I have a friend. An amazing friend actually. His name is Nicolo.
We met last summer in Puerto Rico at a hostel in Rincon. At that particular moment in time i was going through a crisis of a lost wallet with everything in it and nothing to back it up with. Courtney, a wonderful surfer girl who i have accidentally hitchhiked a ride with from the other side of the island a few days earlier was leaving back home to Washington which meant i was stuck in Puerto Rico without any means, transportation or a familiar face. Nicolo not only had the patience to listen to my crazy sad ramble about the coconut and the wallet that i have left on top of the car's hood to take a picture with the above mentioned damned coconut but also a human desire to help. We convinced Mat, a professional diver who i have met at Lucky 13 BBQ the night before, to lend us his car while he was flying out to Florida to get his visa to work in Italy at Concordia Shipwreck, to get to the nearest bank. As i learned in the process, PR's banks are not really affiliated with Bank of America but Western Union is very helpful and could be found in big supermarkets. After all these shenanigans and a successful money transfer, Nicolo and i rented a car and spend the last days of my vacation riding around the mountain ranges, going to the world's biggest Observatory, swimming with glowing plankton, surfing and enjoying good food.
Sometimes you don't need a life time to find a true friend; sometimes you just need a few days and good old 80's music to bond over. Nicolo and i became very good friends. He visited me in NYC in November and we hoped around trying out variety of cuisines and celebrating Thanksgiving together with my mom. During my recovery from knee surgery later that year he not only skyped me to listen to me cry but would send me a song everyday to keep my spirits up, reminding me that it will all be better soon.
So most recently i received a package from him from his vacationing on Bali ( lucky bastard ) in which along with a lot of cool things was this amazing wooden fish. It inspired me to do something....and here are the beginnings - Big Fish Nicolo coming to Brooklyn... will be finished soon :)
