...my soon to be fourth anniversary of being on the road...
Someone asked me if I was going to celebrate and said no. What's the point? I mean, I can go out to eat or (most likely) to drink any day. Instead of celebrating being 4 years on the road I should celebrate 4 years of not quitting and going back home. Now here I am, in Estonia having a free beer while attempting to write something meaningful and interesting (good luck to you!). Now if I end up writing something meaningful and interesting then that is something that I should have a drink to... or eight.
It was not long after I started my travels (long ago back in late 2009) when I was in Costa Rica finishing up what I used to call "the first leg of my travels": one month from Guatemala to Costa Rica (I quit dividing my travels into legs long ago, actually don't even remember when) when my
couchsurfer in
San José asked me how I funded my travels. I have to be honest, I started traveling with the insurance money after my car was stolen. I paid off debts and with the rest I took off. But the answer now is: I work every time I need cash.
I worked for what? three weeks in a Asian fusion restaurant that I'm not going to put up the link because for a change, they fucked me up not giving my last week's paycheck. It was not a lot but still. After I moved to North-Eastern Florida I worked for two (again) restaurants:
The Burrito Gallery (you probably seen me wearing the Tshirt in some photos but now is probably being worn by some motherfucking thieve) and
The Uptown Market. I'm know for not particularly being a fan of the US but I knew that going there and working a few months would get me enough money to travel and it did for a few months. In my 6 month long stay in that country I worked a total of 3 non consecutive months and traveled for the other 3.
I was in Prague drinking my life away with the best and cheapest beer I have ever had the pleasure to enjoy. but I needed another job in order to be able to leave and keep traveling. By now all of you probably know that my main form of income is working in hostels (and now that we're into it, my main form of outcome are booze and girlfriends). But I also had so far other ways to make a bit of that precious item we use in this capitalistic world we live in, that necessary evil, that thing that unequally distributed among people, that... alright: money!
I was working my ass off between two jobs. It was around my second month in
Prahaha (in Spanish only, sorry) when I needed another way to make more money. Talking about it with one of my colleagues he told me that I could take over his side job because he was not able to do it anymore. "What is it about?" I asked. "you will have to pose nude for a group of art students" he told me... So there I was, showing my naked and very boney body to some 20 czech students, some of the cute girls. So far doesn't seem that bad and it actually wasn't except for the fact that the classroom didn't have heating! What was hard was not to get the awkward boner because standing next to me was this gorgeous girl: long black hair, ocean blue eyes, tattoos - one just above her perfectly trimmed and pierced vagina. Now you see that it was hard (no pun intended) to do the job? I actually made more money doing this than the money I was making at the hostel. I was able to save up all this and live (and drink) from the money I was making from the hostel. It was also hard to stand (or sit) in the same position for 45 minutes straight!
If I'm not working I try to at least not spend the little money I have therefore I look for work exchange positions. This is how I landed a bartending gig in the Nicaraguan Pacific. It was
Hogmanay, it's super fucking hot but it was good. I also volunteered or was enslaved by (the owner of the hostel I would later work in Panama City, Panama in which I also got fucked) in the small "mountain" town of
Boquete. It was not that bad, I mean the town. There was this huge
flower and coffee festival, didn't see any of the flowers nor the coffee but I saw a huge amounts of alcohol. This was earlier in 2012. I met some nice people like Mario, we met up again in Heidelberg earlier this year.
I also volunteered for two hostels in Colombia. One is owned by this nice dreaded German Couchsurfer married to a Colombian. The place was awesome, the people I met there were equally (or more) awesome, except for the Mexican asshole. I met Ilona and I visit her in Switzerland a year later. Anyways, it was not what I was looking for and I left. I found myself (along with the person I was traveling with) in the city of
Armenia a few months later working in exchange of accommodation, (toast) breakfast and unlimited Colombian coffee, which is almost as good as Guatemalan coffee... almost.
But what I really wanted to talk about but I had to go all this way around the bushes is about my brief incursion into the Estonian (short) movie industry. Carlos, one of my colleagues is going to film school and got me a part as an extra in a short movie promoting an Estonian fashion designer. It was cool! Not only did I have my own scenes, you can see my arm once and my ass a few times, well my trousers filled with air given the fact that I don't have an ass! They even paid me for doing this! Certainly not a lot but I would've done it for free!
I've given myself a certain amount of time to re-evaluate my shit, I mean my life: where am I going. What am I doing? When am I doing it?. Nothing is keeping in Estonia, unfortunately. Big changes are coming. I have been here for almost a year, that's the longest I have ever been in one place. My feet are starting to itch. I wanted to settle somewhere temporarily and I did. Many good friends of mine are already or are going to South America and even "worse" they all are asking me to join them down there! World Cup is next year in Brazil. Would be super awesome to party the hell out of Brazil with Alonso. Andre is about to hitch the boat to Colombia.
Tomi is in lovely Nicaragua. Matt is going to be in Argentina sometime in March. Lempi's dream is to go to South America.
Jass is looking for a boat soon.
It's going to be sad when I leave this place. Very, very sad. My happy place. Estonia became the only place I could call it happy place. I don't want to leave but I have to. I'm a traveller, that's what we do. Go places to fall in love with them. I'm not leaving now but I know that the day will come and is not very far into the future. But I know that I cannot be too far away from here. No matter where I may end up, no matter how far, how deep, I know, I will keep coming back here.
I feel weird.
I've discovered that I'm a better writer (or less worse?) if I have a beer with me.
I still feel weird.
No, I'm not drunk. I wish I was but I'm not.
I just want a hug.
Don't know what to think.
What's wrong with me? A lot!
I want a puppy.
