This time I got inspired by this Ted talk video from Graham Hill:

http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/eng/graham_hill_weekday_vegetarian.html

It’s a 4 minutes funny video, vision is very recommended

After that, I stepped into the real world of meat production and consumption: a world of which I heard about of but never investigated.

There’re a lot of shocking information around, basically the problems related with high meat production and consumption typical of our lifestyle can be summarize in:
- cattle produce greenhouse gases, so contributing to global warming (they say this is more impacting than all the vehicles put together)
- producing meat requires high demand of natural resources like water and to feed the animals soia has to be produced, to produce more soia more soil is needed, to have more soil more deforestation has to take place, and so on so forth in the chain of destruction
- modern animal farming techniques are just horrible, to produce more meat animals are grown in unnatural conditions, don’t have space to live and are feed with medicines and other shit to prevent diseases
- eating too much meat is bad for the health

To know more about the topic, this is the best documentary I found:
Meat The Truth (http://www.meatthetruth.nl)

It’s available on Youtube, first part is at the link below:

After knowing this, I really thought that reducing my meat consumption was a really good idea, and also something very simple to do.
It wasn’t uncommon for me to eat meat, ham or salami everyday, so I immediately liked the concept of becoming a weekday vegetarian.

Please don’t tell me that to be coherent then to fight global warming  I also have to stop driving my motorbike and my van, and stop taking planes.
While these actions are also impacting, they’re much more difficult decision to take than become a weekday vegetarian.
Instead, I invite you to become a weekday vegetarian too, or at least to think and reduce your meat consumption, knowing that this will have a more positive effect than me stopping driving my vehicles and living a miserable life

Anyway, I did the experiment in June and for the whole month I tried to eat meat only on the weekends.
How did it go?
Well, I discover the  beauty of living without buying any meat at the supermarket.
Vegetables are good, and there are very nice options around.
My new favourite dishes are caprese salade,  mixed salade and grilled vegetables
And having to travel for work and staying in good hotels, I always have restaurants with vegetarian options available.
And also, buying vegetables is cheaper!!

I didn’t stick to the schedule very well: a Thursday evening I ended up in an Argentinian restaurant with some colleagues and couldn’t avoid to have a steak, ops!
But on the other hand, getting used to avoid meat lead me to often avoid meat in weekends too.

They say that if you do something for 30 days, it will became an habit.
So here I am, almost completing my second month as weekday vegetarian, and still loving the idea of the positive impact that this brings.

The lessons I learned are:
1) we don’t need to eat animals, really, try it yourself
2) a consumer we have a lot of power… and responsibilities too

An American businessman was standing at the pier of a small coastal Mexican village when a small boat with just one fisherman docked. Inside the small boat were several large yellowfin tuna. The American complimented the Mexican on the quality of his fish.

“How long it took you to catch them?” The American asked.

“Only a little while.” The Mexican replied.

“Why don’t you stay out longer and catch more fish?” The American then asked.

“I have enough to support my family’s immediate needs.” The Mexican said.

“But,” The American then asked, “What do you do with the rest of your time?”

The Mexican fisherman said, “I sleep late, fish a little, play with my children, take a siesta with my wife, Maria, stroll into the village each evening where I sip wine and play guitar with my amigos, I have a full and busy life, senor.”

The American scoffed, “I am a Harvard MBA and could help you. You should spend more time fishing and with the proceeds you buy a bigger boat, and with the proceeds from the bigger boat you could buy several boats, eventually you would have a fleet of fishing boats.”

“Instead of selling your catch to a middleman you would sell directly to the consumers, eventually opening your own can factory. You would control the product, processing and distribution. You would need to leave this small coastal fishing village and move to Mexico City, then LA and eventually NYC where you will run your expanding enterprise.”

The Mexican fisherman asked, “But senor, how long will this all take?”

To which the American replied, “15-20 years.”

“But what then, senor?”

The American laughed and said, “That’s the best part. When the time is right you would announce an IPO (Initial Public Offering) and sell your company stock to the public and become very rich, you would make millions.”

“Millions, senor? Then what?”

The American said slowly, “Then you would retire. Move to a small coastal fishing village where you would sleep late, fish a little, play with your kids, take a siesta with your wife, stroll to the village in the evenings where you could sip wine and play your guitar with your amigos…”

Why?
Because:
- it’s great to experience something new every month
- sharing publicly the results is a way to keep me motivated
- I want to inspire people to be curious and start experimenting as well… and share back

The first experiment actually happened already last September.

When I bought my house, I went trough the classic “pack/move/unpack/find a place” for all my material properties.
I realized that, in 4 years in Netherlands, I accumulate already an amount of things totally useless or that I never use…. so here we go: the first experiment is about minimalism.

Inspired by Leo Babauta (http://zenhabits.net/ and author of “The Power of Less”) I decided to free my house and myself from things that are only taking space in my house and in my mind without doing me any good.

So, after I moved in the new apartment I decided that for 30 days I would throw away something every day.
Some days could be just a piece of paper, some days an old obsolete electronic *something*, some days a t-shirt I never used because too ugly.
But everyday I had to find something to get rid of.

Well, I loved the results so much that sometime I really feel like throwing away something and I look around the house checking what’s next to go in the bin

I realized that the less things I have, the more free I feel
I realized that the less things I have, the easier is to maintain order (someone may disagree that my house is in order…)
I realized that the less things I have, the more I enjoy and I value the things that I DO have
I realized that the less things I have, the more I think about buy/bring new things in my house and into my life

Don’t take me wrong… this doesn’t mean I’m living like a monk, without buying things or depriving myself of the pleasure of owning something just because I like it or it means something to me.
I haven’t throw away anything with a sentimental value and I kept on buying what I thing I need, or I like, or I fancy…. but still, this experiment make me think twice now before taking anything into my life and into my house.

So the lesson I learn is cristal clear to me: Less is More

As I read a lot about happiness in the last year, I could not ignore this title

I found this Tony Hsieh, which I didn’t know, CEO of Zappos.com, which I didn’t know, offering a free copy of his new book for bloggers.

Few days later an UPC shipment is at my door: you know when you’re surprised because you’re not expecting anything, right?

Well I open the box and I found 2 advance reading copies of the “Delivering Happiness” book.
My natural reaction was a big WOW: 2 copies of a book not yet published delivered by express international shipment. WOW.

Well, after reading the book, I understood this was exactly the purpose of it. Tony’s culture, that reflects in Zappos way of operate, is all built around the “WOW effect”: the reaction of positive surprise, when something unexpected exceed our expectation and we struggle to believe it’s true.

Turned out that Tony Hsieh is a young and rich entrepreneur running the biggest online shoes shop: www.zappos.com
But that’s not the interesting part. Tony is different than others young and reach entrepreneur because he’s moved by an higher purpose.
He strives to deliver happiness, to generate joy for himself and for everyone else.

The book is in 3 parts.

In the first part (Profits) Tony writes about his life, how since his childhood he has always had a business oriented mindset (trying to build a worms factory, for example!) and later on how as a teenager went through different interests and experiences.
I loved how he could get lessons out of every experience. That’s what experiences are made for.
It’s not important which experiences you go through… for Tony was playing poker and going to rave parties, for someone else can be playing soccer and camping.
It doesn’t matter. What matters is the lesson you get out of it.
In some parts Tony can be seen as the classic lucky guy that got millions from the Internet boom, but is Tony’s way of openly and honestly shares what every passion gave him that shows that Tony has something more than money and ideas, Tony is looking for an higher purpose.

It’s when he decided to risk all his money into Zappos that this becomes clear.
There’s a sentence here that opened my eyes… “I had discovered my new passion. I was passionate about proving everyone wrong.”.

Tony’s passion is not in shoes. Passion is not in our job. Passion is in ourself. This made me realize that the passion I had for IT (that leaded me to a humbly great career) was not about IT, but was about proving that I could be part of this system and built a position.

The second part (Profits and passion) is all about Zappos, since Tony’s decision to fully dedicate his time to it.
From the hard and uncertain times of the beginning to the affirmation of the company built around culture and core values.
This part isn’t my favourite, but this is me. I’m more interested in Tony’s personal journey than in business management… but still, this is a pleasant read full of amazing anecdotes and contributions from Zappos employees.

The section 3 of the book (Profit, passion and purpose) is not just the closing chapter with some ideas about further business development.
It’s the disclosure of what is behind the creation of the “delivering happiness” concept.
This is the part I love the most. It talks about life purpose, science of happiness and happiness framework… and close with a set of questions for YOU to think.
In this part the analysis of happiness top my previous favourite one from “the 4 hours work week” by Tim Ferris… there happiness is excitement, while here passion is a kin of happiness before reaching an higher purpose.

If you’re looking for inspiration about how to live before you die… this is one of the book I would recommend you to have

http://www.deliveringhappinessbook.com

This book is available via Amazon:

http://www.amazon.com/deliveringhappiness

Sat 27th Feb 2010 I did bought a van, a Volkswagen Transporter T4 from 1999, called “The Salsa Shuttle”.

It’s something I was talking about since few weeks but still people didn’t took me seriously thinking I was kidding… so many people asked me “Why did you bought a van??”

While my first answer is always “why not?”… there is more behind this decision and I want to share here my idea that buying a car is a much worse idea than buying a van.

It happened that I found myself driving a van for 2 weekends in a row: first driving the artists around for the Amsterdam Salsa Festival (which was lot of fun) and then taking my team mates from eStilo show group to Frankfurt (and back).
Both weekends were great and I spot the possibility that having a van is the way to go.

As my inspiring French friend Xavier use to say, a van can do anything a car can do… and much more.

This is a list of things I can do with my van:
- going to a Salsa party with a 8 other friends
- going to kite surfing on the beach with some friends and full equipment, getting changed inside the van if it’s a bit cold (and here in Holland it is!) with no need to take 2 cars
- stay on the beach for a BBQ, then sleeping in the van and go to the office the day after
- put my bicycle (or more) in the van, so if I park far from my house I can cycle home (typical Amsterdam problem) or I can go somewhere and cycle there

While I’m not planning at the moment to rent out my apartment to live in the van like some people do (check http://www.frugal-retirement-living.com/living-in-an-rv.html) I think is nice to know that with such a great vehicle I have plenty of possibilities that are just not possible with a normal car.

Problem is, people buy cars under the social pressure of “girls only go out with people with Porsche”, “if you drive a BMW you’re wealth”, “I got a baby then I need a SUV”, etc. etc.
This happens in most social environment, but I’m lucky enough to live in a place, Amsterdam, where this is just not happening for different reasons.
People here are practical and move around with bicycles, by far the best way to get around the city.
Girls won’t complain if you arrive with a old bike, and your neighbor won’t laugh at you if you don’t have a car, or if you have an old Fiat Uno (btw, there still ARE Fiat Uno driving around).

Well, look like I choose the right environment to don’t have the pressure to have an expensive car, but this is indeed also because if you live in the city, a car is not required at all.
If you live in rural area, then the story is probably the same as in any other rural area around, and the logic of “big car, big house” will kick in.

Anyway, we were talking about my new vehicle.
I love it.
It has none of the fancy useless optionals so important in modern cars: no electric windows, no A/C, no ABS, no central lock, no remote control, no lights turning on automatically or parking sensors.
Damn, this is a van, not a luxury car!!

It drives smooth and the 2.5 TDI engine is powerful enough to move 9 people around with a comfortable cruising speed of 120-130 Km/h.
If you argue that is not that fast, well I have a 260Km/h motorbike so if I need speed I won’t definitively take the van!

Once I decided to buy a van, it took me 1 week to find the right one.

I went bus-shopping in a couple of places, initially looking for a Mercedes Vito.
The Vito is the van that offer the most car-alike driving experience, plus is Mercedes that would make my dad extremely proud of me.

Vito’s turned out to be all too rusty and with too many KMs to take the risk… so I found this Volkswagen T4 that looked like the best surf-van ever

It was, according to the dealer, used as a school bus.
I like to think that an old man drove this van for 11 years, taking the little kids around.
Every now and then, a little kid would pee on the seat and would start crying.
One day, the old man retired and had to abandon his loved school bus and the routine of the itinerary to drive every day.
At that point, a young man got hired to replace the old man and as a first thing he asked for the old mini-bus to be replaced with a new model.

I may be totally wrong, but I like to think that this is the history of my van before it became known as The Salsa Shuttle

What is Couchsurfing?

• It’s the largest hospitality network in the world
• It’s a community where people believe in hospitality and provide free accommodation to travelers.
• It’s a revolution in the concept of visiting a place, being in touch with someone living there.
• It’s for people willing to meet local people, hear their stories and recommendations.

You can be a host, a guest or both, totally up to you.
You can ask to be hosted, or accept/deny requests from people to surf your couch, totally up to you.

If you think that is a great idea, you’re with me.

If you’re skeptical, but want to know more, check www.couchsurfing.org and wikipedia en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CouchSurfing
If you think is a stupid idea, don’t worry. Just book your next 4 star hotel and follow the recommendation from your favorite touristic guide

Anyway, I’m not writing here to explain what CS (CouchSurfing) is, nor to convince you that is a great or safe idea to host or be guest of a total stranger.

I’m writing to share my first experience: last week I had my first Couchsurfing guest, as I’m saying since the beginning.

He contacted me on the website, offering to be my first guest for 2 nights, as he was coming to visit Amsterdam for a week or so.

Checking his profile, I had a good feeling about the guy and I could see that he was in a CS trip around Europe, so this made him already an interesting character!

Chris, this is his name, came well organized: the first day he booked an hotel room, then phoned me up to meet and have a drink.
I appreciated this because in this way we could get to know each other before any commitment about hosting. He was clearly an experienced Couchsurfer and a well organized person.

Well, I really enjoyed the evening, taking him in few of the characteristic Amsterdam bars, and talking about his trip, how he ended up taking a Sabbatical and sharing stories and experiences.

He was my guest for 2 days, even if I don’t really have a couch to offer him, as I have 2 “fat boy” bean bags instead

I felt ashamed I could not offer him a real bed, but he told me:

“don’t worry, this is part of the Couchsurfing experience… if this is what you have, I sleep on it!”

This sentence say all about the spirit of who decide to travel this way…. but think about it.

Chris is travelling alone, something very uncomfortable and boring for most people.
Instead of paying hotels and try the luck in random places, he has been hosted by someone living in the city (well. that’s me) that could take him out to nice places to meet people. He did not get bored not even a second.

And  now me.
Hosting him was a great experience., and rewarding too. Taking him around was fun and we talked a lot about everything.
Now I have a friend more…  the kind of friend that you want to keep in touch with, not the kind of friend you go out partying without even talk… and also, I’m really curious to try myself a little vacation alone being someone else guest.

I recommend everyone to check out the Couchsurfing project and think about it…. as I said you may like it or not, that’s fine, but it’s great to know that things like this exist and offer experiences…. and life is all about experiences…..

P.S.: the second guest was a Russian girl visiting Europe, and went even better

It was a little more than 1 month ago when I got the chance to catch a vacation to Cumbuco, Brazil.

My friend Gui was already going there and I thought that it was one of the opportunity I’m not gonna let go easily…. so I quickly made arrangements at work, sacrifice some days from the Christmas time in Italy and booked my 10 hours  flight Amsterdam-Fortaleza.

I stepped in the plane with -2 degrees and step out +30: enough to forget the previous 10 hours

Landed at Fortaleza, I found a Spanish dude sent there to pick me up with his truck and drove me 40Km in the north to the small fishermen village of Cumbuco.

Cumbuco is another world famous kite surfing Mecca, a places “100% wind guaranteed” confirmed by the fact that in some hotels you won’t pay the night if there’s no wind in the day

I loved the place and the life there.

It’s a touristic place, true, but nothing like big hotels or fancy restaurants…..  it’s an authentic fishermen village with some touristic infrastructures for kite surfers…. not really demanding people.

We stayed in a cool pousada, run by a curious Spanish guy that had left the rat race for an alternative lifestyle in Brasil. I lately got to know his friends, with similar inspiring stories.

Our room was beach front, with a nice veranda with amacas, so typical there, and chairs.

THE KITE SURFING

I was amazed by the weather conditions: +30 during the day, +25 during night, good wind (12-20Knots) from 10am till night, not only good for kite surfing but also to keep the humidity low.

We never suffered for the heat, and the AC wasn’t required to sleep like babies. Kite surfing was the best sleeping pill…

The kite surfing opportunities are different there.
Right in front of our room the large beach lead to the ocean, not a place for beginners and with waves 1 to 2 meters.
A shock for me, used to the flat water of lakes and lagoons

Surfing in the waves is a challenging option, but following a downwinder opens to a range of interesting possibilities.
Downwinder means kite surfing following the wind direction along the coast, moving from one place to another.
Going downwind for about 7Km allowed us to reach a nice – but crowded – lagoon, where locals were standing dangerously close to the water to look at the jumps.
A hat was serving aqua de coco and what I called the “ugly fish”… a dish with a whole grilled fish with a bad face, but good flesh, together with rice, beans, tomatoes and some salade.

Anyway, going for longer downwinder would take to a platform acting like harbor that was affecting the waves in a way that was absolutely fantastic, if I only had knew how to ride them
The place, Cauipe, was a doomed place as we got scared like hell by pales raising just above water and almost not visible, and a current drowning us just there.

Longer downwinds can take you virtually to Guyane and Suriname
The way back from these downwinders is guaranteed by buggy cars that, for a cheap price and some thrill, drive you on the beach as load as they can get.

So, an ocean with waves, downwinder and a lagoon were providing enough variety for my kite surfing week.

BRAZIL

No need to say that 1 week is nothing and I could not see much, anyway I report here what I can…

The food there is just great: great quality meat at the churrascaria’s, like picanha, carne do sol, costela (a whole cow’s rib served with the bone!) together with lots of beans (fajieao) and vegetables were easy to find.

To drink, the amazing juices of caju (my favourite), acai (with cereals, enough to give you energy for 1 day and 1 night, picture on the left), abacaxi and others fruits never saw before.
Or the “agua de coco” sold on the beach: they open an hole in the coconut and put a strow in it for you to drink it out.
And what about capirinha? freshly made, for less than 1 euro a glass….

OK, let’s move on.

I loved Cumbuco because the fishermen are still there, so you can choose to go to touristic places (cheap) or to local’s places (cheapest).

The restaurants for locals don’t serve fish, as they assume fishermen have enough of it, and a plate of meat with vegetables and a fresh juice were at 6 Reais, something like 2.5euro

People are talking to you in Portuguese assuming that you can understand them, in fact they can talk for ages without noticing your empty face showing confusion.

What I didn’t like? The girls.
Not because they’re not beautiful (less than expected, but some are really stunning) but because they play for money.
They would do anyway for free, but tourists are a nice source of income for the low class.
That’s the problem, Brazil has high class and low class, but nothing yet in between. As in many other countries, this separation increase criminality and prostitution.

Can’t really say much more about Brazil, such a big place requires months and some travelling to be evaluated, but at the same time I’m happy that we found a touristic place with some genuine elements in it!

All the photos:

If you’re a Salsa addicted like me, when you travel for pleasure or work you wanna check the local Salsa scene and have a taste of the best clubs and parties around

So many people are asking:
Where to dance Salsa in Amsterdam?
How is the Salsa scene in Holland?
What styles are more danced?

Well, let’s answer one by one.

First of all, I should say that I’m from Milano, Italy, and there the Salsa scene is HUGE… so I was spoiled in a way, but also feed up by the attitude of the dancers there.

Well, after almost 4 years of living and dancing here in Holland I can say that Salsa scene is small but very active!
It’s possible to dance in Amsterdam almost everyday – seriously from Wednesday to Sunday.

For the Salsa tourist coming to Amsterdam is disappoiting to notice that there are not many Salsa Club.
This is because the Salsa scene in Holland is mainly made by parties and school socials that are not very easy to find for the tourists… unless you read this post indeed

About styles, here everything is danced: on1, on2 (that is growing), cuban, chacha, bachata, merengue (as it’s very popular in the ex colonies like Antilles), and even Zouk!
Below some tips about the best clubs and parties to check out.

Clubs

There’s only one Salsa club that I recommend to visit in the city:
Cantinero – Taberna salon de baile – in Marie Heinekenplein.
This is THE place that you don’t wanna miss to see how the local scene is.
If you’re accustomed to big “Salsodromo” like Tropicana (Milano), well you’ll think “is that all??” but don’t understimate this bar/restaurant.
Cantinero is small, rustic, cheap, but still the place where you have a great welcoming warm feeling with the wood decorations and soft lights, together with a crowd that is, well, 100% Amsterdam style with latinos, africanos, Dutch and everything in between

BREAKING NEWS!!!

Cantinero is now CLOSED (since end of Feb 2010). This was a terrible news for all the Salseros in Amsterdam… but life goes on and we have new places now that are taking over:

Chicano’s Restaurant (Korte Leidsedwarsstraat 105) is according to many the Cantinero replacement.

Good atmosphere and parties organized every week from Thursday till Sunday by Extremos Salsa school.

There are other misleading places in town with attractive names, like La Rumba, El Punto Latino, Brazil Bar… well let me tell you: if you like latin clubs with people looking around and no much dancing then go there.
If you’re looking for Salsa places when you can dance and get to know people, then go somewhere else

Anyway, we’re talking about dancing here so let’s continue with the options.

Badcuyp – this is the cuban club in town – really difficult to find NY or LA dancers there
The best night is on Wednesday, and good thing is that is close to Cantinero if the night is not going as you expected.

Parties

This is actually a too complex and too long list, so I recommend you to check this great agenda at http://www.salsa.nl/Agenda/home.html for a full list.

I just put down a list of the parties I recommend absolutely to go:
- Copa Cabana (every other Friday): it’s out of the center and you’ll probably need a taxi, but crowd is good and goes on till 3am. Also, you can see there people dancing ZOUK, a dance that is popular in few other places outside Holland but still interesting to see.
- SalsaLounge (last Sunday of the month): once more popular, now still attracts many mixed people because has a latin-house room and a Salsa room. It’s good fun and the location (Hotel Arena) is just great to see, even if the floor is unfortunately far to be good.

Recently Amsterdam has lost some of the Salsa action in favor of other cities that now have great parties… the top for me is Utrecht (40Km away from Amsterdam, 30m by train).
If you really want to have a great Salsa night don’t miss these parties:
- Salsa Casa Loca (last Saturday of the month): I always have a blast there, absolutely the best location/dancers/music!
- Winkel Van Sinkel (1st & 3rd Sunday of the month): Very good location and floor, sometime the level of dancers is not very high but I would check it out! Watch out that close at midnight… so be there Dutch time (=early)

I know that is difficult to find updated list of clubs/parties… I remember once in Copenhagen ending up in adresses of clubs that have been closed years ago and was really annoying.

So, feel free to contact me if you’re coming to Amsterdam and will be nice to go out dancing in the right places!

1. beside the historic http://daniele.itvc.net URL (the domain is 5 years old!) the blog is now also reachable at http://www.danielebesana.com

2. As I’m feeling somehow internationalized, I started writing post in both Italian and English languages. To switch from one language to the other, look for the flags on the right column (I’m sure you can find it)

Extremos Show Team performing 2009 show “James Bond” at “I’m not a tourist” Expatica fair, expo for expat living in Netherlands!

Couples: Magda-Zayaad, Linde-Eric, Tatiana-Daniele… before and after the switch