The first year at university one day seemed like an entire week today. Everything was so regulated. I would buy the same magazine on Tuesday, something like the Slovak equivalent of Tyzden, but they tried to be funnier (they tried, they weren’t) and I read it cover to cover. Every article. Even the ones I wasn’t interested in. Just because. There was nothing else. I had no functioning cell phone, I only had a radio and cd player. I had to read about 20 books that first year, probably more like 26, I forget the exact number and I read some more, the library was a 5 minute walk away. The red light district with all the prostitutes was just two minutes away. I was a virgin and never went there, even though I had the money. I think I walked through it twice. Once by accident on my first night after seeing Citade de Deus alone in the cinema. I was very confused and couldn’t understand why one woman in what I thought was a bar kept staring at me. Until the pink light dawned on me and I finally understood why they called that street the ‘glass street’, because all the houses had such huge windows with woman standing behind them in sparse clothing. The second time was with Benjamin, I think, and I was too shy to really look. Perhaps I could have jumped a couple years in experience if I had actually gone there, not to have sex with them probably, I can’t imagine being able to have sex with a woman just because you are paying them, but some of them know enough about people and can help you by talking to them. I never did go there and the next year I moved.

I swapped the prostitutes as neighbors for a Church. The advantage of living right next to Church is that the bells make sure you always know what time it is. I remember the material we covered in the second year got a lot more boring. And in the third year it got dreadfully boring. Luckily all my house mates in the new house, except for Benjamin, were women. You could open the front door and this mix of 5 different female perfumes would wash up into your nostrils. I had the biggest room so I bought a small television on purpose so we could all watch movies in my room. I remember carrying the damn thing all the way from Fnac in the Veldstraat, the equivalent of Obchodna but with more shops all the way back. Maybe three kms. We watched a lot of stuff on that little tv. I still have it, somewhere in the attic in Belgium, it still works.

The river was five minutes walking away, so I ran 12 kms, later I would run just 8. I don’t remember my record, but I have a list of my running times somewhere in a binder in the attic. Back then I had so much time and so little distraction that it was easy to keep track of those things. The funny thing is how weak the human memory is. I went running so often for about 8 or 9 years and I only remember some highlights. The time a car full of party girls followed me for a bit and shouted at me to dance while running. That really huge dog in one garden and the moment I noticed that that garden was open. The dog eventually ran out but didn’t do anything and I just ignored it. The 30 or so times I went running with Liese, the athlete, and how I would hid expensive raspberries in the bushes at the spot where our run always ended. When Luna says she doesn’t mind paying top dollar for something she likes I understand. Some things are just worth it.

I realize that my college days were exceptional. And am grateful for having lived through them. Even the 5 years after graduating seem like one big party if I delete all the shit that happened back then. Of course the shit can’t be deleted and it wasn’t a big party. It was people desperately pretending that there was a big party going on, sometimes successfully and sometimes not. I tried to google the dirt cheap Bulgarian wine we used to buy from generally overpriced Spar but I couldn’t find the exact bottle.

I don’t feel nostalgia the way I used to do. Looking back now I just wonder how people who are so important to you one day are no longer part of your life ten years later, and you can’t explain how exactly you lost touch. Knowing what I know now I prefer these days. Expect for some moments back then I have never been happier. I feel I understand what people are really telling me, I know what am doing, sort of, I know the consequences of decisions I make, I am not top fit as I was back then, but I still feel super healthy, even if I have a cold today. I know more about writing then I did back then, and I have for 80 percent lost the need to impress, the need for recognition, which was such a sick ball and chain, but it also served as an engine, an engine that was overheated. I guess am more accepting of things that happen, realizing I can’t control everything. Am also a zillion times better at deciding which people to let into my life and which not. I quite like it here in Slovakia, having to function in a different language and a different culture always gives me something to do, always makes me stay alert, cause I still make silly mistakes in Slovak. It would be better if I would actually study it, but I never did, and when am not working my contact with Slovak is limited, it’s dependent on whether am interacting with Slovaks who speak Slovak to me or not. There are Slovaks who speak Slovak to me at all times and there are Slovaks who speak English to me most of the time and Slovak some of the time.

Luna should be landing right now. I took out some of my mental trash and now am going to take out the physical trash. I wonder how she will feel on her return and I hope she will have great weather this week.