my mum always told that things happen for a reason

A year ago, I had to go back home to get everything stolen after having hitchhiking a lot. One warm evening in July I lost all my shit. All my material possessions were lost. I'm not the kind of person that is attached to material stuff but it's that I had some nice things given to me by friends, former lovers, family. It was today, a year ago.

One thing that I really didn't get the chance to fully enjoy was my travel hammock. After attempting to sleep in it with the girl I was traveling with after a few times I finally gave up and day dreamt about hanging it in my mum's garage and spend some quality time reading and sleeping. Never going to happen as it was inside my backpack and was lost forever.

My mum had always told me that things happens for a reason. Having all my shit stolen was maybe the beginning of the end. Or more like, halfway through the end. Now that I look back, it was for the better, way fucking better.

I am a magnet for crazy women. I've confirmed that. I was talking to this guy the other da and he told that actually I was very lucky with my previous relationships were with wackos. Why? I asked. Because everyday you have a new girl! This specially happened in South America. 

Maybe all that shit happened because some supernatural power wanted me back in Estonia. And God am I enjoying my time here! I really love this tiny country. Tiny? yup, it's about half the size of Guatemala. I don't what it is about it, maybe it's becoming my happy place? naaahhh... But what if it is? It's scary!

Like my mum told me, things happen for a reason. Things didn't work out last year, I had to come up with all my shit and came back to Europe. Came back to Estonia. At the beginning things weren't all that good so I moved back to Tallinn. Now things here couldn't be better. I'm happy. 

Someone is getting a post card soon because I'm fucking happy! 

mid-fucking-summer

Photo by Joxemi

This was supposed to be posted before the "weirdness" post but I completely forgot about it. Maybe it was exactly because of that, of my weird state of mine... that I still have.

Maybe I should've waited until my birthday celebrations/midsummer were over to write something about it.

I knew that in Scandinavia celebrate midsummer. I think I had an idea that also is celebrated in the Baltic States, what I didn't know was that it was a big celebration over here. I've never been to any Scandinavian country during this celebration, or in summertime for that matter. My first time in Estonia I was a couple of weeks too late. Another thing I didn't know was that is celebrated on my fucking birthday! What are the odds for that!?

But it was not all happiness. The few Estonian friends I know were going to celebrate the bonfire in the country side. I was going to stay in Tallinn. I've heard that Tallinn was going to be dead. That was far from being the truth. I mean, there was a bonfire on the beach on Patarei prison. It was a huge (at least for me) bonfire.

Photo by Joxemi

I think I've spent my best birthday so far. I've drank with people from many countries. I've met new people. New wonderful people.

I don't know what else to write. I have been in a weird state of mind that prevents me to write something worth reading. Not that I'm good at it but at least, I would like to think, that it doesn't suck that much.

weirdness

Since a few weeks ago I have been in weird state of mind. I'm not sad or depressed, it's just that I feel weird. I feel like there is something that I'm missing or that I'm doing something wrong. 

Some things are not working out the way I would like to. But on the other hand, some other things came out of nothing,  in a very spontaneously way into my life and I love it! I would have never expected them. Me like it :-)

A couple of nights was the end of an era. Makes my state of mind even more weird. My havaianas finally died. They died the way I thought it was going to be: me walking around drunk. That's the way it happened. I was not supposed to go out the other night but it was my friend's last shift as he told he was quitting. He found someone to cover for him on his last shift and we went out for one.

I'm normally not attached to material posesions but this time is different. I bought the overpriced havaianas in question during my first Roskilde in 2010. I remember everything as if it was last week:

It was during the World Cup in South Africa, Brazil and Holland were playing. My friend Federico, a guy from the Den Gyldne Boenne and me went to watch the match at one of the camps. I had been speaking English for a few months nonstop (the only Spanish being when I called my mum). I saw a Venezuelan flag and told myself it would be nice to speak Spanish again; so I approached the group. I  left barefoot (took a group sitting beside us as a landmark to find my way back) but what I didn't notice was that the match had only about 15 min left. So I walked up to the group made up from two Venezuelans, two Brazilians and two Latvian girls (one of them wanted to rape me!). The match finished and everybody stood up. It was complete mayhem! Everybody was moving. Not only I couldn't locate my "landmark", I also couldn't find my friends! I lost the knock off havaianas I bought in Costa Rica the year before. Long story short: I walked back the 2ish km back to the Boenne. Then walked to the festival grounds and bought (what I thought it was an overpriced) a pair of havaianas. It was I think exactly three years ago. The start of an era.

I hitchhiked with that pair of havaianas all summer 2010. I took them from Denmark to Portugal to Germany to Turkey to Slovenia. Alright, Turkey and Slovenia were in winter... I crossed the Atlantic and hitchhiked in Mexico on my way back home. Came back to Europe and took them from Poland to Hungary to Denmark to Estonia. Back in Latin America I took them through Southern Mexico, Belize, Guatemala, El Salvador, briefly Honduras, Nicaragua, Costa Rica, Panama, Colombia, Ecuador, Colombia, Panama, Costa Rica, Nicaragua, through Honduras and El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Belize and Mexico. They passed away in Estonia the night of july 6th. A few things I posses had been for this long with me and to so many places. The other being my small Quechua daybag that I'm also not using anymore.

Perhaps I can fix them again...?

I started to read "The Accidental Adventurer" by Ben Fogle. There is a chapter titled "Still Finding Myself". Starts like this:"I returned to England a changed person. I had lived a lifetime of experiences in a year. My mind was full of possibilities and I wanted more. I wanted adventure, I wanted excitement and I wanted the freedom I'd gained from (...)". That's how I felt the first time I went back home. My version would be like this: "I returned to Guatemala a changed person. I had lived a lifetime of experiences. My mind was still in Europe and I wanted to go back and was full of thoughts, I wanted the excitement I'd gained while the previous year." Actually I feel that way everytime I go back or worse, I don't find myself. That's why I feel so related to the title of that chapter. I even wrote a entire post about this back in 2011.

I just read the April 2011 post I wrote and it not only happened in 2011, happened also when I went back in December of that same year. I had been going out with this girl I met in Krakow. I thought I was madly in love but I wasn't. Shit happens. Sorry. It was fun while it lasted. Not really the last days though. My "friends" back in Guatemala were busy with their own shit but I thought anyone can set aside 30 min in their busy schedules to meet but I was wrong. That has happened every single time I had been back. Estuardo, JuanMa and Braulio being the exceptions. Happy I got to hang out with them every time I had been back. Can't wait to do it again. Not sure when will this happen, probably not anytime soon. Or maybe soon, who knows. I don't know.

I'm still finding myself. Not being very good at it and at the same time I'm still looking for my happy place. I'm enjoying a lot my time in Tallinn this time around.

When people ask me if I'm ever going back home they seem surprised that I say that I'm not. I mean I will always go back for a visit as long as my mum is there. I don't see a reason to go back after she passes away. I don't see myself living over there anymore. I just can't. Don't know where I'll spend my days, don't know if I'll travel forever. I guess that if I find a reason, let me rephrase that: if I find someone somewhere I'll definitely give up traveling in a heartbeat. I said it before and I'll say it again: "the only thing that matters is the people (...), the hugs, the kisses (...), the actions we don't think about".

I'm really thinking if I can fix my havaianas...

TCK

To begin with, what in God's name is TCK? TCK stands for Third Culture Kid. Am I one, maybe?

I came across this Buzzfeed article and I felt like commenting my own experience about the subject. The article is titled 31 signs you're a third culture kid.

1. You can curse convincingly in at least five languages. 

I don't think I can curse in at least five languages BUT I do know how to say cheers in MORE than five languages. It's more useful I think since I'm more of a drinking person than a violent person.

2. To everyone's confusion, your accent changes depending on who you're talking to.

Not sure about this one. Although, once I was talking to an Irish couple when suddenly the boyfriend interrupted me and asked me if I was from France. I said no. He then asked if I was from Spain. I said no. He finished with "you have to be from somewhere around Europe"...

3. And you often slip foreign slang into your English by mistake, which makes you unintelligible to most people.

A few years ago my friend told me that I was hanging out with too many British people. But I guess this   one was made for English speakers, anyway this happens to me while speaking Spanish. I used Spanish, Argentinian, some times Mexican (which is very close to Guatemalan) slang.

4. You're really good at calculating time differences, because you have to it every time you call your parents.

I was. Now I have a mobile phone that allows me to show two different time zones in the screen. I don't have to do any more calculations anymore. I just open the phone and that's it, I either call or not.

5. But you also have your computer programmed to help you out when your math fails.

Or when my phone fails.

6. You start getting birthday wishes several hours before your birthday, from your friends farther east than you.

Or west. Well, actually this starting happening before I started traveling because I know many people East of Guatemala. Now my network grew a bit bigger that I get the birthday wishes earlier or later. Don't you love time differences.

7. Your passport looks like it's been through hell and back.

Not yet, but getting there.

8. You have a love-hate relationship with the question "where are you from?".

More of a hate than love. Someone asked that not long ago. I told him where I was from. I asked is he had been to Guatemala. The answer... "I've never been to Asia". I think I learnt the lesson of not asking that fucking question again.

9. You run into elementary school friends in unlikely countries at unlikely times.

No. I don't have friends back home.

10. You've spent an absurd and probably unhealthy amount of time on airplanes.

No. I hitchhike everywhere. The only times I fly is between Europe and Latin America. I've never taken a plane inside Europe. I hope I never will.

11. And you definitely know your way around jet-lag recovery.

I will never be able to do this. I'm just not capable. I was skyping with this girl I had a thing with a few years ago, I went to bed before her. It was an 8 hour difference...

12. Your list of significant others' nationalities reads like a (I have to change this from the original title) football World Cup bracket.

eeeeerrrrr

13. And you're circle of best friends is as politically, racially, and religiously diverse as the UN.

Yes, but this was also like this before I started traveling.

14. Which is great, except that you "hang out" more online than in real life.

mmm. Maybe. 

15. So when you see your best friends, you lose it a little.

Read above.

16. You've had the most rigorous sensitivity training of all: real life.

I've learnt more in these almost four years of traveling than all of my life before traveling.

17. You get nervous whenever a form needs you to enter a "permanent address".

Not really, I learnt how to deal this with giving my mum's address.

18. You know that McDonald's tastes dractically different from country to country.

Thank God I don't!

19. You're a food snob because  you've sampled the best and most authentic of every possible cuisine.

Unfortunately not. I wish I was but I don't have that luxury given my sensitive stomach.

20. You convert any price to two different currencies before making significant purchases.

I don't do significant purchases and I always convert anything to Euro.

21. You don't call it "home". You call it "passport country".

I call it, the place that has this beautiful lake that Aldus Huxley said it was the most beautiful lake in the whole fucking world. Besides. "home is where the heart is"...

22. You often find yourself singing along to songs in languages you don't speak or understand.

Yup. Actually some of my favorite bands don't sing in English.

23. You miss BBM, but Viber and Whatsapp will do for now.

First of all, what the hell is BBM. Secondly, I don't have a smart phone. I still have the tablet my brother gave me but I couldn't get Viber or Whatsapp to work. Now I have a laptop and my phone is not a smartphone.

24. You're the  token exotic friend in your non-TCK crew.

Yes. I. Am.

25. Love it or hate it, you have a strong and well-informed opinion on the I.B. system.

I have no idea what I.B. and I sometimes forget what it's inside my bagpack.

26. The end of the school year was always bittersweet because so many people moved away.

Nope

27. And, no matter how many you say, good-byes never gets easier.

They actually get harder and harder to say.

28. But the constant flow of new friends more than made up for it.

But then I have to say good-bye to these new friends. But Johnny Cash said "we'll meet again (...) in some sunny place"

29. Now you feel incredibly lucky to have loved ones and memories scattered all over the globe.

I feel like the luckiest bastard on earth because of this.

30. You know better than anyone else that "home" isn't a place, it's the people in it.

I feel like the luckiest bastard on earth because of this. This is the main reason I travel, for the people, for my friends.

31. And you can't wait to see where is your life adventures takes you next.

True, but read above, people is more important than places...