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A model new 12 months and right here we’re. Let’s check out all the pieces that occurred in January 2025!
Destinations Visited
Highlights
A pleasant, quiet month at house with the cats. This is our third 12 months in a row of not going wherever in January (aside from day journeys) and it was SO good. The finest technique to begin off a productive 12 months.
A month of Dry January. I do a sober month yearly and extremely advocate it! It’s an excellent reminder to check out how a lot alcohol can permeate our lives — and bear in mind methods to socialize with out defaulting to consuming.
Getting again into power coaching. One of my objectives has been to get again into power coaching and really be in line with it. I used to be within the gymnasium six days every week once I lived in New York, however I haven’t been capable of maintain that degree of consistency in Prague.
Honestly, there have been numerous matches and begins in resuming lifting weights over the previous few years. This time, I believe it’s working as a result of I began slowly and am including to it little by little.
I’ve a Peloton subscription (simply $12.99 per thirty days) and some units of weights. First, 10-minute power exercises thrice every week. Now, 15-minute power exercises 4 instances every week. I do know I’ll continue to grow from there.
Beyond that? Not so much occurred this January!
Challenges
A scary near-accident on the tram. I used to be sitting in a seat on the tram and all of a sudden the motive force hit the breaks HARD to keep away from hitting a automobile that pulled out. It was so abrupt, I flew onto my ft and smacked exhausting into the plastic divider on the aspect of the doorways.
I used to be fantastic, however in ache the remainder of the day — and thought to myself, “If this happened in America, someone would be suing the city.” That mentioned, we really get healthcare lined right here, and I’m grateful that the motive force was capable of cease so rapidly and keep away from an precise accident.
Lots and plenty of vet visits. After Murray’s many medical problems with December, this month was all about Lewis. He damage himself within the eye one way or the other, and whereas the primary spherical of meds helped initially, his eye obtained a lot worse after we completed them.
Lewis is now on totally different meds, prescribed by a distinct vet, and I actually hope that they work this time. I need my candy little bear to be again to his regular self.
And giving a cat two units of eye drops — 10 minutes aside, 5 instances a day — is a ache, particularly when he was at his sickest and needed to cover beneath the mattress. At one level I needed to lay on a blanket and drag myself beneath the mattress, seize Lewis, and have Charlie pull me out by my ft. Fun instances.
Blog Posts of the Month
Most Popular Reel on Instagram
My high reel of the month is which metropolis NOT to go to in 2025. I don’t do a lot of this anti-influencing, however right here it’s warranted.
The metropolis is Rome. 2025 is a Jubilee 12 months for the Catholic religion, which is able to maintain town additional crowded and further costly all 12 months lengthy. If you’re seeking to go, I’d recommend ready till 2026.
You can watch the reel right here and observe me on Instagram at @adventurouskate.
What I Listened To This Month
I’m listening to all 500 of Rolling Stone‘s 500 Greatest Albums of All Time, which I am enjoying immensely. I am loving discovering new artists and listening to albums I’ve one way or the other missed my complete life till now!
This month, I listened to albums 479-436. Here are the highlights:
Favorite discovery: Eli and the Thirteenth Confession by Laura Nyro. WHAT A STAR. I had by no means heard of Laura Nyro — she was a WILD singer and songwriter, insanely gifted, with a beautiful soprano voice, and songs that swap tempos and melodies wildly, that will be at house on Broadway.
In reality, Laura Nyro impressed a LOT of main songwriters, together with Elton John and Stephen Sondheim, and she or he wrote songs for artists like Barbra Streisand, Three Dog Night, and Fifth Dimension.
She died younger of ovarian most cancers, as did her mom. It hurts figuring out that if she had been born a couple of a long time later, she might have taken motion to stop that. I’m grateful that extra choices, together with genetic testing, exist at this time. And now I need EVERYONE to know her.
Other favourite discoveries: #1 Record by Big Star, 3+3 by The Isley Brothers, Close to the Edge by Yes.
Favorite revisited album: BLACKsummers’night time by Maxwell. This is considered one of my all-time favourite albums — it helped me get by way of 2010. I hated my job then and took an extended stroll throughout my lunch daily whereas listening to it.
My favourite factor about this jazz-influenced R&B album is how intimate it sounds — you’ll be able to inform it’s a small band, everybody taking part in off one another completely, and you may hear all of the individuality of the musicians. Highly advocate giving it a hear.
Favorite songs: “Donde Quiera Que Estés” by Selena and Barrio Boyzz, “Ghetto Children” by Juvenile, “Lu” by Laura Nyro, “You Ought to Be with Me” by Al Green, “Why Should I Be Sad” by Britney Spears, “Trouble in the Message Centre” by Blur.
Get the playlist: I’m making a playlist of my favourite songs from the five hundred albums — most one per album — on Spotify. You can take heed to it right here.
Lowlight of the month: Ege Bamyasi by CAN. This German band apparently pioneered Krautrock — that’s a factor! Most of the album was fairly listenable, however within the center they made this AWFUL cacophony filled with noises like nails on a chalkboard, however turned as much as 11 — why put that on an album?!
Random thought: The good size of an album is 35-45 minutes or so. Once you transcend an hour, it begins dragging. A LOT of artists wanted to be edited down — significantly hip-hop artists from the 90s (and I say this as a HUGE 90s hip-hop fan). Some albums begin out SO nice and find yourself turning right into a drag as a result of they’ve to incorporate all the pieces.
What I Watched This Month
It’s formally Oscar season! The completionist in me tries to see all of the Best Picture nominees and all the pieces nominated for the key awards.
The spotlight of the month was positively Conclave — a wonderfully plotted, twisty, tense political thriller concerning the cardinals selecting the following pope. And maybe essentially the most completely solid film I’ve seen in fairly a while. I hope Ralph Fiennes wins the Oscar.
I additionally loved A Complete Unknown, which made me need to dive into Bob Dylan’s and Joan Baez’s music (there’s a LOT of that approaching the Rolling Stone checklist!). Anora was a enjoyable nail-biter of a film, with an unbelievable efficiency by Mikey Madison — although I want the movie had been a bit much less male gaze-y.
This month we additionally watched the second season of The Diplomat. A GREAT drama on Netflix, starring Keri Russell because the US ambassador to the UK, appointed after an act of terrorism, who uncovers lots of Really Bad Stuff and has a husband who is a superb former ambassador himself, however the form of man who makes me yell, “HER HUSBAND IS A DING-DONG!” on the display screen as soon as per episode.
They really want to do extra episodes, although! The first season has eight episodes and the second season has six. It has been renewed for season.
Coming Up in February 2025
Back to Mexico, child! I like Mexico SO a lot and it’s now been three years since I’ve been there — it’s time for a return.
Charlie and I, together with our good friend Nick, shall be visiting 4 locations: Mérida, Bacalar, Mexico City, and Oaxaca. Four of my 5 favourite locations in Mexico! (Sorry, Guanajuato, we’ll miss you.)
Our agenda? Enjoying all our favourite Mexican issues, from a day at Los Rapidos in Bacalar to an evening out at Lucha Libre in Mexico City. And engaged on my Mexico content material, in fact.
(I took a break from writing about Mexico after COVID hit and 1,000,000 journey bloggers moved to Mexico and began area of interest Mexico blogs, making it exhausting for my content material to rank — however now that just about all of these blogs have been hit exhausting by Google updates, I really feel like I’m prepared to leap again in, particularly when including high quality movies on Instagram and TikTook.)
And as regular, our pricey good friend and cat-sitter, John, shall be shifting in to care for Lewis and Murray in our absence. They would possibly love him greater than they love us.
Any plans for February? Share away!