Recently in October '25

In striking difference with the past month, October has been quite busy and hectic. And no, it’s not because of Halloween! Not only did I travel to two places, but there have also been many events, and anxiousness about things happening around be. Let’s recap.

🍄 Life

Uff. I started the month by flying to New York, which I’ve already talked about, so I’m going to skip it here. The day after coming back, I headed to Berlin for a work conference. My coworkers left from Utrecht, and my plan was to meet them in Arnhem and we’d go together from there. Due to extensive works to the railways, we had booked a taxi for me to go to Arnhem.

The taxi never came, and we had to improvise, meaning I had to take a completely different trajectory, and go alone to Berlin. If that wasn’t enough, I got Deutsche Bahned, if you know what I mean. We arrived so so so late. On the way back, we actually arrived on time, if we don’t count the train didn’t go to the last station. But at least that was already known beforehand. And that same day I had a concert in Utrecht. Too busy.

And then it was my birthday, so I’m getting closer and closer to the 26 years old. I don’t know, I don’t really feel very strongly about birthdays. I organized a “Open Home Café” and invited a bunch of friends. It was nice to make coffee for everyone, and also bake a cake, and adapting the recipe to be vegan, which I’ve never done before.

That same week, there was also the Dutch Design Week, here in Eindhoven, where you can see the most random and crazy ideas. It’s more about industrial-type design, and not really clothes. It’s always nice to look at some of the exhibitions and be intrigued about it.

Finally, a few days ago were the national Dutch elections, which have also been hectic. The votes from the voters abroad have not yet been counted, and we will only know Monday, but the ANP already called the election, by doing an analysis of the polls and behavior of previous years. Most likely D66 (progressive, center) will “win” with the most votes, but yet with the same amount of seats of PVV (far right).

Just to make it more clear: these parties have each around 17% of the votes, so it’s not as if there is a big winner or something. The politics are very fragmented in the Netherlands, and it has only become worse and worse the past years. This whole election thing just made me too anxious. I might have listened - and watched - too many interviews before the elections, and was just too into it, despite not even being able to vote. I don’t think I’ve ever been this “involved” in any Portuguese elections.

💪 Health

My permanent - ah! - retainer broke, so it needed to be replaced. That got me into a rabbit hole where I went check photos from when I wore braces. And low and behold: my teeth have changed quite a lot. And no, they have not gone to their original position. I’ve gotten an open bite, which I’ve never had before I even had braces.

I’ve noticed before I can’t really cut - bite? - into things with my front teeth and have to use my molars. That’s not good. I’m going to investigate the option to use Invisalign, but if that’s not possible, I’ll just leave it as it is. So annoying. And after fishing for some photos with my mouth - very hard to find - since 2017, I think this change mostly happened while my wisdom teeth were growing out of their shell.

On other news, and with so many trips, I’ve stopped for a week or two with running and strength training. But now that I am back, I am already following my schedule again, so that’s also nice!

🍿 Entertainment

At the beginning of the month, I saw Wicked on the Broadway. I really like musicals and theater pieces, especially when they’re bigger productions. It did definitely not disappoint. Vocals were extremely good, the live orchestra too, the pace was good. I would definitely recommend.

Ethel Cain was not as good as I expected, but that could be because of the pre-show, which I… let’s say I did not expect it. It was a very different musical genre and I did not feel like it matched the vibes of the rest of the show.

When it comes to movies, we watched My Neighbor Totoro, which, just like any other Studio Ghibli movie, was incredibly beautiful, and leaves you asking yourself “what did I just watch”. Yesterday, I also watched Bugonia in the cinema. Absurd, literally, but good.

Finally, we finished season 2 and 3 of The Morning Show and also the last season of Invasion. Both are very good series, in their own way, and I’d definitely recommend them.

Let’s hope for a slower November!