On:

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*

On:

Social batteries recharged!

So being fairly antisocial in real life for a bit, staying in and just working on designs, reading, painting and reconnecting with some friends online did some good. I feel like a human being again and I’m ready for the challenge of pulling people together again.

I’ve been meeting with people, contacting others and picking on folks one by one privately to have the chance to meet them before I leave London. Trying to pull out meeting them all last minute is a bit of a challenge, but I think it’ll work out. Whatevere may happen will be great.

I’m leaving the city on Tuesday evening, and have no real plans apart from meeting a few people so it should be fine.

People over places still… Today I did Some “touristing” though, with two artist friends we went to Tate Britain and wandered around examining art before we sat down in the cafeteria and talked forever. It was a nice day. 🙂

 

Sidenote: I still can’t believe that this is my life at the moment. I wonder if that feeling will go away or not. Usually it is pretty normal and natural, but then sometimes it just hits me when I’m walking or sitting on the bus and I can’t stop myself from grinning like an idiot.  I’m sure it isn’t real… is still the matrix… it can’t be real… also, there is no ladle in this household, so that goes to the #thereisnospoon collection. ;D

On:

While posting the previous wall of text I realised that there’s a loose thread I should tie up.

I obviously did not get the training opportunity in Madrid. Which is in a way great, cause otherwise I wouldn’t be where I am now, and I’m fairly happy here as it probably came across from the previous post. 🙂
The world knows better – this way I have a chance to survive the summer (I’d probably melt and die in Spain :D), and I’m meeting best friends and other great people. :))

And since we’re at loose threads… another thing came up now. I applied to a workaway option in Dublin and got a “maybe” as a reply. It is a household of various artists and creative, who occasionally get volunteers to help them with all kinds of projects. Though they are now prooobably not taking people on board, we started a conversation and there might be a chance. Even if not, I might try to meet up with them when I’m in Dublin, cause they sound awesome.

Anyway… so things are happening, the game is on, and I’m looking forward to every day. 🙂

On:

How can it be that I’ve been London for a week but still haven’t seen Anything?

Depending on how you interpret the question the answer could be – because London is HUGE, you can’t see anything in a week, which is kind of true, but in my case the answer is completely different.
I really haven’t seen anything.
At least apart from some parts of the Natural History Museum and the immediate environment of my accomodations.

So… why?

On one hand – overwhelm. I’ve been on the road for almost 3 months now (whaaat? Yeah.. I don’t believe it either) and as you can imagine it is a lot to process, even though it’s slow travel, I take my time, I don’t rush to see everything, do everyting, but still… it is just a lot.
I popped home for a week when it was the convenient next step in terms of reorganising myself and in terms of travel route as well, so that gave me a very brief breathing moment, but it was merely a jumping board… so as it was expected – travelling is tiring.

But more importantly it is because sightseeing is absolutely not in focus.

I’m very certain, that once I get home I will repeatedly take part in conversations when people will sit in front of me with their eyes wide open, telling me that I’m a bloody idiot if I’ve spent x days or weeks in Bologna/ Portugal / Zagreb / London etc and I haven’t seen a list of things mentioned by them. In part, they will be right. I sure am an idiot, but that’s fine. 😉

So how does this makes sense to me?

When I’ve set off on this trip I had a very vague idea about what this is going to be – reading all the articles about how you should have a goal in mind when you plan a long-term trip to make it doable and having many friends and family members asking what my aim is, I felt anxious about the fact that I didn’t really have a plan or set goal. I knew that one of the most important things for me was to meet people. I wanted to deepen relationships with friends I’ve gotten to know, become friend with online acquaintances by actually sitting down over a cup of coffee, meeting new intersting people from various fields, working on things with them, getting to know fellow artist in all kinds of different environments.
Getting connected to a web of great people. Real connections.

This part was fairly easy  – I told my friends that I want to meet them, I shouted out on social media, that I’m travelling in Europe and if they want to catch up, let’s talk about it, plus the way I find accomodation (friends, Couchsurfing and workaway) pretty much takes care of the “meeting random folks’ as well.
On top of that, most often when I walk around anywhere, I go without headphones, I have a smiling eyes, I look at people and I very frequently spin a flower stick to entertain myself further. I must seem like a fairly approachable person, cause no matter if I walk around or  sit down on the ground to take my time with drawing something, people often come up to me to have a brief chat. It’s amazing. I love it.

Attending two big events (the Bologna Children’s Book Fair and the Independent Festival of Creative Communication) also helped a great deal with this issue – I met a lot of people from the art realm. A LOT of people – particularly amazing ones. But oh man, afterwards I felt like a hundred trucks drove over me. I consider myself a fairly social person, but this was welcome to Social Exhaustion zone. 😀

Anyway, back to my original point… so apart from meeting people I was not really sure what other goal do I have.
Am I off to “see the worl” as in sightseeing? Well.. up to a level, but not really.
Am I away to make money? No.
Am I looking for a job or carreer opportunities abroad? Not in particular, though if something comes my way, I’m open to it.
Then what the hell? Well … don’t know.
Let’s see what will happen!

There was a friend who really applaused my travel plans and introduced me to a quote: “The one who dies with the most anecdotes, wins.”  That sounds awesome! Okay, let’s do that! Gathering memories. The best anectodes usually come from very challenging situations. So while I’m definitely not seeking out opportunities to do something ridiculously stupd just for the sake of story, but when something comes up, after the obvious – is it dangerous? is it stupid? do I like the idea? etc. round I very often measure it on that scale. It might be a strech from my comfort zone, but however it turns out – it can go in the anecdote folder, it would be an Experience.

And where that leads me is that basically I’m in it for learning at the moment.

I’m learning about my own limits (e.g. how much social interactions can I handle?) my preferences (I’d rather sit here and draw for another hour than move on and see the x other things), about social interactions, I learn about ways people work at certain organisations, learn about different ways people put their lives together to be happy/successful and many random bits.

So right now, in London, I am offered something that I craved in the week before I came here – having an “art retreat” basically.
I’m staying with a family where my task is to design and paint a mural for them. I live in the extra room they have and sometimes they share their meal with me as well.
The place is calm and nice, they are kind people, they have a lovely garden, I got a whole room for myself and I’m given a creative challenge. It is perfect.

To take it even higher, my host is a coach which is a something I recently became very interested in.
So instead of running around in London, seeing all the places and going to all the events, I find myself building a daily routine of reading a book on coaching, working on a mural design (while listening to another book about talent being a myth), catching up with people online and strenghtening friendships there, enjoying the lovely weather (yup, I’m in England and not a drop of rain fell since I’m here), cooking, scribbling, making notes and getting my head straight. It is absolutely amazing. could spend weeks like this.

I realised that I need quiet time, and I am given the chance so I take it.
I realised that coaching is something that interests me – and I landed at someone’s place, who is a coach. I’ll take that too!
He gave me a book to begin with, I’m going to read through it while I’m here, and bug him with questions if I have any, and then ask for another book and tips… 🙂

So now the plan is that when I move on to the next location, the next crazy time or island of calmness I will make the most out of That specific experience, whatever that time, place and people have to offer.
I’m not a tourist wanting to go through the sights, I’m not an adventurer, trying to get myself into all the crazy situations or seek out challenges everywhere, but I am on a journey and that feels pretty amazing.

Thank you all who contribute to this!

On:

I’m writing this on my way to flying home.

No, I am not “going home”, but I am flying home as part of my trip.
I have the chance to volunteer at an event in Croatia so I scrapped all my plans last minute and booked a flight to Budapest and then to move on to Zagreb.

I managed to jump on board with someone to an airbnb place for just 5 euros per night for the time of the event, so I’ll get to know new people and have a nice place to stay. Can’t wait.

Oh wait… actualy I can’t believe. 🙂

Every time something like this happens, I am just sure, that this is not happening. My life is sure not real, this must be the Matrix – things like this don’t happen to people. Except it does, apparently.

I was spending 5,5 weeks in Faro (Portugal) volunteering in a hostel for accomodation, and while I was spending time here I accidentally saw a message from a former teacher of mine (from College, studying Tourism) who just posted a line on Facebook asking if any of her friends are in south-Portugal for the summer and could help out some of her aquaintances. I “raised my hand” saying that well I won’t be here in the “summer” but am currently staying in Faro, so if there is any prep-work I can do to help, I am happy to do so. Turns out they were coming on a week that is still within the reach of my stay, so I agreed to help, even though I tried to hint that I am not a tourguide and I don’t want to lead sightseeings or such, so I could just help with other things.

Scared to death, I went for it anyway, cause I agreed to help and felt like not only do I not have a choice all that much, this year is about taking the leap anyway. Worst case scenario, I spend one of my free days with something I have never done before and that I was once interested and than later most afraid of going for. Now I tried and learnt some lessons.

Anyway, so they were really sweet and even though I feel that I was absolutely horrible (at living up to any expectations of mine anyway) I had a good time, I think they were really generous and also invited me for lunch.

What are the odds for me even seeing that facebook post? I don’t have Fb on my phone so I only see what’s going on there when the wifi and laptop constellation aligns. Then since she is not a highlighted close-circle friend or anything I had to be online in a very good time to actually see that post. And not only did I see it at the right moment, was at the right place (just 1 hour away from their booked resort) but even the timing was perfect – I was sure to stay until the 17th May, but I was in no hurry to leave, so staying until 21-22 was totally okay.

Then came the feeling of not knowing my next stepping stone. My boss started to ask me when do I leave, until when can she count on me and I didn’t have answers, but the question kept creeping in my head – I had to figure out where I go from here and when.

I started browsing for options, since the plan is that I will meet people in Ireland in July and I have friends all over the UK and even a friend who lives back home was going to visit UK I was mostly looking for flight options there. I gathered a lot of info, asked around and slowly and very unsurely made the decision to head to England. I was very hesitant, I didn’t want to book a ticket, I felt like something is going to hit and I will make the wrong step. But then I talked to a beloved friend, who was more than happy about the idea of me visiting, I found a flight ticket for a really great price and being scared of getting stuck and missing the beat I made the decision and booked a flight.

As usual, it didn’t feel real, I didn’t believe that I am doing this, but was excited to see so many friends who we were planning to meet up with.

Two days later (24th May) the expected “hit” came. I got an email, that stirred everything up – seems like I can actually be on the volunteer team of IFCC the first event that I have put on my list when I was starting to gather ideas for my travel plans and making a spreadsheet for all the events that would be great to attend. I repeatedly tried to figure out if I could or couldn’t attend before, I was even tempted to go to Zagreb in case I could not get to the event itself, just to have the chance to meet all the amazing people that will be there.

Staring at the email I didn’t believe that it was happening and I had no idea what to do. I just booked a flight ticket to England… and the event is next week. How do I even react to this? Should I go for it or should I jump?

Looked into my options and after researching my travel possibilities and finding out that I could actually book a flight to Budapest and then take an early bus to Zagreb, I gave the team a call to confirm that if I arrive on Sunday, they can sure get me on board with the team. The answer was yes, just make sure I write them an email. Okay… now let’s see if I could find accomodation. Bugging all my friends who were attendees, groupchats and facebook groups, browsing hostel options it seemed to be very likely that I will be able to find something.

Okay… you can do this. JUMP!

Airplane and bus ticket bought – let’s go for it!

Just to make things more interesting, yesterday (26th) I got an email from the bus company that due to technical issues the ride I booked got cancelled. Ain’t that great news?

Shrug… see the plans burn, remains get carried away by the wind and let’s keep moving. Messaging, researching bus schedules again, checking train prices, talking with multiple people in the end I managed to book a place for carpooling. I really hope this one will work out well. 😀

As of this point I still have no schedule or further info on what will I actually be doing at the festival, but I am most likely to be working 6-8 hours per day and hopefully be still able to enjoy what the festival has to offer. Worst case scenario I will still get to meet a lot of amazing people.

It would be great to befriend the team, meet with friends of mine, who attend and hope to get to know many other great folks.

I am terribly under-prepared for this one – I have never been to the event, nor to the city, I barely know anything about it, have no business cards ( though I have a few postcards that will be an okay substitute) and the portfolio I have is not exactly fitting this field. Oh well. At least I have nicel printed works of mine with me. That’s something, right?

Man this will be another round of “overwhelming, but amazing” stuff 🙂

On:

Hello World!

Today is 27th April – this is my 30th day on the road, and this is the first rainy day – I had 2-3 days of windy, and bit chilly days before, but nothing really gloomy or annoying to be honest. This morning it was cloudy but still pretty warm and only started raining in the afternoon. Yep, you are free to hate me now (I know it was even snowing back home).

I am currently in Faro (South-Portugal), been here volunteering for shelter in a hostel for 10 days now and will probably stay for 3 more weeks. I came to this area primarily because friends of mine are staying on these parts at the moment, so hanging out with them is much more important then doing the sightseeing one usually does here so I felt a bit guilty about that. I’ve been working here for more then a week and I only went to the beach yesterday and the main motivation for it was that it’s pretty ridiculous that I still haven’t and I knew that rainy days were coming so I decided to make a quick trip there before my afternoon shift. So I said hello to the ocean, walked on the sandy beach barefoot for about an hour, collected seashells and was constantly fascinated about the fact that I am doing This.
What the hell am I doing anyway?

I still have no clue about what is happening with my life right now, but I enjoy it a lot. 🙂
Today my colleague said to me “I hate you volunteers – you come, I get to love you, and then you leave. Stay and work with us!”
I’ve only been here for a week and we only worked together on 2 shifts – this girl is adorable :)))

A few days ago I felt pretty sure that if I wanted I could actually easily convince the owners to hire me full time, and I was toying around with the idea – the owners are great, the team is nice, they definitely need a helping hand since they are reorganising things and opening new parts of the business and the season is just about to start…
I could learn things from them and I could also teach them about some things. They seem to be trusting my opinion in many things, I like the mindset of theirs and I’d be living close by to a friend, hell why not?
Well… because I’m supposed to _travel_ meet more people and not set roots on the first given location for example. 😀

So to kick myself out of this lovely “ohbutIcouldstayandhelpanditwouldbegreat” mindset that I was slowly sinking in, I started researching for my next stepping stone. I will have to be around Ireland in July, but it would be great to stick around this area for a bit longer still. Not having a clear path makes it really hard to figure out where I go next though. But I went ahead and saved many workaway links for folks who I’d potentially love working with and I’m going to contact them next week I think.
Being free as a bird makes me a bit lost as well – no wonder, they say that limiting your options can lead to better results. 😀

 

On:

Heyho!

I’m still alive – my laptop is at a friend’s place and I really don’t like writing on this lovely, useful gadget of mine, so I figure I would write on paper and just upload the photo. Good luck with my handwriting – though this is me trying to keep it readable.

Today I am not a beam of sunshine but don’t worry, everything is good​ – I had some really great days since I set off (almost a month by now…wow!)

 

And here are a few bits of the places I have been wandering around nowadays.

On:

I’ve been on the road for 2 weeks today.

So far:
– Visited 3 cities (Ferrara, Bologna, Porto)
– Stayed at 5 different people, all of them amazing folks I didn’t know before, plus spent 2 nights in a hostel
– Made about 15-20 plein air/urban sketching pieces, a handful of which I actually like, so that’s cool. If I keep it up I’ll hopefully have a series of good pictures at the end. Levelling up is sure due if I can consistantly produce some sketches with similar qualities.

Random bits of the trip not in chronological order:
– Had a long conversation with a guy who builds robots
– Was given a lift on a motorbike multiple times
– Painted on a naked man
– Met local artists and art teachers
– Went to a house party that due to many musicians being in the group randomly turned into a jam session
– Went to exhibition openings
– Attended the Bologna children’s book fair -went for portfolio reviews, listened to talks, collected business cards, handed out postcards, took notes, then organised my notes to a spreadsheet
…

Tonight I’m taking an overnight but to go to south-Portugal where I’ll be a guest of a friend for aw few days and then go to a hostel to volunteer there for accomodation for a month. (At least I hope so, we agreed on it quite some time ago, but they didn’t respond to my message that I’ve sent them a few days ago about the specific date I could actually arrive. I really hope they are still expecting me even though they didn1t reply :D)

Anyway, if the bus is spacious enough and I don’t/can’t fall asleep I’ll try catching up with some story bits of my trip so far – elaborating a bit on the some of the teasers above. If I fall asleep easily or it seems impossible to whip out my laptop it remains a pending quest. But I did take ‘diary bits’ notes and managed to get my photos to the computer already, so yey for that. :))

On:

As you can see this blogging thing is not really happening – I have a pile of notes in several sketchbooks, on pieces of paper and such, but the lack of laptop usage, wifi connection and the general rush and overwhelm that I had in the past days didn’t really allow me to write. There is sooooo much to write about though, so I really hope to get to it within a few days. 🙂
But travelling is about gathering new experiences, so I should probably go out and making memories now as well instead of typing out the previous days for a couple of hours (it would sure take that long) I will hopefully start to do so though. Now that the event is over days are supposed to be a bit less hectic. We’ll see how that turns out. 🙂

I am currently in Porto and I’m hoping to head town to Loulé / Faro two days from now.
Until you are left hanging without the stories and such, here are three pictures of the 3 cities I’ve been to so far (Ferrara, Bologna, Porto)

Not bad, huh? 😉

If you don’t want to wait till I upload sketches here,  head over to my instagram, I’ve some up there already – although probably more will be posted here later on. 🙂

 

On:

 

I’m currently sitting at my hosts apartment in Ferrara, and just taking a break from writing all the last-minute requests on Couchsurfing.

This city is adorable, I’ve been walking around yesterday and today, made a few sketches, talked with random people on the street, ate a nice meal, had a welcome drink, good coffee. Life is good.

Life is also pretty damn unpredictable. 😀
Today during the day I sat in a café, to try and figure out my housing for the next week cause multiple people offered to host me and then cancelled after we agreed, because as usual, life happens. 🙂 So I was messaging people, making arrangements, starting to get to know great people and so on, and landed on the happy state that I actually had my life sorted out until the 5th, when I would have had 2 “homeless” days to figure out later.
Things felt alright and I was happily walking around. Then came the struggle of trying to find a socket that actually takes my laptops charger… that was a challenge, but I managed to find one. Soon enough I learned though that this particular socket doesnt provide electricity :,DD So I was on to my next quest to find a socket in the apartment that not only am I able to plug my computer on, but that actually does the magic. After desperately running around for a few minutes, I succeeded in my mission. Yey! 😀

Later on I did go out to sketch again, and as people tend to, someone just started talking to me – actually asking for directions in italian ( I _totally_ look like a tourist, I don’t know why people ask for directions from me but it happens all the time :D). Anyway, since I don’t speak italian I asked if he spoke english and within 2 language rounds it turned out that he speaks hungarian, he actually is half hungarian. I’m not sure where he wanted to go originally when he asked for directions, but he sure didn’t get there cause he ended up taking me to a very nice park and we were talking about random stuff for about 1,5 hours or so. 😀
The world is just one big village indeed.
He invited me out to meet him for a beer later in the night so we agreed on a time and place, and I headed back to the apartment.

Where my host welcomed me with a kind, but sad and serious face ((How do you even manage to pull all that off together? )). “I have bad news for you” O-oh… Some family stuff is going on and he will have to host his brother… oookay. I was pretty sure that I was being kicked out for tonight, but luckily it’s not _that_ bad, but tomorrow and the day after is cancelled… So was my night out in a pub – I asked the guy to reschedule for a coffee for tomorrow, cause I have to sort things out now.

So here I am, after spending 3 hours of sending out last minute requests to many people in Ferrara and in Bologna and trying to figure out my immediate housing situation I still have no idea about where I’m gonna sleep tomorrow night. 😀
How to handle change of luck, lesson 1, Problemsolving lvl 2 and Introduction class to flexibility :DD

I think I’ll stop for now,cause it’s getting late anyway.
I just hope that I wake up tomorrow and have a goodnmorning message from someone who said yes from either city

Wish me good luck – and if you know anyone in Bologna who has a couch I can crush on, don’t hesitate to tell me! 🙂