Side Pocket no.1
Books, places, podcasts and other things worth carrying
Summer in the city
If you are a little bit older, I’m pretty sure you recognized the reference and started humming the famous song from Joe Cocker…”Despite the heat it will be alright” is one of my favorite parts! And as I am listening to this song from 1994, I remember singing it with my dad on a random Sunday morning after breakfast in our house in Maputo (the capital of Mozambique).
Growing up, this expression “Summer in the city” got a whole different meaning - once you are not a student anymore, Summer is not a 2 or 3 month long vacation from school or Uni. If you have a 9 to 5, it becomes actually a lot shorter than that, and you find yourself spending more time in the city than you would like. Going on vacation is also becoming increasingly a privilege in these troubled times.
That’s why every Summer I try to enjoy this season spending time outside and slowing down. And counting the days for the vacations.
I know this is a different newsletter from the previous one but I hope you find some of these “notes” interesting to incorporate in your next trip or…in your summer in the city.
The walks outside + the podcasts that keep me company
Since this is the season to spend more time outside (at least for me, I do complain a lot about the weather in Winter, I confess) I just ditch the gym and go on walks when it’s not unbearably hot outside. I’m not an audiobook girlie (I prefer to read them, hardcover or e-books, and this article is my defense).
In an attempt to find something as entertaining as a binge-watched series, I landed on these two.
Wind of Change by Patrick Radden Keefe - it has investigative journalism at its best, rock music, spies and the Cold War. I had to force myself to listen to it only on my walks otherwise I would have listened to it in one sitting. Highly entertaining. I loved it. (This was a suggestion by a fellow substacker, Steph the Founder)
The Missing Cryptoqueen by Jamie Bartlett - again, impressive investigative journalism, I love the songs they used and the story? It’s bittersweet but it reveals a really messy side of our world. In this case, it’s actually an ongoing investigation, people disappeared, went to jail and unfortunately got scammed.
I’m looking for my next one, if you have some suggestions, I’m all ears!
The books that are kept me sane
I could write a whole other newsletter about books because they have been part of my hobbies for as long as I can remember. I was fortunate enough to grow up in a household with a HUGE library at home and spent a lot of time reading from a really young age.
In this stage of my life, I want to read things that make me slow down or laugh. I’m avoiding thrillers (or better, I’m keeping them) for when I’ll be by the beach and have all the time in the world to read them without day-to-day “stuff” like working. Or doing chores.
If you wonder where I get my recs from, well, everywhere: IG and YT creators I follow, book club suggestions, podcasts (the one with one of my favorite Italian writers, Daria Bignardi) and friends or colleagues, really. And I will admit that Kindle recs know me TOO well.
I’m not going to bore you any longer, here are the two books that stood out and fit the mood.
A Gentleman in Moscow - Amor Towles
I’m a history nerd, so I was really intrigued by this novel that takes place in the heart of Moscow during the communist revolution. The plot seems simple: the aristocrat Count Alexander Ilyich Rostov is forced to live in the famous Metropol Hotel because he’s under house arrest. I’m not going to give away more details but let’s say that I really liked the descriptions of all of the people that surrounded the Count and the places where all of this took place (at the end, I WAS LIVING in the Metropol Hotel and…it is still there!). It makes you laugh, think, and it’s so heartwarming. I didn’t want it to end because I didn’t want to say goodbye to all of the characters.
I Feel Bad About My Neck - Nora Ephron
I didn’t know much about Nora Ephron when I found this memoir…but I wish I did! Turns out she’s the woman behind for example When Harry Met Sally and she also wrote Heartburn, a novel about her own divorce. Later in life she started writing essays, sharp and funny, about getting older as a woman. The whole premise is…aging as a woman. With curiosity, grace and laughing (or crying) your way out of what life throws you. Most of it is set in New York, one of my favorite cities in the world.
The heatwave (and how I escaped it for a weekend)
Europe is suffering one of the worst heatwaves since 1970. It’s like living in an oven - and trust me it’s not easy. It drains your energy, it’s hard to sleep, to work, to enjoy anything.
So I’m trying to cope with it in the best way I can: eating lots of gelato from my favorite place in Milan; enjoying peaches and tomatoes and watermelons to keep me fresh and hydrated; going to the office to enjoy the free aircon. And for all the “climate change don’t exist” well, fuck you.
To escape the heat, we - together with a couple of friends - decided to spend a weekend in the mountains, near the border with Switzerland, in a really picturesque and cute little place called Madesimo.
It was what I needed (minus the all-day trek, which maybe will make it into its own post…maybe not): being with friends, in nature, enjoying fresh, cool air, and eating pizzoccheri in cute little restaurants.
Dreaming about
I’m actually always thinking about traveling even when I’m…well, traveling. Two destinations keep popping up.
São Tomé e Príncipe
In my quest for places people haven’t heard of, São Tomé e Príncipe. A tiny volcanic archipelago in the Gulf of Guinea, off the coast of Central Africa, sitting almost exactly on the equator - keeps coming up. Think black volcanic sand beaches, old cocoa plantations turned into guesthouses, jungle-covered peaks, quaint little towns and a tropical vibe with barely any crowds. And I get why, first you need to know that it exists, and second it’s not easy to get there…and that’s why it’s been on my list for at least 4 years.
Nicaragua
In a recent Lonely Planet article, Nicaragua came up the best budget alternative to Costa Rica. See, my Costa Rica nostalgia never fully left…to this day I wonder why I didn’t just, you know, stay there?! Jokes aside, it’s the one place that my husband and I agree we would both live.
Back to Nicaragua, curiosity won and I decided to take a look at some pics from Big Corn and Little Corn Islands, Lago Cocibolca and the spectacular Isla Ometepe and…I think I’m sold? I’ll let you know.
I will come back in September after my much-awaited vacation and I promise I will be more regular. I have so many more stories to share. Meanwhile, enjoy your summer in every way you can - it is a magical time of the year.
I’ll be back soon, as always, halfway packed.