I know I keep doing this to you, but we need to talk.  We need to take another break; I swear it’s not you, it’s me.  I know I complain about a lot of things, like the quickly coming cold and my precious Lower East Side looking more and more like the Meatpacking District every weekend.  Funny thing is, I can deal with those imperfections, and I’ve actually learned to accept them. However, I need to leave for a while…

Yes, there is actually someone else.  Her name is Sydney.. we’ve had an on-again/ off-again thing going on for years.  I’ve always wanted to make it work with her but could never manage, and I figure that if I’m going to be serious about trying to make it work, I need to do it before I get too old.

I’m sure I’ll be back at some point.  It might be soon, and then I’ll give you every right to rub it in my face and tell me how I should never have left you.  However, I’m also willing to accept that it might not be for a long time.  As much as I love you, Sydney is just… warmer…

I’ll never forget some of the great times we had.. the paint party, the tandem bike race on Governor’s Island, holding your hair back as you throw up on the street, and the lovely pig you delivered to me every week.  Dancing with the intern and getting the Canadian really drunk.  The quiet nights at Milk & Honey and the loud afternoons watching World Cup or NFL.   The angry bartender at Jeremy’s and the crazy girls at Welcome to the Johnson’s (all of them are crazy).  Great beginnings at Puck Fair and goodbyes with everyone at my place.  Those are the things that make me question as to whether I should leave.

However, for now I’ll have to trade the Hudson River for Darling Harbor, the Lower East Side for Newtown, and Central Park for Bondi.  I’ll see you again at JFK, not too long from now, and enjoy your glowing skyline once again.  However, until then, thanks for everything, and I wish you all the best.

Love,

Adrian

P.S.  So you want to know the real reason why?  Because the rent is too damn high.

Her family lived on a farm about 150 km outside of Warsaw, where she was born.  I had visited the town once when I was about 10, and all I remember is playing with their cows and chasing after their chickens.  Rolling green hills, a house that has been on the property for centuries, and a simple but comfortable life.  My grandmother had 3 brothers, two older, and one younger, the oldest of whom was in the Armia Krajowa (AK), which was the Polish Home Army that created ongoing resistance against the Nazis after the occupation.  My grandmother’s house was along a road leading to a forest that served as a convenient location to smuggle fugitive AK soldiers into hiding in the forest.  On numerous times, her father would house AK soldiers that were wanted by the Nazis, feed them, and help them continue in hiding in the forest.  The SS drove to their house on a number of occasions, and questioned them as to the location of the AK fugitives, yet the family stayed quiet.

One morning, the SS arrived and searched the entire house – ripping through furniture, books, and beds.  They then took my grandmother’s oldest brother, who they suspected might be in the AK, and rounded him up along with all of the other men of fighting age in the village.  They were tied up in front of a church, and each one was beaten and questioned by the SS.  Later in the day, they were all escorted into a field, where they were told to dig a ditch.  Afterward, they were all thrown into the ditch, and shot, including my grandmother’s brother.  As soon as the SS left, the villagers came to the ditch to see if any of their sons had survived.  A number of Nazis saw this, fired shots in the air, and guarded the ditch until the mass grave could be filled in with dirt.  My grandmother saw all of this happen as a child.

As the war continued, various injured AK soldiers would find themselves nursed to health by my grandmother’s family.  Food shortages were always a problem, since no animals could be slaughtered without permission from the Nazis, and overall, the whole country was starving.

In 1944, when the Russians were progressing through Poland, my grandmother was sitting outside her house with her father and a Nazis officer.  Mortar shells could be heard exploding in the near distance, and Germans were retreating through the town.  My grandmother’s father turned to the Nazi officer, smiled and said, “Hitler kaput.”  At that point, the German pulled out his pistol, whipped my grandmother’s father with it, and held it to his temple.  My grandmother ran up to the German, and tugging on his leg and arm started crying “nein, nein…”  The German lowered his gun, and eventually retreated with the rest of the Germans.

A few days later, before the Russians had made it to the village, the family found an unexpected guest in their barn.  In the hay, lay a young wounded Nazi soldier.  He pleaded with my grandmother’s family to not be handed over to the Russians because they would surely execute him.  He was young, and spoke some Polish, and my grandmother’s family did not have the heart to turn him in.  Instead, they nursed him back to health over the next 6 months, and obtained a Polish passport and other paperwork, and told Russians that he was a cousin from a far off village.  He told my grandmother stories of his parents, and the girl he was planning to marry back in Germany.  After he was well again, they helped arrange for him to be smuggled out of the country.  For the next 10 years or so, he sent packages of thanks every Christmas, along with pictures of his new wife and children.

What always struck me the most about my grandmother was the ridiculous amount of joy and energy she had.  Even under Communism, she traveled as much as she could, visiting almost the entire Eastern Block.  She kept a spotlessly clean house, cooked phenomenal Polish food, and wanted nothing but the best for my sister and me.  She was always one of my favorite people to be around, and I’m not just saying that because she passed away.  She had a brutal, yet comic, honesty that I admired, and was always ready for a few laughs.  She was a good person, and I learned this month that real good people are hard to find. The day before she died, she returned from the hospital with test results that shocked nurses that she was still alive, yet was able to fly up 3 flights of winding stares faster than some people in their 20s could.  She then died peacefully in her sleep.

The last month has been one of the worst of my life, for a number of reasons.  However, my grandmother’s passing has reminded me that no matter how shitty things get, keeping your head up, a smile on your face, and legs full of energy can get you through anything.  The longest October ever is finally over, and I can’t wait to see what November holds.

Hanging out with Girmo in Addis Ababa

Last week, I went to a wedding in the mother country (Poland), and figured that I needed to make the most of my flight to Europe, so I stopped in Barcelona for a few days.  I’d always avoided Western and Southern Europe in my travels – I figure Rome and Athens will always be there, and won’t change much, while Kathmandu will be a different world in 20 years, so there will always be time to check out Europe, while the developing world is exciting now.  However, I figured some sunshine in Barcelona wouldn’t hurt.  Although I had a good time in Barcelona, and met some great people, I noticed something different about how people treat visitors.

Salim and his kids in our tent in the desert

I was traveling solo, so I quickly made some new friends to hang out with, and while people were great for conversation, drinks, and a game of volleyball, it was clear that the connection would never go deeper, and conversation stayed fairly superficial.  To contrast this, I developed much deeper and more personal connections with people in more developing countries.  In Wadi Rum, my Bedouin guide, Salim, cooked me dinner with his wife and children, and invited me to his house after camping to have breakfast with his mother in law and falcon.  Despite Salim only knowing as much English as I know Arabic, we were able to get a deeper bond than I had with fluent English speakers in Western countries.  Another example of this is Girmo, a taxi driver in Addis Ababa who became a great friend, and I spent hours exploring the city with.  I met people like this everywhere – Hanni in Jordan, Fadi in Syria (who gave me too much of his uncle’s moonshine Arak), and countless Lebanese who became instant friends.  Interestingly enough, in most of these cases, I had very little in common with the people I befriended – most were older and had families, and had never been to the West.  Yet we developed great friendships, and I know that they’ll be the first people I call when I return to their countries.  (As a disclaimer, while I did conduct transactions with some of these people, none asked for tips or any favors for being friends.  In some cases, I actually ended up getting discounts).

On the other hand, a girl I met in Barcelona offered a different perspective.  She was Portuguese and had been living in Barcelona for the last 4 years, yet most of her friends were expats.  I asked her why she didn’t have more Spanish friends, and she responded that it’s not worth it – Spanish people, who live in Barcelona, don’t want to become close friends with someone who will move away in a few years.  I’d don’t know if it’s because Spain is flooded with tourists, but this struck me as a bit cold, especially since people who I’ve known for a few days in other countries opened up so much.

All in all, I think the differences between how friendly people are to foreigners can be attributed to two things – culture and exposure to tourism.  I was one of a few hundred Westerners in Addis Ababa, so a lot of friendliness from locals can be attributed to curiosity.  However, Jordan is also filled with tourists, yet people were still some of the warmest I’ve met anywhere.  My guess is that there really is truth to the famous “Bedouin hospitality” and people tend to open up more to tourists.  Developing countries are less jaded by years of tourism and preserve closer family bonds than many Western countries.  In the end, this reinforces my travel strategy: see places filled with people who are authentic about meeting visitors, and places where that authenticity is disappearing.  While I’m sure they’re filled with friendly people, Paris, Rome, and Athens can wait a few more years.  The warmer places will be first.

Disclaimer: These are all broad generalizations.  There are plenty of cool people in every country (even France), and terrible people everywhere, but in general, I’ve felt better received as a traveler in some places over others.

We recently made 2 hires at SkillSlate, and the process of finding them was one of the most challenging things we faced as a company.  I was involved in recruiting in my past life at Monitor, so I expected the process to be fairly simple, but in the end it was a completely different experience.  Here are some differences:

Initially Attracting Talent:

Monitor Group: Sexy consulting shop that undergrads at Ivy League schools fight to work at

SkillSlate: Unknown startup (which will ultimately take the U.S. by storm)

Talent Required

Monitor Group: Any undergrad who has a basic grasp of business principles

SkillSlate: Ruby on Rails developers with experience at startups

Interview Infrastructure

Monitor Group: Elaborate case process, with clearly wrong and right answers

SkillSlate: Tech puzzle that Lawrence, our tech lead, put together

Impact of Hire

Monitor Group: Added another person to the 1,500 person machine

SkillSlate: 1 person increases the team by 20%

Point is, hiring was MUCH easier at Monitor.  The talent pool was larger, the process was established and clear, and the impact was generally low.  If I recommended we hire someone after I interviewed them, there was still a low probability of me ever working with that person, and an incredibly low probability of that person having a very large impact on the firm.  Things are completely different at a startup.  Not only are the early stages of recruiting harder, but it’s also important to find someone who happily drinks our Kool-Aid and who will build the company.  However, after looking at hundreds of resumes and interviewing 50+ people, I’m super excited about our team.

However, I’ve got some learnings:

1. Craigslist is king.  We used recruiters, job sites, and our network, but ultimately, the most high quality candidates came from Craigslist posting.  Sure, there were mostly duds, but it was easy to filter out the good ones, and you can’t beat the bang-for-your buck of $25 per posting.
2. Sell early, sell hard.  It’s important to get people to drink the Kool-Aid early, especially at a startup that most people don’t know about.  The last thing you want is a solid developer slipping away because he/she didn’t think the idea was sexy.
3. Trust your gut.  This is something I rarely did at Monitor since we were so data focused, but turned out to be much more important at SkillSlate.  I leave the data/ quant questions to our tech lead, and if he approves, I’ve got nothing but gut to determine whether I want to spend 12 hours a day with this person for the foreseeable future.

So what constitutes an incredible meal?  I’d argue that while a high end meal with good ingredients prepared by a solid chef can be tasty, it’s not necessarily the most memorable.  In addition to the flavors themselves, the presentation, situation, location, views, and most importantly, good company, make the most memorable meals.  Here are  some of my most unforgettable ones.

Imagine…

…arriving for dinner at 10pm to find the place still empty because  people don’t arrive until later.  It’s a Friday night in Beirut, and much like the rest of the city, Abdel Wahab is somewhat awkwardly filled with Maronites, Easter Orthodox Christians, Sunnis, and Shi’a all putting their challenges behind them to enjoy a fantastic meal.  You order 8-9 different mezze for your table of four, and reluctantly get one main dish to share.  Soon, the waiter brings your bottle of Ksara (Lebanese wine) and the feast begins with flat bread, still inflated and fresh from the oven.  You burn your fingers picking at it, with the hot air escaping from the inside burning you, but you need it to pick up the humus with meat.  To be clear, this doesn’t even resemble the crap you get in a jar at your local supermarket.  These are fresh chickpeas, with tahini, recently ground, with fresh olive oil drizzled on top.  You also opt for the meat option, with lamb shawarma pieces sprinkled on the top.  Soon comes the fried kibbeh, the labneh, and the crisp tabouleh.  I never liked tabouleh before moving to Saudi, but once I tried it in the Middle East, it changed my life forever.  Not only is it made from super fresh parsley and mint, but there’s love put into the olive oil, tomatoes, and lemon juice that’s drizzled on top.  Made properly, it’s the freshest, greenest, healthiest thing you can eat in the Middle East.  Next comes the Mahamra, roasted red peppers with pine nuts, which adds a healthy kick to your meal. You break bread with your friends, nibbling on each mezze as it comes, but you also get a little adventurous and order the baby birds.  These eggs sized babies come fried whole – with bones and head attached.  You take a bite – at first a little strange, but then the flavor bursts in your mouth while you gently crunch through the bones like pretzel sticks.  By the time the main course comes, there’s no room left on the table for additional plates, and no room in your stomach.. but you can’t help yourself.  The mixed grill is lifechanging.  Chicken and lamb on skewers, covered in Arabic seasoning, grilled with the standard fresh vegetables – onion and tomato.  Finally, after you finish, the waiter brings a plate of assorted baklava and other Arabic treats, along with fresh fruit.  To end the dinner (and begin the night), you order a bottle of Arak.  The aniseed-flavored drink comes clear in the bottle, but the waiter mixes it in a beaker with ice water, making it cloudy, but also chilled.  The sweet flavor goes down easy, but its strength should not be underestimated…

…a tropical storm is brewing in Kuala Lumpur, and duck into the first canopy that you see in Chinatown.  You sit on an unstable plastic stool, while the rain pours all around you, and you order the main thing on the menu – clay pot chicken.  You watch a river of rain form next to the table as you anxiously wait for your meal to cook.  You smell the curries and spices, and see the chef, trying not to get wet, stirring in clay bots over an open gas flame 10 yards from you.  You’re on the sidewalk with people running through the rain around you, and the canopy above you almost collapses from the weight of the water, but you know that this meal will be worth it.  The chicken comes in the clay pot that it was cooked in, and although its cartilage/bone to meat ration is a bit higher than you’d like, the spices and flavors of the thick stir fry strike you.  Between the sleep deprivation of flying to Malaysia for a weekend, satisfaction of getting out of the rain, and joy of being with great friends, you walk away thrilled.  The colors inside the pot, of the vegetables, the chicken, and the sauce, blend with the spices and awake you.

…you roll onto the Palm Jumeirah in Dubai, and pull up to the bright lights of Atlantis.  You walk down the tacky yet beautiful hallways, past the aquarium, until you arrive at Nobu.  You notice there’s something off about eating seafood while surrounded by a beautiful aquarium filled with tropical fish, but you’re excited anyway.  The dining room is filled with beautiful women and older men – unfortunately like most of Dubai, the escort scene is rampant here.  Yet, you’re celebrating with your friends, you’ve got a room at the Burj Al Arab, and you’re about to have a crazy night out in Dubai.  While the sushi is fantastic, one thing stands out – the magical rock shrimp tempura.  A mix of buttery, picante, and sweet, and perfectly cooked to be tender while not too soft.  You order seconds and thirds with your buddies, while enjoying the views of fish and Russian girls.  You’re on a man-made palm that’s sinking into the ocean, surrounded by excess of the worst kind.  But  it’s only for one night; you can tell yourself that it’s alright.

…your driver pulls up to the neon sign, and you already see the crowd of men inside.  You step out of your car to 120 degree heat, and immediately into the cool air conditioning of Mama Noura.  You stand in line with your Canadian buddies, surrounded by Saudi men, and place your order – 2 shawarmas and a mixed juice each, and some humus and tabouleh to share.  One buddy goes to the juice stand, another goes to the humus stand, and you go to the shawarma cutter, and give him your ticket.  He tells you your order number in Arabic, and you quickly try to remember Arabic numbers, otherwise, you’ll never get your shawarma.  You salivate with the other Saudi men next to you while watching the shawarma being cut.  There are coals behind a grate, a 2 foot wide shawarma with chickens stacked on top of each other with lamb grease dripping from the top.  The cook spins the shawarma with the piece of bread he has in his hand, makes a few slices, scoops them up from the bottom with a spoon (making sure to include some of the juices), stuffs it into the bread, and wraps it.  This process lasts less than 10 seconds, and repeats itself thousands of times a night.  Eventually, he calls your number, and you take a seat with your buddies and dig in.  It’s the unforgettable juicy taste of fresh chicken, garlic sauce, and pickled vegetables in fresh bread.  Much like In-and-Out Burger or Shake Shack, Mama Noura has taken the simplest local meal and turned it into something incredible.  (Sorry girls, only boys are allowed in Mama Noura in Riyadh)!

…you’ve spent the day driving around Punta del Este, and it’s unfortunately empty because you missed the busy season by a week.  You’re a little frustrated, hungry, and to top it off, it’s raining – you just want food and to get to Montevideo.  Everything is closed or empty, but you vaguely remember a crowded restaurant by the rollercoaster bridge, just north of Punta del Este.  After searching, you find it, walk inside, and are greeted by a middle aged, fat, loud Italian-Uruguayan.  You sit down, and he brings you a bottle of local wine, and as you order, you notice that although everyone in the restaurant is speaking Spanish, you sense the familiar hint of an Italian accent.  You realize you’re in Uruguayian New Jersey, but this isn’t necessarily a bad thing.  Your meal comes, a simple dish of gnocchi.  Ever since your friend referred to them as “tiny nuggets of flavor,” you’ve had a special appreciation for gnocchi, but these are different.  These are magical.  So fresh, just melting in your mouth, making you want to cry, different.  After you’ve slowly eating one by one, you find room for desert, and opt for the South American special – dulce de leche cake.   Words cannot describe the experience.  You drive back to Montevideo, nothing can take away the happy feeling in your stomach.

In April, after 4 years, including 18 months living in Saudi and traveling, I left my first job out of college.  I soon found myself sleeping on my friends’ couches and floors in NYC, looking for an apartment, and working to close funding on my startup, SkillSlate.  My team had already made tremendous progress on the funding front while I was away, but we still needed to loop things together.  The month between arriving in NYC and closing on funding was the most stressful of my life  - not only was it filled with uncertainty, but it was humbling to be back in a Western business environment and getting grilled by venture capitalists.

When the checks arrived, the stress of uncertainty was replaced by the stress and excitement of building a company.  We quickly found some office space, and I finally found an apartment to live in, very close to my former home in the Lower East Side.  For the first time in 3 years, I’m now living in a place where I expect to continue living for the next year.  On one hand, I can finally feel like I’m home, while on the other, I feel very uneasy giving up on my previous life.

While living in Saudi, I endlessly searched for adventure and culture shock.  Ironically, I’ve been in a near constant state of culture shock since I returned to NYC.  My perspective of what’s “normal” and “weird” has always been a bit shaky, but after living in a place where I became accustomed to everything closing for prayer time, passing a tank on my way out the door every morning, and complicated Saudi gender roles, being in NY actually feels weird. At least in Saudi and in my travels, people realized that I was an outsider and were accepting of any faux pas.  Strangely, as much as I love to be back, it feels a lot more foreign than I expected it to.

My biggest fear of coming back to Manhattan was getting bored – I’m probably one of the few people in the world who can say that.  I recognize that I was spoiled out of my mind, but after-all, I was making tradeoffs – living in Saudi was challenging, and nothing can make those challenges easier than a random weekend trip to Kenya.   In general, the good elements of living in Saudi were really good (the travel, more comfortable lifestyle, adventure) and the bad elements were really bad (lack of freedom/ strict Shari’a law, missing family, lack of stable home), but in the end the good outweighed the bad significantly.  It’s a rollercoaster with really big drops and climbs.  New York differs in that the good things and bad things aren’t as extreme, and that leads to less intense feelings, and potential boredom.  Between dedicating my life to SkillSlate, catching up with old friends, and exploring new parts of the city, I’ve been everything but bored.  However, I’m starting to get a bit of a travel twitch – I haven’t been on a plane in almost 3 months, and that makes me feel uneasy.  While I love them, weekend trips to go mountain biking in NJ won’t cut it for too long…

Given that I can’t drop things and travel, I’m going to try to relive some of my adventures through the blog.  I’ve had thousands of experiences and stories that I haven’t written about, and I’m slowly starting to forget them, which scares me.  Additionally, I still have two albums of photos that I haven’t process (from Syria and Nepal), which I plan to finish this weekend.   While I’m excited about the future, I think I need a bit more time reliving old memories of great places, amazing food, and unforgettable people before I can fully sink into my new life.

Overall, a really interesting look at life in the Middle East.   There are a lot of similarities with Saudi, particularly around the caste system, lack of local talent, and half hearted desire to succeed.  One of the best quotes from the series of articles is:

Their empires are not built for power, they are built for image. When you are born with everything, the one thing that you cannot buy is the sense that you earned your status. But it is counter-productive to try and scrub off the image that you lucked your way into wealth — trying to overstep one’s limitations only highlights them.

In his last column, Keith argues that Emirates should invest their oil revenue in funds and education, as opposed to building out industry.  In Saudi, this is a bit of a different issue – with 25MM people, half of whom are under 18 years old, the Kingdom needs to build a sustainable economy to support its population.  That requires building industries, and hopefully driving the local population to work in them.

Check out the column here, it’s a great, and enlightening read:

http://tech.mit.edu/V130/N16/dubai.html

http://tech.mit.edu/V130/N17/dubai.html

http://tech.mit.edu/V130/N18/dubai.html

http://tech.mit.edu/V130/N19/dubai.html

I’m flying out of Riyadh for the last time on early Friday morning, so I’ve got a few things to take care of until then, but when I’m settled back in the U.S., I’ll post a bunch of posts about my last couple of months of travel, and some goodbye thoughts on Saudi.

The next adventure?  Moving back to Manhattan and building my startup, SkillSlate with my best friend Bartek and a fantastic team.

Meanwhile, the last 18 months can only be described in the gaudiness of a late 90s rap video:

Disclaimer: Although I typically defend Saudi as not being as bad as most foreigners think it is, there are very clear challenges that the country faces, and there are very clear challenges that expats face living here.  It’s very easy to be bogged down by these things – e.g. starving and having a restaurant close its doors as you walk up to it because it’s prayer time, trying to not get killed on the roads, or dealing with the constant promise of getting things done Insha’Allah.  Then there are the much more serious issues of gender imbalance, racism, and corruption.  As a visitor in this country, I know that I’m in no position to try to change many of these things, but I am still affected and frustrated by them.  However, I’ve found that every time I start stressing over them, I get very frustrated, start questioning why I’m here, and start disliking Saudi.  Therefore, my solution is to acknowledge them and laugh them off in the hope that other people see the absurdity as well.   The point of these articles is to shed light on some of the absurdities here, laugh about them, but realize that many of these are serious issues.

Anyhow, here’s today’s news:

Police say that a Jordanian family who are suing them for holding their daughter in jail for ten days without charge have been free to take her for the last nine days but that no relative has been willing to receive her….

…Despite her attempts to convince them she had nothing to do with it all, and showing documentation that proved it, the police would not relent and took her to jail on the grounds that ‘her sister was wanted’, in order to put pressure on her father.”

A committee, consisting of officials from the region and explosives experts from the Asir Police, along with 20 workers, will start the process on Tuesday.

I talked about it with some Saudi guys, and their first response was, “if it was only that easy to pick up American girls…”

[from Saudi Jeans]