Being 30
I started the last decade in a tiny little town called Foz do Iguaçu, on the Brazilian side of the boarder with Argentina and Paraguay. It happens to be the home of one of the world’s most amazing natural wonders, the Foz (waterfall) itself, and the surrounding natural park. The town’s main street is a sleepy place. No one really does any business there, since everyone can simply pass over the boarder into that seedy but bustling boarder town on the Paraguayan side, buy things for half the price and smuggle them back. It is however home to the ‘Magnus’ furniture store, as well as seven or eight ice cream stores. It was high summer (Southern Hemisphere) and ridiculously hot, so I decided to celebrate my birthday like a child’s fantasy by visiting all the ice cream stores in succession. The last couple were not easy, but it was a fun day and a good memory.
Birthday 21 was in Heidelberg, Germany, and two of my flatmates got into a fight that ended with blood spilling. 22 was in Madrid, and my friends threw me a surprise party and cooked me Tex Mex. 23, 24 and 25 were in Portugal, I think. 26 was the first year of business school in London – early in the day I committed to drinking anything that anyone bought me that day, before finding out that my flat mate had invited the whole school to my birthday party. The results were disastrous, and parts of that night I didn’t remember until 18 months later when one of the culprits gave me the same tequila-whisky-tabasco concoction again (the bastard!). 27 was New York style, from a chic cocktail bar in the Meat Packing District to a Middle Eastern restaurant in the Village and on to debauchery untold. 28 was Amsterdam’s Supper Club, an ultra-chic and decadent restaurant where meals are taken lying down on beds in an open all-white space while being entertained by top notch DJs, stunning waitresses who climb up on tables and chairs to pass food to the upper level, and various random and strange performances – the night I was there the Gimp from Pulp Fiction made an appearance and offered shots, served from… I’m not going to say where from. Before making it there though, our Turkish cab driver took us to a warehouse in a shady neighborhood outside the city that apparently was home to the Super Club, one of the city’s premier strip clubs. 29 was London again – a few friends for a night out in the craziness that is Camden.
30 – Dubai. I rolled into town directly from work in Abu Dhabi, and went straight to Jambase, a jazz club/restaurant that slowly converts into a night club with an amazingly talented band playing. All my best friends from business school were here – my entire study group had flown in with their significant others, from as far away as London and Texas. They were joined by all my friends here, one thing led to another and we closed the bar down after lots of eating, drinking, dancing and general revelry.
It’s been quite a decade. When it started I did not own a cell phone and had no plans to get one – the other day I went shopping online for a robot. Being 30 is also a little different. In the information age, everyone under a certain age has two typing speeds – the normal speed and the warp speed at which all ten fingers are slammed down near-simultaneously to enter your most common passwords purely from muscle memory. Except when I turned 30, my motor skills somehow abandoned me, and I’m having to re-learn how to type my passwords (I guess that certain age is 30). The other day, I looked in my car mirror and noticed gray hair for the first time. Not that it’s new – I’ve had a lock of gray since I broke my skull at age two, but this was the first but surely not the last time I notice it in that inconveniently placed mirror right next to my head while driving. I tried on someone’s glasses the other night and realized I could actually see better.
For the record, I feel like I should point out that in the two weeks since, I have flipped a quad bike in the desert while dune bashing, gone wakeboarding, snowboarding and sandboarding, been to see a Justin Timberlake concert and had a 14 hour partying session – but that’s just going to look like I’m trying to overcompensate, isn't it.
I can’t win, can I… things do change. This year, the ice-cream overload from a decade earlier was replaced with my first-ever Cuban cigar.
Foz do Iguaçu
Birthday 21 was in Heidelberg, Germany, and two of my flatmates got into a fight that ended with blood spilling. 22 was in Madrid, and my friends threw me a surprise party and cooked me Tex Mex. 23, 24 and 25 were in Portugal, I think. 26 was the first year of business school in London – early in the day I committed to drinking anything that anyone bought me that day, before finding out that my flat mate had invited the whole school to my birthday party. The results were disastrous, and parts of that night I didn’t remember until 18 months later when one of the culprits gave me the same tequila-whisky-tabasco concoction again (the bastard!). 27 was New York style, from a chic cocktail bar in the Meat Packing District to a Middle Eastern restaurant in the Village and on to debauchery untold. 28 was Amsterdam’s Supper Club, an ultra-chic and decadent restaurant where meals are taken lying down on beds in an open all-white space while being entertained by top notch DJs, stunning waitresses who climb up on tables and chairs to pass food to the upper level, and various random and strange performances – the night I was there the Gimp from Pulp Fiction made an appearance and offered shots, served from… I’m not going to say where from. Before making it there though, our Turkish cab driver took us to a warehouse in a shady neighborhood outside the city that apparently was home to the Super Club, one of the city’s premier strip clubs. 29 was London again – a few friends for a night out in the craziness that is Camden.
30 – Dubai. I rolled into town directly from work in Abu Dhabi, and went straight to Jambase, a jazz club/restaurant that slowly converts into a night club with an amazingly talented band playing. All my best friends from business school were here – my entire study group had flown in with their significant others, from as far away as London and Texas. They were joined by all my friends here, one thing led to another and we closed the bar down after lots of eating, drinking, dancing and general revelry.
It’s been quite a decade. When it started I did not own a cell phone and had no plans to get one – the other day I went shopping online for a robot. Being 30 is also a little different. In the information age, everyone under a certain age has two typing speeds – the normal speed and the warp speed at which all ten fingers are slammed down near-simultaneously to enter your most common passwords purely from muscle memory. Except when I turned 30, my motor skills somehow abandoned me, and I’m having to re-learn how to type my passwords (I guess that certain age is 30). The other day, I looked in my car mirror and noticed gray hair for the first time. Not that it’s new – I’ve had a lock of gray since I broke my skull at age two, but this was the first but surely not the last time I notice it in that inconveniently placed mirror right next to my head while driving. I tried on someone’s glasses the other night and realized I could actually see better.
For the record, I feel like I should point out that in the two weeks since, I have flipped a quad bike in the desert while dune bashing, gone wakeboarding, snowboarding and sandboarding, been to see a Justin Timberlake concert and had a 14 hour partying session – but that’s just going to look like I’m trying to overcompensate, isn't it.
I can’t win, can I… things do change. This year, the ice-cream overload from a decade earlier was replaced with my first-ever Cuban cigar.
Some pictures anyway... wakeboarding
Er... oops... quadbiking
Sandboarding
posted by Magnus @ 8:46 PM
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