there are days, about once every few weeks, where i consider how lucky i am to be living in the western world with an immense amount of personal and property safety.

i don’t fear recklessness on the roads. i don’t fear being robbed on the subway at night. i don’t fear walking on night streets of toronto, or running for 10km by myself through empty north york streets. i trust the water in my tap is drinkable – and i trust that it is effectively limitless. i can be warm when i want to be, and i can choose how to dress based on my own desires and not ones imposed onto me by a government. i’m not scared of public diseases on the subway.

all of these thoughts have actively went through my head in the last few months – appropo nothing, really. just a daily gratitude for .. being insanely lucky and privileged by the virtue of being born to the right people.

hell, i feel so safe that i’m cool with random people staying in my apartment for money.

and naturally a lot of these thoughts are raised when i read of any news in the world, and then i stumble onto sentences like this:

Russia is classified as a high-income economy by the World Bank (having a per capita GDP exceeding $14,000). 

14k per person, that’s … such a low bar. and i know it’s not income, but i mean, trinidad is doing better than russia.

clearly money isn’t a clear causation of safety, but inarguably there is a correlation there and … we’re all just really lucky, that’s all i guess i am thinking. forget lotteries, we already won compared to the other 6-7 billion.

sometimes i only feel what i should have felt years too late. i’m amazing. i picked myself up, decided that i’m done… and i just moved. everything. like, physically, everything.

photos from right before my last moments in the house.

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note the carefully packed cooler with snacks, gin and tonic and lime for the evening (i even took a knife and a cutting board). snacks. DSC_3893

pillow just in case. coffee and sugar for same just in case. you can see the cutting board peeking out.

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the 2 suitcases for 2 weeks of me day tripping all over UK and seeing my cousin

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going through 2013

in quest for providing additional photos to tom’s friend’s bedroom (i’m getting paid! and the criteria are “lots, black and white, serious/masculine” – see progress here – https://www.flickr.com/photos/olya/sets/72157648257300823/ ) i am now deep in 2013 and found this awesome memory:

i was on the 2 day break in madrid (by myself, after all the craziness) and had dinner in an amazing restaurant:

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(amuse bouche, amazing service, all the whistles)

 

after, walking the (not entirely feeling safe but close enough that i didn’t stress) streets of madrid i came across this crazy line up:

20130716-DSC_5711a dude with a telescope showed you the rings of jupiter for 2eu.

i lined up, paid, and saw the tiny white planet, hundreds of kilometers away, shining.