I first came to Amsterdam more than twenty years ago. It was my first solo trip to Europe, and it ignited in me a passion that clearly has not dimmed. I told myself then that someday I would live here, in a centuries old apartment with elaborate ceilings overlooking the canals. I finally did exactly that, and spending the last few months here was even more wonderful than I had imagined for all of those years. A huge thank you to @fernando_b_russo for allowing me use of his magical canal house, it’s a very special place. And also of his bicycle, so that I could truly explore the place like a (slightly terrified) local. Though my time here has come to an end for now, I have zero doubt that my relationship with Amsterdam is far from finished.
Think about the last really great dinner party you went to. The setting was beautiful, there was copious food and lots of great wine, and the conversation was fantastic. You ate, you drank, you laughed, you danced, maybe you met someone special. Now imagine that evening lasted for seven days, and you’ll start to get the general idea of what The Roving Hotel is all about.
I’m thrilled to announce what may be the most ambitious and exciting chapter of The Roving Hotel yet. Join us in October in a magnificent estate that has been the home to the same noble family for more than 400 years as we explore the sights, sounds, tastes, and culture of the magical region of Andalucía. For info DM me directly or check out therovinghotel.com
I had high hopes for spending the last 4 months living in Spain, but reality exceeded all expectations. I met great friends, found new lovers, ate incredible foods and drank a lot of vermouth, took fantastic roads to explore beautiful regions, and found myself becoming more and more fond of the country with each passing day. It’s an experience I can’t wait to share with you as the next chapter of The Roving Hotel, coming to Andalusia this October.
As of this morning, I’m 42 years old. Which, inshallah, is probably about half of my natural life. Or, to frame it in a slightly more uplifting statistic, means I’ve likely only lived about one third of my adult life. My second 21st birthday, if you will. And while those recent few decades certainly didn’t lack in adventures, they always carried the undercurrent of feeling I was somehow lesser than because I didn’t have the wife, the kids, the corporate career, the things that I was “supposed” to have at this point in life. But it’s become more and more clear to me that perhaps these feelings of inadequacy were from trying to force a round peg into a square hole- that maybe, truly, the “supposed to” life just wasn’t meant for me. (It’s not like the universe hadn’t been sending me plenty of clues along the way.) So I decided to finally try just diving head on into a life that wasn’t “normal.” I put my belongings into storage and my car onto a boat, and today I woke up in Spain. I’ll be living here for the next three months (do come visit), and the months after those and then the month after those, who knows? At the moment I have no real plan on how I’ll support myself, and most of my future socializing will likely be with people I’m yet to meet. But I’m just going to trust myself. Going forward I’m pledging to lean in to the things that feel right, reject the things that feel forced, and just figure it out as I go along. While to many I know this seems like a chaotic existence, it’s a notion which brings me a long sought sense of peace. Here’s to the third 21.
In November, I found myself happily on a trip to Europe, wondering why I didn’t just move there full time. I reasoned that I was locked into a multi-year lease on my New York apartment, and had spent a bunch of time and effort decorating the place so I might as well see it out. On my way to the airport, I got a call from my buddy Mack who had been staying there while I was gone, telling me the ceiling had collapsed due to a flood from the unit above. Mack also happens to be a prodigious real estate investor who has been a landlord to literally thousands of apartments, and he warned me that they needed to fix this correctly, as mold could become a serious issue. Long story short, they didn’t, I became ill for almost the full month of December, and when I returned to the apartment after New Years, there was visible toxic mold all over the bathroom wall. So now I’m forced out of that apartment, suing the landlord who dismissed my initial concerns and still has not fixed it correctly, and suddenly free to live anywhere. The universe is funny like that. As a wise man once said, you can’t always get what you want, but if you try sometimes, you just might find, you get what you need.
I have been a licensed driver for almost twenty-seven years now, and it is something I absolutely relish. In that time, I have driven hundreds of different automobiles from exotics to econoboxes on roads and tracks all across the world. But today, January 8th, 2024 at 3:40pm piloting my Cayman S through a residential neighborhood somewhere off I-81 in Pennsylvania that I pulled into solely to take this photo, I reached the pinnacle of my motoring career thus far. Though I may (arguably) present the outward semblance of a responsible forty-one year old man, I can not explain to you the pure joy that I experienced in this moment. This is a high I will be chasing for years.
A couple weeks back, I got a call out of the blue from one Joseph Pace Mawhinney asking if he could come stay with me in New York as he’d just gone through his second divorce and needed a getaway. We hadn’t been in very frequent contact over the last decade or so as life and kids and things got in the way and also we’re men, but from the age of ten through college, Pace and I were best friends. The awkwardness of adolescence, our first loves and subsequent heartbreaks, our parents’ respective divorces, the entirety of the high school experience, we went through all of it together. I obviously replied “of course” and asked him how long he had free. When he told me “nine days” I said “f@ck that, we’re going on an adventure.” So off to Amsterdam, Prague, and Budapest we went; where we immediately reverted to our middle school humor, listened to our favorite grunge rock, and sampled the local beers like we were back at a frat party. Never in our lives had we traveled abroad together before, and it was one of the best weeks I can remember. Moral of the story: if you have that old friend you haven’t seen in ages, and I bet all of you do, go hang out with them for a bit. Preferably in a spot full of history and great architecture where the women are gorgeous and the drinks are dirt cheap. You won’t regret it.
