Saturday 21 November 2015

What happens after travelling extensively? Three months later this is how things are


I’m almost scared to touch this subject here because I’m afraid that if some potential travellers are depending on bloggers opinions to take the big jump and leave behind the securities of an ordinary life, they surely expect us to tell them not to hesitate and do it and hell, I’ve been saying that myself since before I left, during my trip and once I ended it.

 But while I have written endless posts about taking that decision and just go (and I will always tell you so) I have not written that much about the post trip and how life looks like for me almost three months later since I returned and got back to normal (or trying to).

I feel an obligation to be honest and transmit how I feel and how normal life is treating me for showing her the middle finger and left her for more exciting experiences.
 
 I think that us, as bloggers, if we feel we have the right to make you  consider your own life and incline it towards adventure instead of routine, we must also use this right to write that each action has a consequence and leave everything to travel the world comes with a few of them, too. This said, my experience can’t and won’t be similar to anyone else’s and every word that is written about this subject must be taken as just someone’s opinion.

 If some of you have read some of my posts before, then you may also know that my personal circumstances were ideal for me to make big changes in my life.

To break free from things, stuff, people and familiar places was a big deal for me. With the insecurity that leaving all the familiarity behind, came the realisation that I was about to do something big and mentally challenging.

 And it was. For the next seven months I pushed myself until I became a person I liked again and I went to experience life as if no one was watching.
 
 
 Before and during my trip I searched and read inspiring blogs from random people with all sort of life backgrounds. I was often in awe reading some posts, in which these travellers/adventurers would tell how, through their trips, managed to build online businesses becoming successful entrepreneurs or would get paid by writing and other amazing antics to get some sort of income while travelling.    

 I badly wanted to be one of them but maybe because I was not focused on those days and I was most of the times wandering instead of wondering, I kept travelling and when the money started to run low, then that also meant that it was time to return.
 
 
What I mean is, that some of us we are mean to return and re attached with the life that we ran away from and others, are meant to wander indefinitely.

The last few months of my trip were full of ups and downs. My downs were quite remarkable because being a person that worries senseless about things that they haven’t even happened yet, I became sick with concern about going back home, all the worse scenarios crossing my mind creating a state of high anxiety.

Now sitting in my tiny London room while I’m writing this, I look behind to those moments and I can see why I felt like that.  I now understand that I left without being prepared to returned, that it didn’t occur to me that the journey would eventually bring me back  where I was, therefore meaning that I would have to confront building my life once again.
 
 
The end of my trip brought me back first, to my home country and then, back to my adopted one to start building my life. People say that for the first two weeks or so you feel happy to be back and rightly so, that was how I felt.

 Three months later I’m still unemployed and some days I feel sick with nostalgia. I can’t help to think that I could have done things differently while I was there, that with some effort and creativity; I could have become one of these creative bright people that, through their blogs, they make you feel so inadequate because they write about unique ways of living that some of us we can only dream of.

 I visit book shops, look at my pictures and leave my mind to wander to those days in far away lands and I feel almost physical pain that I’m not longer there. I also feel inadequate going to interviews and pretend that I want to become part again of this rat race and be promoted and earn lots shit of money by working twelve hours per day.
 

 I wish I could tell you that it is wonderful to be back and I’m looking forward to everything that it has yet to come but I can’t. I’m sure time will put things into perspective and a job will again bring me my happiest moments that will come in the shape of amazing trips.
 
 
 But three months later I miss the person I was. Some days I want to unfollow all the travellers groups that I have been joining through the months, in a variety of social media websites, because I struggle to be the one reading from home, when not so long ago I was the one offering advice from the lands that I’m now too far from.

 I guess I’m not different from the rest of the world and I often wished I could be someone else somewhere else. But the reality is right this moment, I am not that entrepreneur.

But this is today. Tomorrow anything can happen.

 

Thursday 5 November 2015

Backpacks and Sex


 I can’t be blame for the lack of trying but unintentionally, the only stable relationship I have managed to build in my life it has been with my faithful backpack, which somehow this should make me the last person to be writing about romance!

 But on the other hand, I may be your girl because if anything, backpacking solo has given me the dutiful honor of experiencing the briefest romances on the road, therefore yes; I can contribute to the dating world with my tiny bit of romance lived, suffered and enjoyed on the road, ha!

 I have met them all; the dirty backpacker, the romantic dreamer, the exotic local. Don’t judge me now; I didn’t go to the other side of the world to hide away from experiences.
  
 Let’s be honest, when you are backpacking your standards lower to a minimum and they do because fuck it, I used to look like shit myself most of the times and who can blame me? I mean, make up was not an option because it would melt in the extreme South East Asian temperatures; Comb? I hate the person who invented it, never used it in London and definitely not there!; Shaving? Whenever I could definitely yes but then, I could not all the time (in some bathrooms I was scared that if I remained more than what I strictly needed it, I could have end meeting the mother of all cockroaches); Clean clothes backpacking? What.Is.That? Get what I’m saying? The list could go on and on.

 The good news is that the bunch of them looked as terrible as I did therefore we were united by our disastrous appearances, worn out clothes and carefree attitude and THAT, dress you up more than any fancy clothes.

 Setting free from the rate race that you leave behind puts you on a mindset that makes you more approachable, brave and attractive and that works wonder to have the world on your side, not against you.

 Here’s the make up a backpacker woman wears; a fearless attitude, an approachable smile, and a carefree here we come and we are bloody unstoppable.

What’s not attractive about that and a tan? The combination worked perfectly because that and the fact that I felt liberated enough to experience, brought me some joyful moments with the opposite sex.

 There is something so incredibly romantic about experiencing your sexuality in far away lands; it is the lack of judgement. The freedom to do anything anywhere gives you the attitude to approach situations with a desire to experience them fully.

 Mind you, my own experience tells me that nothing that gets intense disappears without leaving you with certain heart pain but even knowing that, I would not denied me of the pleasure of experiencing it for the world. I rather sit in my bed at night and feel tingles in my stomach when I close my eyes remembering the details of those moments than going mentally through the shopping list!

 And with the experience comes the knowledge. Of course Wiki travel and other similar tools can become your best friend whilst and before you travel but not all the knowledge is there (if you know what I mean)

For instance, hooking up with a local makes you some sort of modern sexual anthropologist; you get a really intimate insight into their lives! They possess a complex culture in comparison to ours, one that you get to experience very closely. That makes you quite unique J

Just  aware remember that with the complexity of their own culture, they also come up with attitudes that we may perceive as unacceptable or wrong but remember that if your trip is temporary, so it is everything else in it.

 And that unfortunately applies to their genre in general; that you are a backpacker puts you on people’s radar always for the good reasons but having fun is a big one. Now, be a grown up woman and remember what fun usually means, hey?

Do you want more intensity on this post? You will have to wait until I write “Backpacks and Sex II”. Of course, there are plenty of tales to share and you’ll have an excuse to click again on my post J


Sunday 1 November 2015

My trips make me a great candidate but recruiters don’t see it


 I spent the last four years + in my last job and not for a specific reason and at the same time, for many of them, I felt it was the right time to move on. I was under the impression that I was at risk of getting comfortable with the challenges that were starting becoming sometimes too familiar. I hold onto my job for a long time because I loved the team, the property, my increasing responsibilities and the job itself.
 
I have always believed that in order to become brilliant at what you do, a combination of few but relevant things should exists; going through life with few regrets, waking up excited about the day ahead, good friends, an existing personal life and excitement towards the future.

 I could feel an increasing sensation that I was starting to lack some of them at times and in a personal level, I knew that I had to make
a big chance in my life towards getting them back again,  all of them.

Personally, going through life with as few regrets as possible has always been paramount to me in order to achieve, succeed and
 move forward.