Waking up early can be a wonderful thing, except when you barely had time to sleep.
Luckily a song from Burna Boy can make any ass shake. No matter the day, it’ll move that booty out of the sheets.

It was 6 am, and we were about to go for an early morning swim. When we arrived to de Waal beach, the idea of a quick workout became very tempting. Since many of us find cardio trainings repulsive, the most displeasing idea we could come up with was the famous stair workout, absolutely deadly.
It was so unbearably revolting, that I gave up at 2/3 of the way like a pussy.
I could blame it on the tiredness, my blood sugar, or the “impossible difficulty”, but the realty is:
It’s a mind game, and at that moment I was weak.
My courageous brothers fought it through all the way, conquering the steps of doom with both their mind and body.

The well deserved dip came after this, with a short meditation [+ Wim Hof breathing] before the water took us in. A bunch of seagulls were circling above the water, like eagles looking for snakes. They were loud, hungry and determined to mate. You could hear their war cries echoing on the whole beach, while the waves under them were licking the shores gently, curling the water on the wet sand carrying white foam and wooden sticks.

As we walked in the water, a sense of warmth started to run through my body, while the gulfs tossed my legs back and forth rhythmically. Ticklish thigh or not, we walked all the way until our feet sank in the softest mud. With the usual 3-2-1 go, we placed our buttocks next to our ankles, and let the current smooth out the last remaining stress hormones, until our minds were completely clear of any bullshit thoughts.

I could’ve sat there for hours, watching the sun rise up behind the Dutch mountains, allowing its rays to caress my face with all the love it has, even though we were 150 million kilometers apart.
When I walked out, I thanked them for making my 600th day begin with a beautiful sunrise and a company of real brothers in arms

As I pulled out my camera to make a snapshot, my friend pulled his pants off to change from wet to dry stuff. “Uh-oh”. No homo! No one wants to take a nude shot with a polaroid, dude.
*turns around until he is done*
With the magical sunrise reflecting on the river’s top, we angled the camera, balanced it on rocks, and took a photo of all three of us, with that wonderful background.
I jumped in just in time, but the photo turned out to be…quite alright.

As we dressed up, the wind brought us the smell of cinnamon buns, immediately impairing our ability to resist the Morning Market’s temptation. With a BJJ training starting at 10, we had to hurry a bit. But boy, was the market full of delicious snacks. Half the things I’ve seen I’ve never tasted. You haven’t seen ‘’exotic’’ until you’ve been at the Market in Nijmegen.

My Friend grabbed a couple of croissants, spiced nuts and dried mangos. That should last until we get home. We’ve had enough beauty for a whole month, and it wasn’t even 9 ‘o clock.
At one point towards the car, a barking snowball ran to my friend’s shoe, and started licking his ankle.
Nothing says ‘I love you’ more than a dogs tongue.

The second we made it home, we laid against the infamous flipped couch to recharge before the Martial Wars. Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu is a tough sport, and we just had a proper workout an hour ago. That is exactly the challenge a True Warrior would like to go through.
A quick shower, fresh clothes, and we were on the way to learn how to defend, attack and disarm.
Though it’s not really smart, I often spar with gorillas who are 30 kilos heavier and their experience is at least a year or more.
Do I stand a chance? Honestly, not at all.
But this makes you learn the techniques better than anyone, so you don’t rely on your bodyweight to “do the job”
Why would you struggle to execute a technique as gracefully as a ballerina, while you can just effortlessly twist an arm or sit on top, due to the huge difference in muscle mass?
In the long-term, it’s detrimental. But we’ll get to that, there are plenty of years ahead to learn and grow in BJJ and Martial Arts.
After a devastating session, a cold shower and a decent breakfast makes up for the countless chokes I’ve suffered. Your body is once again clean and filled with nutrition. The feeling is almost indescribable, it’s like dying and being reborn, except you do it every 48 hours.
What I didn’t know, is that we’ll get to spend time with 2 sweet little doggos, one of them was the size of 6 tennis balls.
They constantly tried to give “the look” to receive some treats at breakfast, but the heart of these adults were solid as a rock, and none of their hysterical barks could prevent us from enjoying our meal without giving a piece. [We are not evil, this food just simply wasn’t meant for puppies]

Next to the dogs, they brought one more thing: A cactus, which we’ll try to keep alive, at all costs.
We can’t afford to lose any more plants, it’d be a shame. We can do handstand pushups, but we can’t make plants survive for a few weeks? That has to change.
The degree of responsibility is graded by the level of difficulty in keeping alive certain things, starting with:
F) Yourself
D) Yourself + plant(s)
C) Yourself + plant(s) + low effort animal(s)
B) Yourself + plant(s) + high effort animal(s)
A) Yourself + plant(s) + low/high effort animal(s) + A kid.
A+) A multitude of all the above + dealing with another human being under the name of “Lover”, “Soul Mate” or “Spouse”

Currently I’m a D-, but I’m planning to get a C+ by the time I’m 25.
Luckily, in the next few hours I’ll get to taste the B- Life.

I jumped into my pink kimono with red devils on it, grabbed the longboard and skated right to a Lady, so we could take two dogs (Bo, alias Chonky Boi and Fleur, alias Hot dawg) for a walk.

The second I stepped in the door deafening barking ensued, with the two of them rushing towards me like the coyote against the road runner in Looney Tunes.
I simply placed the longboard in front of my ankle – so they couldn’t chew it off – until the Lady came to the rescue and made sure they chilled the fuck out. Once the collars were on, we were on the way towards the canal, taking them for a trip of a Lifetime [They are barely taken out]. Since I possess basically 0 experience in C+ levels, taking dogs for a walk wasn’t a part of my skillset. The only time I ever did it was probably on my very first date in 2015, and that was a disaster. It took less than 2 minutes until Chonky Boi jumped on one of the strangers. Now, I’m not the one to usually feel embarrassment, but the fact that it took less 120 seconds to mess up my task was quite a disappointment.
For the rest of the route, I was mildly worried that one of them would jump in front of a car if I didn’t pay attention to the leash’s length.
That didn’t turn out to be a threat, however, they constantly kept crossing each other like they were playing checkers.
The moment you untangled them, 5 seconds later our leashes were already in X again.
“Oh god, It’s only been like 15 minutes.” – I thought to myself
“How is it possible that people out there raise kids for more than 15 years without losing their shit?”
“Maybe I should buy more plants and level up from there.”

What a brief walk with the dogs can do to your consciousness.

When we got to a river bank next to a small forest, I began jumping up and down to demonstrate a point I can’t remember. A few harmless skips along the tracks, and we went forward like nothing happened.

5 minutes later an old Lady walks up behind us, asking whether a phone she’s just found could’ve fallen out of my pockets.
Holy. Fucking. Shit. It did. And we didn’t even hear a thing.
If this happened in Hungary, however, my phone would already be on sale with the title:
“I forgot my code so I’m selling my phone” or “For some reason I can’t unlock my phone, anyway for 300$ it’s yours”
Description: NoT sToLeN oF cOuRsE.

She didn’t have a cape, but she was a real hero(ine). This kind of honesty, kindness and decency made me fall in love with the country and the people. At home, this would’ve been a miracle, but here, it’s the right thing to do.

To exceed this euphoric joy, it was time to switch doggos. The long noodle was my responsibility for the rest of the road. Her pretty paws where hopping on the concrete with endless energy, tail wagging like the wiper of a windshield in a heavy autumn rain, sniffing and tracking down hidden treasures (such as the poop of another puppy) like an archeologist.

We wandered quite far from the house, and they were not trained for taking long distances without a break. At one point she became tired; less enthusiastic – so I picked her up and began carrying that cute tiny body for the last few minutes in the city. I was holding her like a bazooka, ready to shoot lethal barks at anyone who dared to frown at us.

At one point we noticed a vicious little fuck, yapping on max, jumping up and down on a windowsill, trying to assert dominance with its 400 grams. It was a Pomeranian, playing the big boy in diapers. Before we walked past, his quest to tear us apart (prevented by a 1 cm thick glass) made him push a vase off the edge of ledge, making the owner rush to the window and feel overwhelmed with surprise and embarrassment. You could see her mouthing “sorry” before she removed the four legged explosive ball of hair from the window and hid it behind the curtain.
We left with a laugh and a mild sense of pity – not all doggos are cute like the ones we were walking with.

When we arrived home, they basically passed out on the couch after the longest walk they’ve taken (probably) since the day they were born.

That was more than enough reason for us to do the same, but before, ladies and gentlemen, I present to you:
The Award Winner Fruit Bowl

The cashier took two long glimpses at my pink devil kimono before she printed out the bon¹.
It’s always a pleasure to walk around in out-of-the-ordinary clothes. Or taking a banana for a walk, to make a point.

With such a nutritious fuel we began binge watching You S02, in her warm and cozy living room, until the evening reached its pinnacle, which I’d love to share with you – but the rest of my homework was eaten up by the doggos, thus it remains buried in a few of my cheeky neurons.

Take care, and don’t lose your phone or wallet while walking with pets.
Erik

2020.09.12 – Day 600

[Writer’s Notes]

[NL] Bon¹ – Receipt [ENG]