Speedy Boarding with Andrei Atanasov

Talking Ireland, Japan, and "trucker fashion" with the writer of Practice Space

Welcome back to Speedy Boarding, a bi-weekly series on Not That You Asked that is great news for those of you who are getting sick of me. That’s because it’s a series where I ask some of my favourite writers on Substack eight quick-ish questions about travel. So, the vast majority of the words you’re about to read weren’t written by me but by someone else.

This week the questions are being answered by

Andrei Atanasov

of

Practice Space

.

Andrei Atanasov is a writer from Romania moonlighting as a criminal lawyer. His work has appeared in a bunch of literary magazines online, including Flash Fiction Magazine and The Bitchin’ Kitsch. On Substack, he publishes Practice Space, where he posts personal essays and memoir drawing from his childhood memories, weird shower thoughts, awkward household happenings, and other stuff he’s trying to understand, because he’s one of those people who think better in writing.

What I like most about Andrei’s work is you never know what you’re going to get. He’s not constrained by his Substack and really lets his mind flow where it wants to go. I highly recommend his work.

Let’s get to the questions.

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Where is the best place you’ve ever been and why?

Ireland. When I was a kid, my parents were obsessed with travelling, so by the time I was twelve I’d seen most European capitals. I’d gotten quite blasé about it all, thinking I’d seen everything and there was no way Europe could ever surprise me anymore. Then, several years later, when I was in college, my parents proposed we take one last trip together, and I’d get to choose the destination. Having recently finished James Joyce’s A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man I said, why not Dublin? Tom, believe you me, I felt more at home in Ireland than in my own country.

Partly because Dublin is chock-full of Romanians, and in nearly every restaurant we went to there were servers speaking in our mother tongue, but also because it seemed like this place and I were kindred spirits at that point in time. Ireland had just survived a bloody civil war, signs of which were still visible nearly a century later, and I was fighting my own internal battle. Looking at Dublin’s war-tainted buildings, it felt like the city understood me and was trying to comfort me, as though saying “Look, I know what it’s like to be at war with yourself; I also know you will survive, just as I did, and come out stronger for it.” To say that Ireland holds a special place in my heart would be putting it mildly.

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Where is the place you most want to visit?

Japan. Well, South Korea too. And Singapore. And Taiwan. Basically, all of Southeast Asia. But I would start with Japan. I’ve been interested in all things Japan for a number of years, having once been an avid anime binger, and many of my favourite authors are Japanese. I doubt I’d feel as comfortable there as I did in Ireland–I’m not ignorant of all the cultural, temperamental, and social differences between our continents–but I find Japan utterly fascinating.

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Who's your dream travel companion?

Am I weird if I say myself? I’ve been dreaming of taking a trip all by my lonesome, in a location I’ve always wanted to visit, and just getting immersed in the culture. Barring that, I’d like to travel with someone entirely different from me. Someone adventurous, ideally local, who could show me all the spots they used to parkour as a kid, the eateries that gave them explosive diarrhoea every single time but were still worth it because the food was so good, and the mountains with the coolest views.

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Great news! I'm going to buy you a hat. The catch is that you have to wear this hat on every future travel trip at all times. What kind of hat would you like?

My go-to travel attire is something I’ve grown to call “trucker fashion”. It’s basically any combination of jeans, t-shirt, and a baseball cap, of which I own several, and plan on getting many more. And that gives you my answer. Buy me the coolest baseball cap you can find, preferably navy blue, and I shall wear it on every future trip and feel good doing it. (The coolest hat I own is from Ebbets Field Flannels. Just. Wink. Saying. Wink.)

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Where is the place you never want to go back to?

My hometown? But seriously, I’d like to say Paris, because it stinks and it’s unjustly expensive, but I’ve never been inside the Louvre, and I really want to do that. I’ll have to go with Leiden, Netherlands. I was selected to go there for an Erasmus exchange back in college, but I ultimately couldn’t make it, so I went and visited the town and university on my own the following summer, to see what I’d missed. What I found really cool (and wrote about in a Note) is that they have poetry on their buildings! But the city itself is minuscule and not very lively outside of school season, so the couple of days I spent there were enough for me.

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You've been given a million pounds to live your best life in one destination for a year. The problem is - you're trapped there and can't leave for the year. Where would you go?

Japan, undoubtedly. I’d probably start with Tokyo, where I’d spend most of my money eating expensive sushi and buying otaku merch I’d never look at again, and then I’d take a train to the countryside to live the idyllic My Neighbour Totoro life, reading books and smelling fresh grass and contemplating the nature of existence while staring at cows as they poop.

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How do you decide where to visit next?

I look up what events are being held and where. My wife isn’t much of a traveller, but she loves concerts and stand-up comedy shows and stuff like that. So that’s the way I get her to leave the house. We went to Budapest twice just to see Jordan Peterson, and the next time we travel to Italy, it will probably be for a Ludovico Einaudi concert. We also keep tabs on who was responsible for which trip, and right now she owes me big time. She wants to see the Aurora Borealis, but I think we’ll go to a David Sedaris show first.

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And finally, what's the one thing you never leave home without when travelling?

My shaving kit! Years ago, I swapped my Gillette for a vintage safety razor, and it’s one of the best decisions I ever made. Shaving in this way is a kind of ritual onto itself, as you must be mindful of the position of the blade, the contours of your face, and the direction in which your hair grows. It helps me clear my mind and start the day fresh. It’s like the busy man’s mindfulness practice. It’s also much better for my sensitive skin than your usual 4-blade monsters, and good for the environment, so suck it, corpos!

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A huge thanks to

Andrei Atanasov

for agreeing to be part of Speedy Boarding. If you liked this post please do consider becoming a free or paid subscriber to Not That You Asked. Paid subscribers get two free travel guides a month for just £4.99, which is way cheaper than Netflix. If £4.99 is a bit steep in this economy there’s a 50% off forever sale on at the moment to celebrate two years of Not That You Asked.

The next Speedy Boarding will drop on the 21st of March, next up is

Five Books For

’s Kate Lillie!