If you have questions or feedback, I’d love to hear from you:

Now, some days are soft and calm and fluid.
I don’t feel the need to do anything that is presumably “productive”, and I don’t do things that I know are destructive. (like watching too much youtube)
Some days are harder to go through.
I am constantly grappling with self criticism.
Why am I not spending my time better?
Why am I not learning something new?
Why am I not creating art?
Why am I not [insert something that is impressive and positive]?

People around me, and a part of myself, keep telling me, or warning me, this is a great time to go out and travel to unusual places, far places, impressive places.
You might not get this chance again.
It’s a sad thought, but who knows - they might be right.

In fact, they are right.
This might be the only time that I have nothing major to obssess about.
Everything is sort of okay.
Everyone I care about is sort of okay.
No major responsibilities to take care of.
And so, this life, with days that are sometimes soft and sometimes harsh, is how I “am” when nothing is disctracting me.
This is my baseline.
If there are demons haunting me from corners of my psyche, they have been there forever, and they will be there until someone (me) pays attention to them.
This is probably why people tend to travel when they leave their day jobs.
Traveling demands a lot.
There’s planning, before and during.
There’s time spent on the road to get to places.
There’s time to take out from daily life to dedicate to travel.
There’s expenses to pay.
There is not much space for other demands.
You’re delightfully distracted from the rest.
I like traveling. Of course I do.
Sometimes though, like these days, it feels like a betrayal to myself.
Sometimes watching my life, bare and distraction free, feels like a more loyal way forward.

Here are some thoughts that occured to me afterwards:

On the last day, everyone prepared a sketch book and presented their work. The sketch book is a visual diary - it’s supposed to document your process, show your progress, and tell a story. When reviewing everyone’s collection, our tutor said that a lot of the times in the creative industries, it’s not really about doing it the right or the wrong way, it’s about “this kinda looks right, so we’ll go with it.”

In science, there certainly is at least a wrong way of doing things. So to me, a scientist, this is a massive learning point. It’s liberating and terrifying at the same time. You can, technically, do almost whatever you want, but if it falls flat, if it doesn’t speak to anyone, you probably have done something “wrong”.

Many of my fellow students were in their twenties (i.e. younger than me). Many times have I thought about what my life would have been like if my creative side was nourished as much as my brainiac, studious side. Would I have been a young artist trying to find their voice in my twenties instead of being a PhD candidate pipetting transparent liquids at the bench?

On the other hand though, I have a hunch that if the twenty-something-year-old me had been an artist, she might have struggled to find the confidence to be herself and do authentic work. It is possible that she would have looked too much to the outside, to see what others are doing, or what’s working, instead of putting herself in her work and showing it to the world. I’m still terrified of that, but with age comes a sense of “but what else can you be but yourself”. You’ve lived and tested out other versions of you in numerous circumstances, and at the end, you’re left with you. That’s all you have. I’m sure there are some lucky ones who understand this in their bones from a young age. I am not sure I would have been one of them.

One question I keep getting whenever I say I took this course is a version of “so do you want to be a fashion designer now?”, and I understand where the question is coming from, but I also am frustrated by it. My mindset going into this was I am curious about fashion and design, and I have a desire to explore, and I am lucky to have the time and money to do so. I didn’t think too much about after the course, and which career moves I may or may not make.

Exploring for sake of exploring, without a career related agenda, seems fairly rare among adults, and it feels like you need a “reason” to do it, and a big “decision” to justify it afterwards. It is one of the many things that sucks about being an adult and it needs to stop.

Now that a couple of months have passed, I think the most captivating about the experience was, 1) the process of building something of your own, from scratch (in this case a collection of garments), and 2) figuring out the story you want to tell with your creation, and 3) letting the story culminate in a sense of purpose that gets out of bed and on your way in the morning.

I guess it goes hand in hand with my desire to cultivate more agency in my life.

Onwards.

If you have questions or feedback, I’d love to hear from you:

For most of my adult life, I’ve been busy getting a doctorate, working in the lab, discussing and thinking about science. I was never in or around the world of fashion. And for years I didn’t pay much attention to it - in the “haute couture”, consumerist and elitist way it was presented to me. Somewhere in the back of my mind I was convinced that fashion doesn’t make clothes that look good on my body (so why bother), and I was heavily influenced (and confused) by what friends/family/coworkers/internet told me to buy.

When I first moved out on my own, and started making a bit of money (the below-minimum wage I was making as a master’s student), I was “amazed” by all the options you had in fast fashion, and at a price tag that fit nicely within my budget. Needless to say, I had no understanding of what it takes for these brands to be so cheap. So I went, and I shopped.

I bought pairs of short-shorts that did not flatter or fit my body in the slightest (finally got rid of those last year).

I bought dresses that were too loose and too snug in all the wrong places (and at the same time) that made me feel out of place everytime I caught a glimpse of myself in a shop window walking down the street. (“Who is that and what is she trying to say?”)

I bought many, many pairs of low-waisted, cotton-elastane blend jeans that felt like a cage for my belly - all the while wondering “why do we all wear jeans when they’re so cruel to the body?”

Only in the past twelve months have I been increasingly interested in design and fabrics. I learned I feel comfortable exclusively in high-waisted bottoms, and it is non-negotiable. Nothing will ever look the same on my body as it does on the model, because of my genetics (and lousy digestion - whole other topic). For the most part, fashion does not make clothes that look good on my body, but I’m learning how to rule in or rule out cuts or fits to find suitable things for me (and yes, it takes time).

In a way, learning about which garments fit my body best and what textiles I feel good in has been an outlet to express myself. The new knowledge got me un-confused, untrapped. Things I invest in and wear recently, feel a lot more deliberate, and a closer reflection of who I am and what I care about. It has been such a fascinating process, that I decided to take a short course on fashion design in London at the end of this year.

This shift for me happened because I slowly realized what I didn’t know about clothes, and began to learn. Leach’s book is like a signpost, pointing to a gap, going “hey, this is the stuff you maybe don’t explicitely know, and let’s think about what you might do when you do know”. Though it only scratches the surface when it comes to our relationship with clothes, it was a great little read.

Why?

I haven’t been on social media for about two years now. You may find my name on Linkedin, but I don’t use it often, and I strongly dislike the platform for various reasons (whole other topic.) I still wanted to have some sort of online presence. And I enjoy writing.

Hence this website.

Why “ricecake”?

Because it’s odd enough to be memorable, and, ricecakes are decent carriers of cheese and hummus and the like.

How?

At first I tried Hugo. Hugo is a static site generator written in the programming language Go. After playing around with it for a week (and making a minimum viable website), I realized I either have to commit to learning Go, or every time I want to make the slightest change to my website, or to troubleshoot, it would take me time and effort to search online and figure out what I should do. Learning Go was not my desire or priority, and I wanted a website that I can fully control.

So I decided to write it in Python (a language that I do know), from scratch. I used Logan Donley’s video tutorial as the basis. Once I felt I had the bare bones, I added pages, made a tagging system, and organized the website the way I wanted.

The pages that will not change frequently (like the home page) are written directly in html and rendered with Jinja2. Individual posts are written in Markdown, and rendered into html using python’s markdown package, and jinja2.

I don’t enjoy reading on bright screens, but I also know that many people don’t feel comfortable reading on dark backgrounds. So I went for a soft, mute color for the background, and used an online color pallette generator (there are many if you search), and went with colors that looked good to me.

For other styling elements, I got ideas from websites I found visually pleasing. Bit by bit, I added more to the css file, and it came to be what you see right now.

Final Thoughts

The experience of making this website was very rewarding, and not too complicated. I (unfortunately) don’t have too much patience when it comes to building stuff from scratch, and making this website was just the right blend of challenge and reward for me.

If this helped you, or you have questions on how I made it, feel free to send me a message: ricecake [at] ricecake [dot] space.

On being a founder

HelloTomorrow has a global challenge, where deep tech startups from 10 different sectors apply to pitch their company at the conference. More than 70 finalists were selected this year. They gave a 3-minute pitch, and answered questions from the jury about their product and business model.

On the first day, I sat through the pitches in medical biotech and pharmaceuticals. All of these companies were doing something very exciting. All the while however, what was going on in my head was the gumption and courage these founders must have had to build something from the ground up. It seems to me that it requires a certain constellation of traits to prime someone to build a business, and it doesn’t seem to be the same formula for everyone, and I wondered what those were for each of these founders.
I also thought that their work must be vastly different from one day to the next. There is space for “improbability”. That must be exciting and, quite possibly, terrifying at times.

The process of building a business

When I hear people starting a business, I always wonder how. From the outside, it looks like a finished product, and we rarely see the steps that led to it.

Listening to investors and founders discuss in detail the process of founding a business (e.g. how to divide equity between the founders, how to find a co-founder, how to go about branding and story-telling, etc.) was revealing, and something I hadn’t been exposed to prior.

Unrelated but also kind of related: The backdrop

Over the years, I have gone back and forth on Paris as a city. I first liked it, then thought it was overrated, and have gone to kind of loving it since late last year. All the cliche stuff they say about Paris is true. There is so much concentrated beauty, which I appreciate more now in my thirties than I did in my twenties. At the same time, it feels like it was meant to be a village, and is now brimming with people. It gets dense and it gets rough.

The verdict for now though is that Paris makes me giddy. What can I say - sue me.

Instead of photos from the conference (you can find tons of them on Linkedin), I leave you with some from spring evenings around Paris after the conference. I went full tourist as if I haven’t lived in Europe for a decade.

Farsi Course is licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 4.0

If you have questions or feedback, I’d love to hear from you:

Farsi Course is licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 4.0

If you have questions or feedback, I’d love to hear from you:

If you have questions or feedback, I’d love to hear from you:

If you have questions or feedback, I’d love to hear from you:

If you have questions or feedback, I’d love to hear from you:

Probably never.

They should, though.

Medicine, as is now, treats humans as bodies that are misbehaving, and in need of a fix. That’s the “normal” way of going about health. The experience of the person living in that body seems to have nothing to do with their maladies.

In November of this year, I read Dr. Mate’s recent book, the myth of normal.

I read another book of his, When the Body Says, voraciously in a matter of days in summer of 2021. It truly changed the way I view health. In When the Body Says No, he gathers years of research on stress (physical or psychosocial) and how it contributes to illness. Mate’s writing moves so beautifully in and out of numerous real life examples from his own patients, or others who shared their stories with him. People whose past traumas led to their present, ill-suited, coping tools.

Many of the concepts he unpacks in The Myth of Normal is familiar to a returning reader.

Firstly, I find it a relief when someone, anyone, recognizes that being human is complex, and is incredibly hard. And it is more so for the ones who feel deeper and perceive sharper. I find it even more hopeful when that someone is a medical doctor, whose job is to heal.

Secondly, I find it very compelling the way Mate weaves in years of scientific research with learnings on the human psyche, and the lived experience of countless people he interviewed.

I have studied, thought, worked in and discussed science for most of my adult life. The logical side of me wants to see evidence for any claim on health. When dealing with my own health problems, I used to be hellbent on figuring it all out by reading the research on my symptoms and doing experiments on myself. I almost refused to believe my emotional experience had anything to do with what was happening to my physical body.

I used to think I felt unwell because I was in bad health, only to realize I was in bad health because I felt unwell.

Reading Mate’s work is like watching someone unpack the interplay between health and emotional experience, while pacifying the merciless, rationale side of me by citing a mountain of research.

If you have questions or feedback, I’d love to hear from you:

The one that intrigued me the most was the Rota Vicentina in the south and west coast of Portugal. So I did a bit of research, packed my rucksack, and flew to Faro.

I wrote down my experience every day, primarily for myself to remember and assimilate the experience, and hopefully for anyone else who’s planning to walk the same trail.

What you can find here

• General points
• Day by day
  • Day 0: Arrival in Faro
  • Day 1: Lagos to Salema
  • Day 2: Salema to Sagres
  • Day 3: Sagres to Vila do Bispo
  • Day 4: Vila do Bispo to Carrapateira
  • Day 5: Carrapateira to Arrifana
  • Day 6: Arrifana to Aljezur
  • Day 7: Aljezur to Odeceixe
  • Day 8: Odeceixe to Zambujeira do Mar
  • Day 9: Zambujeira do Mar to Almograve
  • Day 10: Almograve to Vila Nova de Milfontes
  • Day 11: Vila Nova de Milfontes to Porto Covo (last day!)
• Final thoughts

General points

Some general points before the day to day accounts:

The daily routine: Everyday, I normally started hiking at 7:30 - 8, to take advantage of the cooler mornings, took a 45-minute lunch break, and reached my destination in the early afternoon. I showered and did my laundry right after I arrived, and usually went out for dinner later in the evening. On some days I cooked dinner for myself. Depending on my mood and who was around, I journaled, rested, talked to people, explored the village, and went to bed at 10 to 11 PM. If I liked my dinner spot, you can find the name and address in the daily accounts.

The season: I walked from July 5 to 16. The trail’s website recommends not to walk the trail in July and August, because it is supposedly too hot. That wasn’t my experience. It is very hot in the south coast (Faro, Lagos, Salema, and Sagres), but as soon as I started walking on the west coast, the temprature dropped slightly, and there was a lot more wind, and the weather was perfect for hiking. Some of my hosts also confirmed the climate is milder in the west coast (not too cold, not too hot), and the water temperature remains at 16 °C all year round. One told me sometimes in September, the cooler wind from the north is replaced by the hot wind coming from the south / southeast, which makes things challenging for early September walkers.

The direction: The official guide is written from north to south, and all hikers I came across did the same. I however walked from south to north (I wanted to end up in Lisbon.) The advantage is I mostly had the sun behind me. I imagine this would be particularly nice in the winter when the sun is lower, and you don’t want to constantly have it in your eyeline.

The route: This trail is very well marked. But I think you do need a map anyway. I downloaded all the .gpx files from the website on my phone, and I had to use it almost everyday. I used OsmAnd for this, which is built on OpenStreetMap as its backbone. Since the .gpx file was stored on my phone and not on the cloud, I could navigate with the app and see my route offline at all times.

The packing list: I had the lightest pack among all the hikers I met (even though none were camping). This is because I absolutely detest carrying a heavy load on my back while walking. It takes away from the experience for me. I have a 22 L hiking backpack, and here is a list of everything I took:

A couple of notes:

• The stuff you don’t see in the list above is the items I wore: lightweight pants, a merino wool blend hiking shirt, sports bra, hiking socks, running shoes, and my phone.

• The only thing I had to restock during the hike was sunscreen.

• One note about laundry clips: most hostels do have laundry clips, but some don’t, and many don’t have enough. I took these as a safety measure but I used them almost everyday. Especially on the west coast, it gets quite windy and leaving your clothes out to dry without securing them is not an option.

• To the total weight above, you have to add the weight of water and food you may be carrying. I always started my hike with 2.5 L of water, and a combination of couple of eggs, some nuts, and some fruit.

• From the list above, I used everything during the hike, except the camping sheets and (thankfully) the anti-itch cream.

Day by day

Okay, so now for the day to day account:

Day 0: Arrival in Faro

I flew to Faro in the evening, and spent the night.
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Day 1: Lagos to Salema

Train from Faro to Lagos: 7:11
Departure from Lagos: 9:15
Lunch break: 12:11
Arrival: 16:45

• I took the train from Faro to Lagos. You can purchase the ticket at the train station (even early morning). There is also a cafe in the train station which was open (and quite busy) early morning. Check the train timetables and ticket prices here: https://www.cp.pt/passageiros/en

• The only thing about this stage is that it was very hot in July. The sun is above you all. the. time (no trees to provide shade). Renew your sunscreen if you wash your face (I didn’t and I got sunburnt). One tip is to make your bandana wet, and have it around your neck - that really does help cool you down.

Accommodation in Salema: Salema eco camp

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Day 2: Salema to Sagres

Departure: 6:59
Lunch break: 11:30
Arrival: 16:30 to 17:00

Okay. This day.

The guide says this is the toughest bit, but it doesn’t really say why.
It IS quite tough, but I suppose in different ways for different people:

• There is a lot of going up and down, and both are quite steep. I’m an avid walker, and a modest hiker, and it was pretty challenging for me.

• The real challenge for me was grappling with my fear of heights: The path is quite narrow. On one side you have a steep slope spreading out beneath you, and on the other side, sometimes you have upright rocks, plants or flat field with bushes. This means that sometimes it can feel like you’re trapped on a narrow path, and sometimes less so. I have a moderate fear of heights, so I was constantly grappling with the anxiety it induced. If you have debilitating vertigo or fear of heights, I would not hike this stage at all (or at least not alone.) If, like me, you have a moderate fear of heights, I would 1) focus on the next step only, at all times, and not look ahead on the path and speculate how steep THAT is going to be, and 2) lean your body towards the rocks or the plants on your side. That can be a good physical and mental support.

• The views of the coast are unbelievable, and arriving in Sagres was extra rewarding.

• Cafes and stores were not open before 8 am in Salema, and I started my walk hoping for something on the way. A very bad move. There was nothing until my lunch break at 11:30. Don’t do what I did.

Food spots along the way: I had lunch at Restaurante Zavial (Praia do Zavial, 8650-281 Vila do Bispo.)

Accommodation in Sagres: Lighthouse hostel. If you stay here, I’d suggest you ask to stay in their new building across the road. You won’t be in the main building where the reception, living room and the pool are, so it is significantly quieter. They do provide breakfast if you order. I took a latte the next morning, and had breakfast with the food I had bought the day before.

• There is a big supermarket in Sagres and it’s a good place to stock up.

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Day 3: Sagres to Vila do Bispo

Departure: 8:00
Lunch break: 13:00
Arrival: 15:06

• After the mental gymnastics of yesterday, I opted for an easier choice on this stage. After reaching São Vicente, I walked the historical way instead of the fishermen’s trail. The historical route goes more inland. It’s a little less scenic as you’re not always on the coast, but I welcomed the tediousness after yesterday. A pretty easy day.

Food spots along the way: I don’t recall any. I had packed my own lunch.

Accommodation in Vila do Bispo: Casa Dias (Sítio das Eiras LOTE 3, 8650-434 Vila do Bispo)

Dinner highlights: I had grilled fish and a piece of Tarte de Alfarroba at Ribeira do Poço (Rua Ribeira do Poço, 11, 8650 Vila do Bispo). The food was delicious and the staff were kind.

• There is a Lidl in Vila do Bispo. However, it was closed on Sunday, which is when I got there. But there is also a big Aldi which is open on Sundays.

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Day 4: Vila do Bispo to Carrapateira

Departure: 8:00
Lunch break: 12:00
Arrival: 13:50

• I had breakfast at a local cafe in Vila do Bispo that opens at 7:30: Restaurante Bar-Café Nascer do Sol (Praça da República 22, 8650-409 Vila do Bispo)
• The first half of this stage is quick and easy. You’re walking parellel to or on country roads, and it’s pretty flat. It’s a nice warm-up to what’s coming in the second half.
• The second half has some elevation, and some narrow paths. But the slope next to the path is not as steep as on day 2, and therefore seemed much easier to me.

Food spots along the way: I don’t recall any. I had packed my own lunch.
I had my lunch break on the Amado beach, just a couple of kilometers out of Carrapateira. After three days of hiking, this was the first moment I truly felt relaxed, and grateful to be there.

• Carrapateira is small, with one minimarket, a couple of restaurants, and a surf shop. There are two beaches on either side of town: Amado beach is a 3-km walk, but the walk is on a country road and easy, and was my preferred option. There is also Bordeira beach, 2 km to the north but the walk is almost completely on sand dunes, so it takes almost the same amount of time to walk.

• Maybe because of the beaches, or maybe the relaxed energy of the town partially because of all the surfers, I really liked Carrapateira, and decided to stay a second night to rest.

Accommodation in Carrapateira: Pensão das Dunas (Rua da Padaria 9, 8670-230 Carrapateira). I loved this place. It’s run by a lovely lady, Agnes, and her son, Ruben. The staff were kind (and mostly women.) They also offer a breakfast buffet for an extra 10 €. I didn’t take that option but they were nice enough to boil my two eggs for me, so I can take them for lunch.

Dinner highlights: One of the restaurants in town is Microbar. It’s not exactly traditional Portuguese food, and more of a modern cafe you would find in Berlin. I had dinner here twice and loved it both times (Largo do Comércio, Loja 3-4, Aljezur.)

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Day 5: Carrapateira to Arrifana

Departure: 8:00
Lunch break: 12:00
Arrival: 13:50

• From this point onwards on the trail, you’ll be walking on sand dunes on and off, starting with the first half of this stage. Spoiler alert: walking on sand dunes is humbling. I kept thinking the seagulls soaring above me are taking pity on the little human struggling to walk with her two silly legs on the sand dunes.

• A lot of this stage was inland and some of it was on the road. Overall an easy walk.

• Arrifana is small but seems be to be a popular destination for surfers. There were a few restaurants with international cuisine, a bakery/cafe that opens at 8 am, and an organic grocery store, all easily accessible from the hostel.

Food spots along the way: Right about midway, there is a guest house with a little snack bar. I took my lunch break here. The name of the guest house is Barranco da Fonte, and the name of the snack bar is Quarenta & Quatro (Monte Da Vinha Cx Postal 1314, 8670-142.)

Accommodation in Arrifana: Endless summer surf house (Vale da Telha, 8670-156 Aljezur). This was the nicest hostel I stayed in. The space was beautifully decorated, and was super clean. Among the guests were a few older ladies, which was a sweet change from the other hostels I had stayed in. The owner, Ludo, is a Swiss guy who lives with his family on the property but in a separate section. He makes coffee every morning for his guests.

Dinner highlights: I had a veggie burger in Sector B Hamburgueria (Vale De Telha, Sector B, Aljezur, Faro, 8670-156 Aljezur C.Postal 286, 8670-156.) I feel like it’s always a gamble with veggie burgers, but this one was a winner.

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Day 6: Arrifana to Aljezur

Departure: 8:35
Arrival: 12:45 (I had lunch after arrival)

• I had a slightly later start to the day, because I was delightfully caught up in a conversation with Ludo, my host. He made coffee and we talked about surfing and life.

• I had breakfast at The Bakery (Urbanização Vale da Telha, Sector B, edifício Q, loja B, 8670-156 Aljezur), and also got a veggie muffin to have for my lunch.

• One thing I was a little curious to see in this stage was the Ribat of Arrifana. Only an outline of the ancient fortress remains, and I was surprised that there were no signs explaining what it is. It was built in the 12th century by a Sufi. In addition to protection, it was used for prayer, as a school and as accommodation. It is the only Muslim fortress to have been identified in Portugal. In line with structures like these, since this region of Europe used to be ruled by the Muslims, you’ll notice many names are taken from Arabic; Arrifana is from the word arihana, meaning myrtle (a plant grown in the area), and Aljezur is based on the Arabic word for islands.

• A lot of this stage was on the road (next to cars), and a lot of it was on sand. Neither was too pleasant. If I were to do the hike again, I would probably hike the historical route between Arrifana and Aljezur. The historical route in this stage is shorter than the fishermen’s trail between the two towns, and could possibly be combined with yesterday’s hike.

Accommodation in Aljezur: Amazigh Hostel (Rua da Ladeira nº 5 8670-065 Aljezur). Clean hostel with a well-equipped kitchen. I was the only one staying in a 6-bed dormitory room.

• Aljezur was among the bigger towns I stopped in. There is a large supermarket if you want to stock up for the next day(s).

• This was the first day I felt my excitement and pleasure from the hike starting to dwindle. I was still happy to be walking, but I also kept checking how much there is left to go, and felt frustrated by the cars on the road. To my own surprise, I quietly accepted that this is probably also part of the whole experience. The initial excitement is wearing off, you habituate to the sense of freedom, and somehow focus more on the endpoint rather than the steps you’re taking. Sometimes it’s a little miserable, maybe a little tedious. But you keep on walking.

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Day 7: Aljezur to Odeceixe

Departure: 7:20
Lunch break: 12:00
Arrival: 15:00 (I had a short swim at Odeceixe beach before walking the last 4 km)

• I had breakfast at the hostel from my own food.

• A good portion of this stage is inland. At times, you’re walking on sand.

• About 1/3 of the way, you’ll find yourself in Rogil. I was surprised by the number of expats here, and how often I heard English being spoken. I took a break in an organic cafe, and had my first and only matcha latte of the hike. I asked the barista why there’s so many Engilsh speakers around. “I guess at first some came, and it slowly attracted the others, and everyone kind of speaks the same language.” and he gestured towards the countless ads for yoga, massage and other healing modalities on their notice board.

• Coming out of Aljezur, there are only the red and white marks of the historical way (this happens on and off throughout the trail). Right after Rogil, the historical and fishermen’s trail diverge, and I had to check my own map to figure out where I should veer off from the road to continue the fishermen’s trail.

• After Odeceixe beach, you’ll have to walk another 3-4 km on a pretty busy road to reach the town. I would try to take a taxi here, as walking on the road is not pleasant.

Food spots along the way: There are several options in Rogil. I had packed my own lunch.

Accommodation in Odeceixe: Horta do Vale - Nature House (Rua Barranco do Vale nº 7, 8670-320 Odeceixe)

Dinner highlights: I had my first Feijoada Rica (bean stew with cuttlefish and octopus) at Taberna do Gabão (R. do Gabão 9, 8670-320 Odeceixe). The food was phenomenal and I still think about it sometimes.

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Day 8: Odeceixe to Zambujeira do Mar

Departure: 8:00
Lunch break: 12:00
Arrival: 14:50

• I got my breakfast at the bakery which was open even before 8 am: Padaria de Odeceixe (R. da Botelha 8, 8670-320 Odeceixe)

• The first 4 km of this stage is on the road. I tried to take a taxi based on yesterday’s experience, but the only taxi in Odeceixe starts working at 9 am. So, I walked. This road was much quieter than yesterday’s though.

• Similar to the last few days, there’s quite a bit of walking on sand.

• In this stage, I had to fight my way through quite a bit of shrubbery (at least in July). Right before Carvalhal do Rocha, the schrubs were particularly lush, and they almost hid the trail.

• I think this stage was the second most difficult (with a considerable gap however) after the Salema to Sagres saga. There is the shrubs, the sand, and some narrow paths sprinkled in-between.

Food spots along the way: There is one restaurant in Azenha do Mar: A Azenha do Mar (7630-564 Azenha do Mar), but you’ll get there probably too early for lunch if you’re walking south to north. I had lunch at Carvalhal beach bar: Carvalhal Beach Nature (Praia do Carvalhal Brejão SN, 7630-569).

• I really liked Zambujeira. The town is small but lively. I met some lovely people at the hostel, and the beach is just a few steps down from the village. So even after a long day of walking, you’ll have enough stamina to walk down and take a dip in the ocean.

• There are several small markets and larger supermarket to stock up here.

Accommodation in Zambujeira: Hakuna Matata Hostel (R. Dr.Jaures 1B, 7630-174 Zambujeira do Mar). The hostel is simple but it’s clean and the kitchen is well-equipped. The staff were helpful.

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Day 9: Zambujeira do Mar to Almograve

Departure: 8:00
Lunch break: 12:00
Arrival: 15:05

• This was a Sunday. I got breakfast from a cafe: Doce Tentaçāo (R. da Palmeira 36, 7630-174 Zambujeira do Mar). But I also spotted a bakery that was open early morning on Sunday (even though it is not supposed to be based on google maps): Padaria Augusto Ferreira & Filhos (R. da Padaria 15, 7630-174 Zambujeira do Mar)
• The first half of this stage, up to Cavaleiro, is a beautiful stroll along the coast. You only ascend once, on stairs, and there is a wide path guiding you along the cliffs.
  
• The second half is more walking on sand.

Food spots along the way: I took my lunch break at a snack bar in Cavaleiro: Adélia (R. Do Comercio 1, 7630-174). It was open on a Sunday.

Accommodation in Almograve: Almograve beach hostel (Rua do Brejo Longo nº8, 7630-017 Almograve). Very clean and quiet. I was the only guest in a 4-bed dorm room.

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Day 10: Almograve to Vila Nova de Milfontes

Departure: 8:20
Lunch break: 12:45
Arrival: 13:30

• It was drizzling in the morning. Not enough to deter me from starting my hike early, but certainly enough to soak my pants.

• This stage also involved contending with overgrown schrubs, and with the morning rain, it was like going through a car wash. I was all soaked and not in the best mood afterwards.

• The walk itself was a fairly short one, and the main challenge was walking on sand here and there.

• I had planned to take the ferry across the river, and shave off the last 4 km from the route. But for the life of me I could not locate a ferry that was working in my direction (south to north). I could see ferries coming from the other side, but I couldn’t find where they stopped on my side of the river. So, I walked (you can see by now that me wanting to shorten my route and failing to do so became a pattern). It wasn’t too bad.

Food spots along the way: I don’t recall any. I had packed my own lunch.

Accommodation in Vila Nova de Milfontes: Mute Hostel (Rua dos Carris 9, Vila Nova de Milfontes, Beja PT, 7645-242). Comfortable beds, well-equipped kitchen. They do not have laundry clips, or a sun-facing spot to dry your clothes. I hung them out on the rooftop, and my laundy clips were particulary useful on this occasion.

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Day 11: Vila Nova de Milfontes to Porto Covo (last day!)

Departure: 8:35
Lunch break: 13:05
Arrival: 14:35

• The guide, and everyone I met along the way, warned me that this portion is exhausting due to the relentless sandy trail.

• It is true that this was the sandiest stage. But to reassure you, the first 3-4 km and the last 1.5 km are on a country road or rocks (easy). Even in between, the sand is interspersed with rocky surfaces so it’s not as constant, and you can catch a break.

• The other thing I noticed was the sand depth was more shallow compared to other stages, and the sand grains were larger. So overall you have more support against your foot sinking in the sand. (I never thought I would anlayse sand characteristics this much but here we are.)

• There were a few moments that I had to contend with my fear of heights on this stage, but very briefly.

Food spots along the way: None. I had packed my own lunch. You should too.

• I had a few hours before catching a bus to Lisbon from Porto Covo. If you find yourself in a similar situation, I recommend going to Mute hostel in Porto Covo. They have a cafe, an air-conditioned lounge area, with a beautiful view of the ocean.

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Final thoughts

The thing about walking, is that it is really slow. But it’s at the exact right speed for you to absorb everything around you. Somehow, after a few days on the trail, it seemed like my internal world matched its pace to the slow pace of my surroundings. When I got on the bus to Lisbon, it occured to me that I haven’t been on or in a vehicle since I landed in Portugal. I became so acutely aware of how fast the bus was moving, and it somehow marked the end of the experience for me. It was bittersweet.

Along the same lines, my perception of time was different. After 5 days of walking, I felt like I’ve been walking for weeks. Or I would walk and walk on any given day, check the time, and it had only been an hour. I was in Portugal for a total of three weeks, and it felt like I’ve been away for months. Now that I am back home, days seem to slip through my fingers again. I run a couple of errands, and it’s suddenly 5 pm. I don’t know - there’s something to be said about the contrast between how I experienced life when I was walking out there (much slower), and now. You don’t feel like life is “just passing you by” when you’re out there.

When I arrived in Lisbon, I could feel the magic of a summer night in a big city. People were out and about, and there was so much to look at. I was navigating the metro system in a new city with ease, but at the same time, I felt like an alien that had been suddenly transplanted there. As if I was acting in a movie and this is the “big city” scene. Something had definitely shifted in favor of stillness in me.

This was my first thru-hike. I’m already anxious and excited to plan the next.

Sources:

1. Rota Vicentina website: You can download all the .gpx files here.
2. Icons downloaded from OpenMoji; credits to Jose Avila and Laura Schießer
   
3. I used OsmAnd application to navigate.

If you have questions or feedback, I’d love to hear from you:

The story unfolds in three big chapters, and what marks the subchapters is merely a larger space between paragraphs.

The story begins with a soft and beautiful narration from an art history professor in New York, how he befriends a painter, their deep friendship, and how the two men’s lives and the lives of their partners and sons intertwine.

Things take a sharp turn within literally the first sentence of the second chapter. It is almost infuriating how the author catapults you into another (fictional) reality. As the reader moves through the last chapter, the story turns fairly bleak. To me, it felt like an entirely different book towards the end. It had morphed from a sweet retelling of someone’s lived experience within the art scene of 1970s New York to a full-fledged thriller. Nevertheless, the story remained compelling, characters credible and the events deliberate. With only a couple of hundred pages to go, I was deeply invested in the fate of the characters, and I could hardly put the book down all the way to the end.

Much of the book revolves around the process of making art, how the artist is sometimes consumed by her work, and how to view and critique art within the context of history and previous artists who might have produced similar work. To me, this was educational.

The author does an unbelivable job in describing the multiplicity of human nature, with emotions ranging from blind rage to selfless love. There are no black and white characters, and the reader is bound to despise and empathize with all of them at some point or other.

Although the book left me feeling a little sad at the end, I enjoyed reading it very much, and I hope to pick up another book of Hustvedt’s soon. Fun fact (for me): She is incidentally married to another one of my favorite fiction writers, Paul Auster.

I am a native Farsi speaker. I’ve always had an interest (and occasionally an obsession) with languages. I’m interested in etymology of words, understanding how sentences are structured and why. I like to find patterns and understand the rules when I think about any language. My native language is no exception. I also used to teach English as a second language.

Over the last decade, I’ve come across people who had an interest in learning Farsi. They generally face a couple of hurdles right off the bat: 1) There are very limited resources, and 2) the language is not written in Latin script (like English or French or German are), so you cannot simply open a Farsi course book and try to teach yourself, because you can’t read anything.

There are some courses online, but I found that they are either too complex for a beginner, or they start by words and sentences that are not particularly useful. It seems to me that they don’t set up the learner to get a grasp on the basics first, feel rewarded, and continue to build up their knowledge.

So I decided to make a series of Farsi lessons in English.

How does it work?

Every audio session is a conversation between me and a Farsi learner. There is no writing, and no homework. You only have to listen and engage with the audio session. Each time, we learn only a couple of words together, and we build sentences right from the beginning. Over time, our sentences become more complex, only by combining all the words we already know. This way we can express a lot with only a few words, and the new words are revisited several times in new sentences, so they solidify in your mind, and we avoid the tediousness of simply repeating.

The audio files are not divided into “lessons”. I keep their length short, and they’re designed so that you can start and stop at any time, as long as you do them in the right sequence.

Episode 0

If you have questions or feedback, I’d love to hear from you:

If you have questions or feedback, I’d love to hear from you:

Farsi Course is licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 4.0

If you have questions or feedback, I’d love to hear from you:

If you have questions or feedback, I’d love to hear from you:

If you have questions or feedback, I’d love to hear from you:

I haven’t written in a while. And I have complicated feelings about that, but that’s not what I wanted to write about today.

I very quickly lost the desire to play other people’s music, and felt the urge to write my own. My usual way of writing involves a lot of what I call “fishing”. As in I sit, and I test out different chords, and listen to the melody they spark in my brain. Sometimes, something sounds too beautiful to ignore, so I catch it, and I build up on it based on where it naturally wants to go.

This time, in an attempt to understand music theory, my guitar teacher suggested to work with only five basic chords; A minor, C, G, D, and E minor.

These are very common chords, used over and over again in countless pop or rock songs. I tend not to use them while writing, because while beautiful they sound too familiar, and I pursue novelty to a fault when writing.

But, the experiment of writing only with these chords was less intimidating, and somewhat more rewarding, because I didn’t have a lot of options. There are five chords. Now tell a story. It was counterintuitive and helpful to see how limited options can actually make the process more joyful.

And to maximise joy should literally be the main goal here. Otherwise what am I doing?

If you have questions or feedback, I’d love to hear from you:

The last time I was a student on a university campus was back in 2012, and I’m not counting my masters or doctoral years in this because I was not on a dynamic campus with other students. I was on a floor of an institute built in brutalist architecture, roaming around from lab to lab with music blasting in my ears (which is not completely devoid of charm but leaves a lot to be desired.)

Back in 2012, I was getting my bachelor’s in biotechnology in the science faculty of one of the best universities in my country. Yet, I felt like a fish out of water. The pressure and structure of high school was gone, and I was clumsily testing out being an “adult”, handling coursework (read: cramming during the two weeks of exam season), and partially dealing with boys. I felt pulled from many directions somehow and not enough in any particular one. Everybody who knew my history would believe I belonged there, including myself, but everything always felt off.

Coming to Central Saint Martin was a deliberate (and slightly expensive) choice. A choice that seems so out of place from the outside to everyone around me (including the people in the course), but I feel I just fell right into the little pond I was supposed to.

Every day, I went to class, wide-eyed and eager, to think, to learn, to work, and to feel.

I wandered to the library with my music in my ears, strolling and squating in between the shelves, pulling out the most obscure-looking books to do my visual research. I flicked through the pages and I looked for things that tantilized my eyes, and charged my imagination. I almost can’t believe how enjoyable it was.

This is all great, but why do I feel like this was tranformative?

Because I was in fact the odd one out there, and it wasn’t perfectly smooth, and I chose to work hard, sketch my ideas, and ask questions anyway.

Several times during the course I felt I was being put in a box (the analytical, science-y what-is-she-doing-here box), and I despise that feeling (honeslty who doesn’t?). Several times during the course I was so excited about an idea, and it was met by a bit of nonchalance from the tutor, whereas I’d hoped for more encouragement (later on this dynamic changed, and I understood why the tutor chose not to influence us too much with his own taste.)

I worked hard anyway. The indifference, and being perceived by others in certain ways didn’t deter me into resigning. I responded to being (slightly) hurt by defiance.

Come to think of it, back in 2012, and the years of graduate school, I might have been someone that could have made it work, and could have forged her way into a sense of belonging, or maybe leave to find another place that made it more possible, but the combination of the circumstances at that time, and the person I was at that time, didn’t allow enough tenacity.

Tenacity, I think, is sometimes the best we have.

If you have questions or feedback, I’d love to hear from you:

I decided to revive the machine by installing linux.

Aside from rescuing a piece of perfectly functional hardware from landfills (or wherever the tech trash ends up), I had two other reasons:

• The very superficial but enticing reason of the Retina display. I miss the Retina display. Nothing comes close to it and I will not be persuaded otherwise.
• Macbook is slim, light, and I love how subtle the keyboard keys are. Again, superficial. But what can I say. The heart (and the hand) wants what it wants.

Here is how I did it:

Which Macbook? Which linux?

The macbook I have is a Macbook8,1, from early 2015, with no T2 security chip, with a built-in audio system (no HDA chip.)

I first tried to install Triskel 11 (with KDE desktop environment.)

Then, I tried with Ubuntu 22.04. I will explain why, and which worked, later on.

Preparing macbook for a dual-boot installation, and installing linux correctly

I first downloaded and installed the latest macOS that would work on the device. This was Big Sur 11.7.10 for my device, and I found it on this website:

https://mrmacintosh.com/macos-big-sur-full-installer-database-download-directly-from-apple/

To install Linux, I followed the instructions on this link:

https://www.makeuseof.com/tag/install-linux-macbook-pro/#step-1-prepare-your-mac-for-installing-linux

If, like me, you’re first interested in a dual-boot setup, you need to make a new partition in your macbook hard drive. You need to format the new paritition in MS-DOS, and during the installtion of linux you need to specify which partition linux needs to be installed on. The link above takes you through all these steps.

I had trouble making a new parition in macOS and formatting it in MS-DOS. So one thing I did a little differently was how I partitioned the mac hard driver:

• I opened Disk Utility on macOS. I chose the highest volume in the side bar on Disk Utility.
• I selected Partitions on the top bar, when asked to add volume or partition, I selected Add Partition (up to here it’s the same procedure as in the link above.)
• To partition, as my first step, I only specified the volume of the new partition for my linux (120 GB on a 500 GB SSD). I left the format to be APFS.
• Once the partition was made successfully, I then changed the format of my new partition to MS-DOS. This is the only way I got it to work for me.
• I repeated this step to make a swap partition.
• Note: You need to be careful with partitioning. You cannot merge and delete partitions just willy nilly. You can reverse your steps in partitioning only in the exact order that you did them. If you are not careful, you might delete your macOS boot, in which case you would have to re-install the macOS (Yes this happened to me, yes it took a long time.)

Issues with wifi and the solution

With Triskel-11, the wifi did not work out of the box.
This also happens when you install Triskel on a Lenovo Thinkpad. This is because the driver for the WiFi card is proprietary. Triskel does not come with any proprietary applications, drivers or firmware.
On a Lenovo Thinkpad this is relatively easy to fix. You need to download and install the .deb WiFi driver for the Intel card from Ubuntu’s or Debian’s packages.

However, macbooks come with a different WiFi card, from Broadcom.

So I tried to fix it, using this link as my main resource:

https://askubuntu.com/questions/55868/installing-broadcom-wireless-drivers

However, nothing worked.

The WiFi card on macbook is identified like so: BCMXXXX with the number specifying which BCM exactly.

You need to download the proprietary drive of Broadcom by installing packages linux-firmware, and firmware-b43-installer.

However

1. Since trisquel does not have these drivers (linux-firmware, and firmware-b43-installer) in its package repository (apt), I needed to find the correct equivalent package on the ubuntu package website, and download them manually. I never knew for sure if the packages I am downloading are the correct one for my trisquel.
2. These packages have dependencies, and because I was downloading them from the web, I had to take care of this myself. It’s tedious, and still a lot may go wrong.

I spent almost a full day on this, and I failed.

So I reverted back to Ubuntu.

I first tried with a bootable USB disk for Ubuntu 24.04. For some reason, this disk was not identified by macbook as a live disk.

So I made a bootable USB disk for Ubuntu 22.04. You can find the ISO file here: https://releases.ubuntu.com/jammy/

The mac did recognize this USB as a live image. I installed Ubuntu 22.04 on the mac (and therefore wiped trisquel), and it came with functional WiFi out of the box.

SUCCESS (with compromises on the OS)!

The keyboard and touchpad sometimes work, sometimes not

Along with WiFi, this is the biggest limitation in my opinion.
I tried, very hard, to fix this. There is a driver on github, but is no longer maintained: https://github.com/roadrunner2/macbook12-spi-driver

But people have forked other versions for newer linux kernels, and for other macbooks with touchbars. And many do report success. You need to find the appropriate fork for your situation. It is quite difficult to understand from the repository issues which one might work for you.

Since the keyboard does work upon reboot almost half the time, I abondoned this issue as well after two days. I might go back to it later, but for now, I’ll live.

EDIT: After about a week of working with the mac, my keyboard is recognized after every reboot.

Dual boot is possible, but not exactly as expected with rEFInd

Ideally, when you install rEFInd (as mentioned in the link above when you install linux), you should get a menu when you start the computer, asking you which OS you want to boot. This did happen before I installed linux, but not anymore once I installed linux.

Instead, the computer defaults to booting linux. If I want to boot macOS, I need to press and hold the option key. Only then the computer asks which one I want to boot.

I guess there is a solution to this, but because there is a simple workaround, I haven’t cared enough to fix it. Unless using the option key frequently for booting is somehow bad for the computer(?)

The speakers don’t work

The speakers do not work.

The good news is out of the box, the headphone jack does work. Online, people say getting audio through USB and HDMI work, too. This is already great in my opinion.

For the speakers, I found drivers for macbook on this repo: https://github.com/davidjo/snd_hda_macbookpro

However, there are two challenges with this driver:

1. The developer’s macbook model was apparently macbook14, and therefore it’s tested on this model. The driver might work with other models, since others report success with other models. You could check which model you have by booting the macOS, select the Apple icon –> select About this Mac, and click on System Report. Mine is macbook8,1.

2. The second and bigger issue: The driver would only work if the macbook has an HDA audio chip. Mine has an internal built-in audio system. You could check which one you have by running $ system_profiler SPAudioDataType on the macOS terminal. If you have an HDA audio chip, the driver might work for you.
   Note: The developer of the hda firmware mentioned that my device “[doesn’t] have the 8409 HDA chip but [it does] have an HDA chip - but much more standard. However Apple being Apple they use a proprietary version of it - one thing this allows them to do is add so called vendor commands - which are”useful” because there is no documentation of those commands.” He also recommended to look at this bug. The discussion is interesting but is a little over my head.

I searched for solutions for macbook8,1 and internal audio system. No luck. I am abandoning this issue for now, since as I mentioned the headphones do work.

The bluetooth does not work

I have found a potential solution, which I have not tried yet, on this repo: https://github.com/Dunedan/mbp-2016-linux

In general Dunedan’s repo has a lot of resources one could try.

The Facetime camera is not recognized (FIXED!)

My mac (Macbook8,1) has a 480p FaceTime camera (as seen on Apple’s website.)

I found the following repository for firmware for the FacetimeHD camera: https://github.com/patjak/facetimehd/

In short, you have to

1. Extract the firmware from OSX - find instructions here.
2. Follow the steps on installation.

The installation went without a hitch. However, since my camera is 480p FaceTime and not FaceTimeHD, it did not work. The camera was not responsive.

Then I found out that someone in the repository issues made modifications in the driver files to adapt for a 480p camera. I followed what they had suggested and the camera works now!

If you have a 480p camera, you need to make changes to the fthd_isp.c and the fthd_v4l2.c files. You can find the modifications they made here:

https://github.com/patjak/facetimehd/issues/196#issuecomment-569858722

Upgrade to Ubuntu 24.04

After installing Ubuntu 22.04, I upgraded to Ubuntu 24.04 (meaning on Ubuntu 22, I chose to upgrade, not through making a new bootable USB.)

Everything looks the same as Ubuntu 22. The wifi works, the headphone jack works, bluetooth does not work. The keyboard issue did not appear in the 24 hours I had Ubuntu 22.04 installed.

General issue for the macbook8,1 (Early 2015)

Overheating.
I have noticed that sometimes the laptop overheats. A couple of times the screen went blank. I first chalked it up to the battery issue (which I was aware of). However, someone else also has mentioned this issue for this particualr macbook:

https://github.com/DavidMorton/macbook12-audio-driver?tab=readme-ov-file#david-morton-update-aug-2023

I have not tested linux on any other macbooks but I suspect this is an issue of this particular model.

Verdict

Macbook8,1 is a pretty old device. There is a reasonable chance that the drivers people have developed for bluetooth or keyboard work better on slightly newer models.

Nevertheless, I have an almost functional linux on mac.

Is it perfect?
No.
Did I try very hard to fix the issues?
Yes.
Did I succeed in fixing the issues?
For the most part, no.
Did I revive a macbook into a functioning computer I can use on a daily basis, customize it to my liking and install new applications on?
So far, absolutely.

And I am looking at a Retina screen again.

If you have questions or feedback, I’d love to hear from you:

If you have questions or feedback, I’d love to hear from you:

If you have questions or feedback, I’d love to hear from you:

One key message from many of the talks was that if psychedelics are to be used as medicine to “cure” mental conditions, they need to be given to patients in conjunction with therapy. Patients in all clinical trials were prepared with therapy before and after their psychedelic experience. These drugs (although perfectly capable of creating a magical experience) are not magic. The unsexy work of therapy has to be done before and after to get the full curative benefit.

A question that kept coming to me was if psychedelics do in fact get approved (which is a real possibility in the near future), how will it fit in the current business model of the pharma industry? Companies make an income if the patients take drugs every day/week/month. Psychedelics are not meant to be prescribed this way. And they need to be given together with several therapy sessions, which is costly and laborious. This is a conundrum that was also pointed out by Micheal Pollan during the last session of the conference. And I wonder how it will get resolved.

One interesting piece of data was shown in a microdosing study. In short (and I am paraphrasing), people who expected to be given the microdose of psychedelics, and not the placebo, where the ones who experienced benefit. The ones who expected to be given placebo, and in fact got psychedelics, did not experience anything. This implies any benefit that is to be reaped from microdosing, is possibly nothing but placebo effect.

Iceland is beautiful. You can even catch the Northern lights in the capital on a clear night.

If you have questions or feedback, I’d love to hear from you: