I’m so great at this blogging thing that another month has past since my last update. So reliable, much wow!
Oh well… I was planning on making a nice summary post of my travels for the Day 100, but that happened to be a fairly busy dayn and also the first day of a small period of internetlessness (what a lovely word). And as I’m obviously great at creating contenti in advance, that never passed the early-early draft phase. Oh well… But now here I am, kicking myself to do it, so as usual, putting word after word until something comes out of it.
So guess what, this is Day 127…
That is incredibly weird to think about. I have packed up and started living off my backpack 127 days ago! O.o
Factoring in that I jumped back home on the road for a week once, cause that was the most convenient stop and I really needed a break, we can still say that I was abroad for 120 day up until this point. That is freakin’ crazy.
Day after day what I’m doing feels completely natural and normal. And every once in a while it just hits me in the face – I either just marvel at it or grin like an idiot. It wraps around me and I don’t believe that this is happening to me, here, now, still. It hit me when a bit over a week ago I was walking on the street on the outskirts of Dublin with 4 amazing friends of mine. We just walked on our way to get to a café, and as I was strolling a bit behind them, listened to them chatter and observed the sunny street it just hit me. I love these people, this feels both unbelievable and perfectly normal. I love my life. I’m incredibly grateful for being here.
Another moment of sudden realisation was a few days prior to that, when we were in England, on a sandy beach with perfect, mild and sunny weather, and ran to the sea, splashing around in the shallow water like kids, drawing patterns in the sand with seashells and talking nonsense.
Right now I’m after a few weeks of being highly social and this is quiet time again. I met with a lot of people on the last week of stay in London, and a fair few after that and then it was the 2 weeks of greatness, reuniting with friends. Now I’m catching up with people online and with being so lucky to be in an inspiring environment, I’m sinking in the learning and creating mode. There are many things to do, both exciting and boring things, but all of them are important. The soulsearching and path discovery is still on the board – I’m easily distracted, I want to change my goal everytime I hear about something shiny, but thankfully there are many overlaps among things that interst me so I guess if I keep thinking, learning and processing about most of them, they will build up into something that I’m really happy with. We’ll see. Life is a non-stop self-discovery anyway. 🙂
So here is a pile of numbers and random bits of thing that I’ve done so far:
During my trip so far I have stayed in 5 different countries (Italy, Portugal, Croatia, UK, Ireland + popped home for a bit as i said, but that doesn’t count) in 15 different cities and altogether 21 different housing locations. 6 of those were CouchSurfing hosts , 2 Workaway place, 1 random person, 4 different paid accomodations (hostel, apartment, hotel, airbnb) and 8 friends.
I managed to meet 21 people from the amazing community of the Oatley Academy, some of them people who I befriended last year, some of them I’ve never met before.
Gained about 130 new facebook friends (not like FB friend is a measure of anything, but oh well), depened friendship with numerous people and built trust with people who I have not really talked to or with whom we were only on casual terms before.
I went to 2 international events – Bologna Children’s Book Fair, and the Independent Festival of Creative Communication (where I was on team as a volunteer).
And I’ll be going to Thought Bubble in September as a volunteer as well – woop-woop!
And here are some random things that I did (/that happened to me) that make interesting/treasured memory bits in no particular order:
– drank wine with new-found friends, sitting on a pier in Portugal
– showed around my portfolio asking for feedback of professionals
– had pizza in a park with friends, talking nonsense and laughing a lot
– played hug delivery service, making sure that whenever someone tells me that I should hug someone they know and I’m around I actually go up to them and give them a hug 🙂
– was talking on a live stream – about sketchtravelling
– tourguided 4 hungarian people in Portugal (this was the scariest thing I’ve done this year so far)
– went up on a stage and presented my art pieces on an event
– applied for things I earlier would have dared to apply for (events, training programs)
– walked barefeet on the beach in the ocean
– hugged parts of a stone cirlce
– dined in a sushi restaurant
– gave a hug to someone I admire and who I thought I wouldn’t even meet
– made people open up by asking honest questions and listening carefully
– engaged in conversation with strangers
– did tai chi with friends
– dared to reach out to people who I am intimidated by
– sang out loud with people around
– went to life drawing class in a foreign land
– learned about coaching and realised another path I’m interested in
– had a burger that was served a glass dome filled with smoke
– listened to irish music in a pub in Dublin
and many-many more… so many treasured memories, so many amazing people.
Happiness overflow.
Sidenote: I started an instagram account where I post some photos – not really a “travel album” as such, but it has random bits of places that I find visually interesting, check it out if you want to: https://www.instagram.com/feleritravels/
Have a great day everyone! *hugs*
