I would stop it right there, and if she said yes and we met, then it was worth to commit to the relationship. To my surprise we met in Finland and the summer fire was still very alive in our hearts, although the autumn had chased away the sun and the warmth of the days. When I was back to Paris the oxycontin and all other love related hormones had worked out their magic in my brain and left me irremediably in love with her. I decided that she was worth the effort, that I was going to make the relationship work, and that I was going to give her everything I am. Ever since then we have kept in touch almost every single day. She came back to Paris two more times, then she went to Perú for an exchange program. I joined her there for almost a month and now we wait for the day we will be together again, and so this story has not yet seen the end. Next August will be a year since we first met.

After all these experiences I have concluded that a long-distance relationship will work only if certain conditions are met:

1. You should know that one day you will be together and the distance will be no more. Even if it is in two years time the relationship will be strong if you promise and plan that one day you will be together and never apart again (at least, until you break up of natural causes unrelated to the number of miles in between). If this condition is overlooked the relationship will end sooner than you expect.

2. You must keep in touch as often as possible and trust each other. This is necessary to keep the fire burning, to know that you are together making it work, to reassure that the feelings for each other are still strong. If this does not happen the relationship will fade away until it is no more. Little by little you will become a stranger to each other, little by little things will get colder. As the calls, the text messages, the chat or skype sessions become more spaced in between, someone else starts to fill in that space. In order to keep in touch, you need a strong will to make things work.

3. Finally, you must do your best to see each other as often as possible and when you are together you should not hold back anything, you should give everything you have got, and live every second as if it was the last one. Otherwise, if you never see each other and the relationship is entirely over the internet, then it will become a virtual relationship and that is very creepy.