Sochi’s caves are nothing like Egyptian tombs. Different kind of darkness entirely. Spent yesterday deep in limestone caverns, following narrow passages that twist deeper than torch light reaches. The guide warned about getting disoriented, but that’s exactly what I came for. Egyptian pyramids were engineered spaces – deliberate architecture designed to guide souls through specific […]
Underground lessons Read More »
Kaliningrad. Standing on the same Baltic coastline that sparked my first novel three years ago. The fortress walls look exactly as I remember them, but I’m seeing them through different eyes now. When I wrote Northern Rift, this place felt mysterious, full of secrets waiting to be uncovered. Now I understand it was never about
Sardinia. Azure water, limestone cliffs, evening light turning Olbia into something from a postcard. Perfect antidote to Moscow’s intensity. The quiet here is productive in ways city noise never allows. Been mapping out alternative endings for the interactive novel whilst watching fishing boats drift across the harbour. Digital analytics coursework finally clicking into place. All
Mediterranean algorithms Read More »
Moscow feels different now. Walking streets that used to be automatic, noticing things that were invisible before I left. Four years abroad changes your relationship with home. The city looks the same but I’m seeing it through foreign eyes. Architectural details I never registered, social dynamics I took for granted, the particular quality of summer
Coming home as a stranger Read More »
Egypt. Finally ticking this off the bucket list after months buried in business law and financial planning coursework. Spent yesterday inside the Great Pyramid at Giza. Being in that ancient tomb feels like falling through time itself. The narrow passages, oppressive darkness, stone corridors that seem to breathe around you. Tourist guides warn about claustrophobia,
Descending into research Read More »
Maldives. Turquoise water, white sand, nothing but books and wave sounds for the next week. First proper break after exam season and the Noé launch madness. Plan was simple: read trashy novels, sleep twelve hours a night, forget what a deadline feels like. Maybe work on my tan instead of my TBR pile. That lasted
Paradise and plot bunnies Read More »
Barcelona for Easter break. First proper holiday since finishing the Noé draft and submitting those brutal business management assignments. Standing in front of Sagrada Família trying to process how someone’s brain conceived this. Gaudí must have seen the world completely differently. Every surface curves like it’s alive, growing rather than built. Realised I’m doing exactly
Tourist mode: activated Read More »
Bangkok street markets at sunset. Orange light bouncing off temple gold and vendor stalls. The smell of pad thai mixing with incense from nearby shrines. First time in months I left the laptop behind. Really trying to just be here, you know? Watch people instead of analysing them for characters. But my brain won’t switch
Writing vacation (sort of) Read More »
Petersburg to Berlin. Three days, four countries, countless borders crossed in sleep. Foundation Programme done, Brighton ahead, and me suspended in this moving nowhere. Writing this from somewhere in Poland. Or maybe we’re in Germany already. Hard to tell when you wake at 4 AM and the landscape outside could be anywhere. Grey fields, industrial
Back in Russia for a few weeks before Abbey College starts. Petersburg at 2 AM during white nights is something else entirely. The sun refuses to set properly, just hovers at the edge of everything, turning the Neva into liquid mercury. Kaliningrad’s Baltic coast feels different. Heavier somehow, all that Prussian history buried under Soviet
Cities That Remember Read More »
