The first Monday, I couldn't believe it had been 5 years since I had last practiced! Not when I feel so good, so liberated after each training, so confident and seeing life with better eyes...  I definitely must continue to do this from now on, regardless of anything else - since it's the only sport I practice (besides training my fingers on the buttons 12-14 hours a day :P ). Aikido is not like other martial arts. The concept of attack here is only used so that you can learn to defend yourself against one. There's no ill will, no wish to destroy the one next to you for trying to do you harm, no poorly conceived sense of justice through revenge. There's just energy to be taken, given, offered, shaped and returned. Of course, you can still crush your opponent, break every bone in his body, tare him apart limb by limb and bone by bone - but why would you want that when there's a better way? For the most attacks it's enough to just prove to Uke that you're stronger than he is and if you do it right there's no need to go any further. If that doesn't work, well - at least you tried, now you can take more drastic steps ;) My old Aikido teacher used to say to us that you can brea

So, let's start in the beginning... I was born in a small city in the North-East of Romania... HAHA just joking :D My NEW beginning ... Let's start with me stepping out from the airplane into the Vienna airport. Familiar path, after a previous trip here and two months spent in this dream city, so my one-night stop in Vienna, finding my way to Paul's place and then wondering around on my own was a breeze. Nice places, cool people - I was sorry to only spend such a short time there (though it was time well-spent, I met the new Austrian MC :) ). But I'm going back there for a weekend at the end of July, to see some old friends, so I'll catch up shortly. Now, let's go back to the true start of this message: the beautiful city of Linz, Austria . A small piece of Heaven here on the Danube river, a green oasis where everything (including the job) feels like a nice vacation. The same Austrian infrastructure, well-built and easy to use every step of the way, allowed me to march straight next to the dorm room where I would be staying. There, I was greeted by a very cool guy that came to greet me at the tram station and show me where I'd be living. His name is Vishant, he's from Indi

One month, yesterday. One month ago, I was arriving in Vienna at the invitation of one of my colleagues from AIESEC, to help the people here with creating some websites and updating their communications platform. Funny, but even after so many years of experience and working in countless projects with countless specifications, using countless programming languages and techniques... well, I still don't feel like an expert in my area, though people here often look at me in this way and praise my knowledge. I know that there are people out there better than me, but if I'm that person that they trusted to get the job don, I surely don't say no to something like this. So... I said yes: yes, I will help with the website, yes I will find solutions to some of your problems, and yes I will come and visit Vienna because I'm curious about living in a new city. I said it to myself and when I was convinced, I said to them. To be honest, I wasn't expecting this. At first, the city seems normal, ordinary, quaint. Then little things start to hit you, one by one, hour by hour and day by day as time passes. And they keep on hitting you: so many bikers here that you'd have better chances of bei