Barcelona Week 2 recap:

Started out with an insanely good dinner with my friend @toldbyalyse
You should try @eatwith if they have it in a town you’re visiting. These are some of the most amazing culinary experiences wherein you dine with complete strangers and are served by local independent chefs (and sometimes just people cooking out of their house). This one did not disappoint.

Woke up the next day on the beach in Ibiza.

We toured around (some of us on quads, myself in the jeep) and explored some beautiful ocean views.

Contrary to the looks of these ominous clouds, the weather cooperated with us the whole time.

We hiked down a fairly steep sandstone rock face and found this swimming cove and all these really cool rock formations.

We saw some stunning sunsets from the western-most point of the island.

It was pretty surreal.

This one on our last night with beautiful cirrus clouds above.

It’s been an epic two weeks with the @wifitribe crew. We’re t-minus 6 days from the Charity Makeover event in Barcelona and it’s completely sold out so I’m excited. Unfortunately I woke up with a crazy shooting pain in my right shoulder and I’m headed to get an MRI tomorrow to figure out what’s going on. Feels like sciatic nerve only radiating from my T2 vertebra to my right shoulder to my fingertips… hoping it’s just a pinched nerve and heals quickly on its own. If anyone has a theory on what this might be or what I could do to alleviate the pain I’d welcome any ideas.

?Anyways…
If you dig these periodic photo updates you should subscribe to my semi-annual email update here: https://scrollinondubs.com/about (at Barcelona, Spain. Gracia)
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Barcelona? week 1 update:
I’m in Barcelona, Spain for the month participating in my first ever @wifitribe chapter. Our first weekend here a group of us went to Mont Serrat to do some hiking.

It’s called Mont Serrat because it’s a ridge that looks like a serrated knife’s edge (I used to sell CUTCO – it’s no Double-D edge but it’s an impressive ridgeline).

We took the funicular up the mountain. “Funicular” I found out is the name for this counter-balanced train that goes up a steep incline. It’s two cars connected by cable and they just swap places all day long taking people up & down the mountain.

Anyways we get up there and it’s all these impressive alien-like rock formations with a monastery nestled at the base.

These mountains look like they’re from another planet. Apparently long long ago they were actually under water and they are formed via ocean sediment. Crazy to think the sea used to be this high.

The water receded and what’s left is this rock aggregate. As my old geology teacher from Ecuador would say “Rocks on the move!!”

I was able to get in some cloud computing… bad dad joke.

This is part of our group. There are actually 20 of us in town coworking, doing weekend sidetrips and exploring the city. It’s similar to the @remoteyear citizen house program only they have multiple chapters running concurrently all over Asia, Europe, Africa and South America at any given time.

Yesterday I went with a few people on a walking architectural tour around Barcelona. Gaudi was the centerpiece of this tour. His style is best described as “hobbit.” It reminds me a lot of the buildings from the old games Myst and Riven. I had been to Sagrada Familia before but it’s always impressive. They’re aiming to have it completed by 2026 – the 100th anniversary of Gaudi’s death.

Anyways, so far so good. Running here is interesting. The blocks are relatively small and all the intersections are octagonal so you end up zigzagging and a 3mi run becomes a 4mi run. That’s good though because their pintxo finger food scene is fire Beware Barcelona: I will be eating all the pintxos and tapas this month. (at Barcelona, Spain)
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Greece Weeks 3 & 4 update:
Meet Frank. Frank is our on-property goat. We feed him leaves because he’s eaten all the ones that are within reach. This is really the only reason Frank needs us but we’re cool with the relationship.

We’ll regularly come out the back door and find Frank doing sun salutations in the back yard. Frank loves yoga.

Last week we to go hike the massive Samaria Gorge of Crete. On the way there we stopped to grab a lunch of smashed panini sandwiches atop an amazing viewpoint. The sandwiches were mediocre but the view was spectacular.

We found out the Samaria Gorge is actually the longest gorge in all of Europe (so long they have a whole brand of purified water named after it).

32k steps and 5hrs later we nearly missed the last ferry out of there.

We met this little guy who unfortunately had a busted paw but played a solid sympathy begging game. He got more of our food than we did.

Plakias beach was a welcome restful spot after the gorge hike the previous day.I knocked out most of a book on channel sales here.
We hiked to the secluded Agio Farago beach the next weekend at the suggestion of @bennyb0y and were not disappointed.

Here we discovered a roving orchestra of cowbell-playing Cretan Mountain Goats. They were headed to a gig and wanted nothing to do with us.

All in all it’s been a great couple of weeks. The desserts have been(I discovered chocolate baklava cake is actually a thing). One more week then back to Lisbon for a brief stopover before Spain. (at Kournás, Khania, Greece)
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Crete week 2 recap:

We find a beach where the water is impossibly blue.

But to get there we have to share this single-lane dirt road with some Cretan mountain goats. Crete doesn’t believe in guard rails and these goats don’t believe in road rules so it makes for an interesting car ride.

@benlakoff and I finally get our Oura rings. I propose to it immediately on the beach (she says yes). Feeling quantified AF now.

Next day we find this gorge with a waterfall. It was gorgeous.

Jon-o decides he’s going swimming but enters by doing a Triple Lindy off the rock ledge.

We drove to the western most point of the island and get there just in time for sunset.

In spite of applying half a bottle of SPF 1000 I’m a potato crisp (thank you Irish genes).

After dinner that night I get replaced by a mannequin. It’s more photogenic and gets less sunburned.

That’s fine though because I discover the Greek dessert Kataïfi and commit to ordering my body weight in this sugary walnut goodness while we’re here.

It just means daily TRX sessions which i have zero issue with given the view.
In summary, Crete is pretty fantastic. Good food, good people, good times. For more fun check out the Pagely podcast we just launched: pagely.com/podcast (at Kournás, Khania, Greece)
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So first week… lemme recap:

We’re staying in what appears to be either a new or newly-remodeled triplex compound on the island of Crete.

2nd day we’re exploring the 4000-year-old palace of Knossos which apparently is the oldest ruins in the oldest civilization in Greece. It’s really old.

They’ve got old jars. On the one in front you can see the thumbprint of its creator on the handle. A 4000-yr-old thumbprint!

There are some really old paintings like this one but most burned in a fire ~1300BC. It’s a stone palace but a) all the columns were cypress trees covered in plaster b) the floors were wooden c) they were using olive oil lamps. Doh!

This is the place where the mythical Minotaur was allegedly underground in the catacombs. Turns out that was just a misinterpretation of a weird procreation screening ritual that involved grabbing a bull by the horns and jumping over it. If you couldn’t then… you didn’t. We didn’t find any Minotaurs but we did find the oldest known throne.

It’s crazy to imagine people living here 4000 years ago. They even had flushing toilets. My Airbnb sometimes don’t even have those…

Anyways this peacock shows up like it owns the place…

So we left and went to dinner at a bombass restaurant called Peskesi (highly recommend).
This is the view off our balcony. Not mad about this for a month. Opa! (at Kournás, Khania, Greece)
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