About Me — Andres Vourakis

“Fika” in Stockholm. Image by Author.

I don’t know how to start this sh*t — Nas (N.Y. State Of Mind)

I’ve never related to a song lyric more than I do right now — seriously, I have no idea where to start.

Although I live in Stockholm, Sweden — where I need to take vitamin D to avoid seasonal depression during the dark and long winters, and people get equally excited about the first weeks of spring as they do about the beginning of the Eurovision Song Contest madness — I’m not originally from this side of the world.

I was born in Lima, Perú (leave me a comment in Spanish and I’ll prove it to you) but lived in California from the age of 14 until a few years after I graduated from University.

I wish I could say I’m fluent in three languages, but let’s stick to English and Spanish for now.

How is that for a starter?

Although I talk a lot about being a Data Scientist and a Writer, to be completely honest with you, if I could, I would probably spend all of my time climbing mountains.

Me, ice climbing the second tallest waterfall in Iceland. Photo by my friend Bjartur Týr.

Luckily, Sweden doesn’t have any, so I have time to pursue other passions and enjoy a more balanced, and hopefully less risky, lifestyle.

If you are also a climber, leave a comment. But be warned, I might try to convince you to climb together.

But if you are just curious about what I do, and rather keep interaction to a minimum, check out my YouTube channel, where I will hopefully upload a new video sometime soon.

From my solo climbing trip to “Thunderbolt Peak” back in the summer of 2021. Photo by Andres Vourakis.

So how did I end up on Medium?

I started writing on Medium back in 2019 after a friend of mine recommended it.

I had no idea that the third story I would publish would go viral and be read by over 34k people. I wrote a couple more stories afterward which also did really well, and then, I sort of stopped…