An Assortment of Thoughts

As part of my travel preparation, I have been reading similar blogs to mine for ideas and inspiration.  My favorite blog to date is My European Adventure by raisedbywildgrapes.

Raisedbywildgrapes left the great white north to explore the old country last year and has not gone back.  I stumbled across her blog when I searched for "one-way ticket to Barcelona" on google.  Expecting to find my blog post on my one-way ticket to Barcelona, I was surprised to find that another fledgling 23 year-old had had the same idea as me!  This adventurous Canuck posts some great stories and is a really good read for those planning a long-term stay in Europe.  Her stories on Italian Woofing have inspired me to trade meat and shoes for tofurkey and sandals for a few weeks after my first post-Jump leg of my trip.  Here is the link to her posts on Woofing in La bella Italia! http://raisedbywildapes.wordpress.com/category/wwoofing/

On a separate note...

It has come to my attention that the name I chose for this Google account could not be any lamer.  Erik Explorer.  Am I so unimaginative as to take Dora the Explorer's (No, I don't watch her show.  I have young cousins) last name?  In my defense, I was in a rush and want to keep my blog a secret from coworkers...no need to ruin the surprise of my resignation!

This also brings up the question as to why I have no pics or details on me.  The answer is pretty much the same.  Anonymity...for now.  Pictures to come soon in June!

Adventure Map

Looking for a way to distract my mind, I decided to sketch out the first 5 weeks of travel.  Plans are subject to change.

KEY

Black spotted lines stand for travel by plane; 

Solid red lines represent travel by train; and

Orange lines mean travel by boat.

These first 5 weeks will start and end in Barcelona.  The five weeks are split into 6 stages:

1) Acclimatization - Adapt to time difference by enjoying the Barcelona nightlife. Time allotted - 2 days.

2) Jewels of the East - Visit beautiful Prague, go back in time to Bratislava, and admire Budapest in 7 days by train.

3) The Far East - Make it (alive) to Sofia, Bulgaria by train then explore the Bulgarian coast by bus as I make my way to Istanbul.  Allotted time - 7 days

4) Island Hopping -  Make it to Thessaloniki, Greece from Istanbul.  Travel by boat to Los and Mykonos and end in Athens, all in 7 days.

5) Croatia - From Zagreb, make my way to the Croatian coast and visit its legendary and hidden towns and islands.  Allotted time - 8 days

6) Return to Home Base - From Zagreb, take a plane back to Barcelona.  Enjoy Barcelona for a few days to decide on a course of action.  Do I want to return to one of the previous destinations?  Where else do I want to go?  Barcelona will be a time to touch base with myself.

This plan is tentative and subject to change on mood shifts, rash decisions and tired legs that refuse to walk another mile.  Hopefully the fast pace of the trip will not be too much to handle.  If it is, I'll stop and rest and rethink my plan.

Girlfriend...the end

My girlfriend and I broke up yesterday.

Maybe it's how her head rests on her hands,
or  the color of her hair,
but this picture reminds me of her when she was sad

It wasn't terrible.  It wasn't devastating.  No lamps or plates were thrown.  Angry, accusatory words never left either one of our lips.

Our break up was expected and we both had prepared for it.  If anything it was sad, almost melancholic. Oddly enough, it was also relieving.

Sunday night we had a three hour long discussion on where we were going.  Originally we had decided to wean ourselves from each other.  A transition period defined by progressively limiting the time we spent together and doing "couples" things.

This transition period did not go well.  The rules were broken more often than followed.  We acted as if everything was ok, but behind the scenes my girlfriend's heart was being mercilessly crushed and I was emotionally taxed to an extent never experienced before.  Finally she confronted me about it.  She could do it no longer.

It was tough breaking up.  I was hoping to slowly grow apart from our relationship and into a friendship.  Having her disappear completely from my life was not something I wanted but it was unfair of me to expect her to easily transition into a friendship.  After all, I was leaving her to pursue my dreams, leaving her alone.

Her greatest complaint was that I was not putting "us" before everything else.  For the last few months of our relationship I had struggled with this accusation.  I knew she was right, that I placed myself and my well being and future ahead of our mutual future, I just did not know why.  I went through an existentialist retrospective period where I questioned myself, my actions and my direction in life.  The central question though was why am I leaving such an amazing girl?  Why would any guy do that?

It took me months to figure out that as a person, I am still figuring myself out.  I do not have a complete feeling of "wholeness".  It's as if I only know and can explain half of "me", who I am.  The other half is still unclear to me.  Not knowing myself fully and completely, and not knowing with 100% certainty what it was I wanted to do in life, I could not give my all to someone.  I need to concentrate on myself, and be ok with myself before I can be ok with making promises and meaningful commitments to others.  In summary, I was more than just hesitant to put all my energy in our relationship when, as a result of me not being "whole", I might change my mind or do things that would undermine our relationship.  That was a risk I was not willing to make.  The best part, the most relieving part of it was that she understood.  She even said she was in a similar phase herself.  We both agreed that while I deal with this lack of wholeness by doing radical things, she deals with it by getting more attached to, and depending on, people.  We also agreed we should work on how we deal with these things.

We hugged a lot, were sad for a lot of it but still managed to smile and even laugh several times throughout the entire conversation on Wednesday.  We agreed on no communication for a week, and then some texts.  We'll see what happens.  I miss her already and I know she misses me.  But this will give us both time to move on with our lives and really get to know ourselves better.  I feel like an 18 year old straight out of high school, not knowing what I want to do with my life.  I guess we never really know.  Eventually we have to decide on a path.  For now, I have decided the path I chose is not the right one for me (for now) and I must try all the other paths before I stick to one, or create my own.

It was the best break up I could have ever hoped for.  Mutual understanding out of love and respect made our break up peaceful.  I feel like we will be friends and that the bridge between us has not been burned.  Some day we might get back together.  Maybe we will not.  Either way, she will always have a very special place in my heart, and I know I will too in hers.

Traction

I'm very inspired today.  The feeling I'm experiencing is similar to a bear waking up from a winter slumber.  Waking up at 11 am, my first stop was the kitchen where I prepared a hearty breakfast of scrambled eggs on toast, chocolate milk, yogurt with apple and nuts.  Leaning back to a bed of pillows, I watched all four episodes of the new History show, Vikings.

Egg pan, compliments of my mom before I left to college.
Moms never intentionally mean to embarrass us, but are nonetheless very good at doing so.
I kept this miniature pan hidden until now, which I use to make perfectly round scrambled eggs for bagels. 

My wonderful, 3 hour breakfast-in-bed-watching-tv splurge was followed not by preoccupations of how I would make a living after leaving my job, or brooding over how stressful and burdensome life can be (I'm thinking taxes and laundry).  Instead I felt full of life, happily moving my furniture around and redecorating my room, shirtless.  Perhaps that is too much information, but its been a while since I've done that.  My roommate and I aren't that close and the house has been cold all winter.  But I somehow didn't feel cold and I felt that despite the pressure to get things in order before my move, everything would be ok.

Sitting outside on my porch in a hoodie and pj pants, watching the sun go down, I feel a flame of inspiration and hopefulness in me.  I want to do a sun salutation, plateauing in a handstand and ending in perfect formation on my porch.  A relic of my college days when I got hooked on yoga and took every possible class I could.  I'll admit it, I first took yoga to meet girls but by session 4 I was always in the first row instead of the back row.  Needles to say, to this day my male friends don't like to talk about my yoga obsession but my mom is very proud.

Unfortunately I am still going through physical therapy for my right shoulder sports injury.  I opt instead to go back inside to escape the 40 degree weather and plug my laptop to my Bose speakers to listen to some Calvin Harris.

Oh but where was I?  Oh yes, Traction.

Traction

With spring here and April almost upon us, the countdown stands at 11 weeks and 4 days to my departure to Barcelona.  9 weeks, 6 days to my last day at work and 6 weeks, 4 days until I break the news to my supervisor and, harder yet, to my coworkers.  The end of this 9-5 journey is definitely palpable.  I could try and fight it but inevitably I will have to confront those days.  I can meet them prepared or unprepared, and I'd rather do the former.

Deciding to take The Jump really got me going in this new direction.  Buying my one-way ticket to Barcelona marked the transition from thinking to doing and writing this blog reminds me of the promise I made to myself; to explore and enjoy life.

Traction in the world of entrepreneurship means validation by your target market of your product.  In other words, the point when consumers of your product accept and use/purchase the product/service and thus get the ball rolling for your idea.  In my case, my idea is my trip and validation are external events that get me going on my trip going.  For example, having a plane ticket pushes me to look at transportation and other costs in Eastern Europe.  Researching costs helps shape my travel route.  Another example would be the self-imposed resignation deadline and its effect on how I save money and mentally prepare to leave my job.  That, in essence, is traction.  Traction is also comparable to momentum like this seal rolling down a hill.

Traction and Happines

I think that my improved mood this week has a lot to do with traction.  Life is pretty much the same at the surface, yet underneath the mundane I am preparing myself in many ways to leave.  As the light at the end of the tunnel gets brighter, the brighter my days get.

Hey Kid, You Running Away?

Some days I feel completely demoralized.  Doubts creep up on me and everything I do becomes a metaphor, a symbol, any reason not to go on my new path or to question my new path (for non-depressing reading, skip to the below meme)

Questioning my path is good.  I reevaluate and reexamine in different lights and as a result gain new perspectives.  That is good.  It's bad when these thoughts are crippling. Today I was going to write about these doubts, my fears and the crippling anxiety.  But I'm not going to.

The one thing that keeps me going and strengthens my resolve is laughing at the ridiculousness of my previous adventures or just laughing about life itself.  Life is great and it must be enjoyed at its fullest.  I will bask in the glory of having lived adventurously...and in the silliness of enjoying the simple and random, like the picture below.

Random, unrelated meme I
chose only because it made me laugh

My first pre-adventure

Let's tie what has been written so far to the title; "Hey Kid, You Running Away?"

The old guy was less cool and more creepy
than this old gangsta

Not the exact words the baggy-jeans totting, hoodie-wearing, urinal smelling old man asked me at the greyhound bus stop back in February.  His words were closer to "you're running away from home, aren't ya?".  That was following the "how old are you?" and "do you want work? You can work for me at my hotel and do whatever you want" questions.





How did I get to telling him things you might ask.  Well quite honestly (and I hate to admit it) he skillfully employed player tactics to get me to reluctantly talk to him like a stuck up hot girl at a bar reluctantly talks to the persistent d-bag in the bar.  I hated every moment but could not shake him off!  To all those girls out there I ever forcefully entered a conversation with, I sincerely apologize.

It all started with the bad decision to sit a few seats over from an old lady and her 10 shopping bags.
That was my first mistake. Never sit next to or close to people with groceries!  Only crackheads and the homeless buy groceries in one city before boarding a greyhound bus to transport "groceries" to the next city.  Dig in through the grocery bags (I don't recommend it, they'll stab you with a needle if you do) and you'll find meth and weed beneath the lettuce leafs suspiciously placed over the other items.

The 10 shopping bags turned out to belong to an old lady and her older male friend.  At a glance they seemed like an ordinary, lower middle class couple.  It wasn't until the old man approached me that I noticed that under the hoodie his matted hair and dark eye circles gave him the appearance of a runaway serial killer.    He asked me if I could keep an eye out on their precious cargo while he and, in his own words, "new lady friend" grabbed a cup of coffee from the small greyhound store 10 feet away.  I told him that was fine but that I might have to leave soon.

When they came back 10 mins later, the man extended a smelly hand to thank me.  I knew something was wrong.  No, it wasn't that each finger had a different tatto on it or that he approached me angling his body sideways.  If I had to take a wild guess it was the mischievous look in his eyes, his invasion of my personal space and his deep, low almost whispering voice.

I tried shrugging him away after I reluctantly shook his dirty hand.  Shaking his hand was the hardest thing I had done in months.  I had no purel hand sanitizer on hand and I wanted to eat my chips.  What kept me from not shaking his hand was the fear of a bloody needle piercing my neck in a split instant.

He asked my name to which I gave the fastest bogus name I could come up with: Derrick Erickson.  He then asked me where I was going.  Half scared to death, but still keeping my wits with me, I replied with an answer: "where are you going?".  If he said Nashville I was cancelling my ticket.  Luckily he said Cincinnati.  "Phew!  That was a close one!"   I thought to myself.  I was only half right.

The guy proceeded to ask me where I lived.  I bluntly asked him why he wanted to know.  He avoided the question by asking me if I was looking for a job to which I replied no.  My answer went over his head as he asked if I could make a side-trip to Cincinnati to interview with him and his arthritis gang for a job.  Cincinnati was east and I was heading south so a little out of my way.  He then asked if I could see him at his hotel at a sketchy part of town, offering me the offer of a lifetime to do anything I wished to do.  Again I had to refuse.

You may be asking, how did I escape?  Easily.  Old man and lady lover (who by the way had dried up blood on her nose) were going to white castle for a late night snack.  When I politely refused to go with them  they asked if I could keep an eye out on their groceries.  This time I happily obliged.  Anything to make them leave!  When they were gone, I snuck off to the opposite end of the building and sat behind a pillar.  I still texted a friend all the physical descriptors I could of the duo.  They could always come back...

My adventure to Nashville and back was pretty cool.  Too many stories to share in one blog post, but one quick one to share is the moment I realized the source of the poop smell in the bus.  The source was in fact a used diaper, wait for it, UNDER MY SEAT!!  Not about to reach for it, I closed my eyes and tried to sleep.

Awesomeness Is In Our Nature

People were designed to be awesome.

We were meant to defy the odds and succeed!

Humans are extraordinary creatures.  If you doubt it, watch this video.

           

A Visual Representation of The Jump

The Jump is still a few months away for me yet I can't stop wondering how it will be.  Instead of writing my thoughts in detail, pictures and videos will represent the different outcomes.

A visual interpretation

Jumping has many outcomes.  I can take flight, belly flop to the ground, be swept up by an eagle (how cool would that be?).  Here are some of the many possibilities from best to worst.

The Rebound

I lied.  Before we start from best to worst, here's the coolest outcome.

Sometimes there is no other way to go but down, but down isn't forever!  This video is a metaphor for a second chance; the rebound jump takes you higher than ever before.  At the height of the rebound, gravity starts pulling you back down to end the trip in a magnificent splash.  The cycle starts again and you, knowing it didn't kill you, are more comfortable taking another Jump.

Taking Flight

Let's start with the ideal outcome.  Run, Jump and take flight!  Cruising through the air, the world is reduced to a legoland.  My descent is slow and planned.

Gliding

Remind me to Jump off this cliff.  The view is absolutely stunning!

Jumping from a cliff in the Norwegian fjords, this basejumper describes the before, during and after experience.  His Jump is off a mountain cliff, mine is off a metaphorical cliff yet there are so many parallels between his jump and the jump to cubicle-job liberation.

The absolute worst

Belly flopping.  It stings and the red skin marks are a constant reminder of your, well, failure.  You learn from your mistakes.  You'll do anything to avoid this outcome again.

Be prepared

Don't be caught unprepared.  Planning improves the odd of a nice flight or glide!

If You're Gonna Jump, Stretch First!

I couldn't find a movie clip.
This is the best picture I could find.

In preparation for The Jump, I'm doing all the leg stretching in the world to be well prepared.  Cramping up before propelling myself off the cliff would be a bad start, especially if I don't jump high and far enough to clear that dead tree jutting 5 feet below the edge of the cliff.  Worst case scenario, I freak out and turn my jump into a cart-wheel and end up dangling in the cliff brush like Marshal in Forgetting Sarah Marshal.

Eastern Europe, here I come!

Aaah cheap, beautiful Eastern Europe; where all the food, drinks, lodging and entertainment can be acquired for a few pennies!  For those of you under 25, the movie Euro-trip might come to mind.

Now I know enough about Eastern Europe (and am a rational human being) to know that a few US coins will not get you personal concierges, lodging at a 5 star hotel and VIP service at posh nightclubs in Bratislava  .  EE is significantly cheaper than her Western European twin but by how much?  If I was to travel the eastern side of the gorgeous continent, an estimate of travel costs was necessary.  For this I looked to my fellow bloggers out there for guidance.

Travelling in the backpacks of giants

By far the three best resources for calculating trip expenses of an adventurous, experience through the former Soviet bloc were Nomadic Matt, Lonely Planet and Nomadic Mike.  Below is a quick run of each source and the relevant information found on their site.

Nomadic Mike 

A quick Google search for "cost of traveling Eastern Europe" found me this excellent blog!  Nomadic Mike is a serial nomad whose goal is to inspire others to travel and show people it is possible to travel first class on a budget.  If his superbly built blog and amazing articles aren't enough to believe him, just read one of the many articles written on him by major media companies.

Nomadic Mike offers guides, shares experiences and offers first class advice on traveling.  I used his post "The Cost of Travelling Far Eastern Europe" and similar ones to calculate my travel costs through EE.  He does a wonderful job of breaking down the costs and then totaling them up for you.  His fondness for sushi drives up the price of his estimates.  Travel while not on a sushi kick and your costs should be fewer.

Using his estimates I should spend roughly $40 a day for food, lodging and other expenses.

Naughty Nomad

Naughty Nomad is exactly that, a very naughty nomad.  A self-described globetrotting, border jumping, drug smuggling, adrenaline-seeking, international debaucher (his words, not mine), this Scottish adventurer lives to travel the world on the fast - and near lethal - lane.  Naughty Nomad, aka Mark Zolo, keeps a blog replete with his adventures, travel routes, experiences and advice to other travelers.  Oriented towards a younger male audience looking for sex, drugs and fun, he focuses on advice and experiences to create an adrenaline-pumping site that rivals most action packed sports.  That is not to say there isn't any non-hooking up and getting high advice.

Naughty Nomad has a quick facts sheet for each city he has pillaged.  At the top of each city guide is an average cost section.  The average cost of beer, bed, bud, board and other are listed.  Very useful to estimate costs!  His Top 5 Destinations in the Balkans post inspired me to visit Belgrade, Skopje, Sarajevo, Hvar Island and a tour of Montenegro.

By his estimates, I should expect to doll out around €45 a day or USD 58.75 a day if using today's conversion rate.  And I overestimated my expenses.  Not a bad price to pay to enjoy life in new and exciting places!

Lonely Planet

While not a blog, Lonely Planet is the absolute authority on globetrotting. Suffice it to say you can find pretty much the answer to any budget or backpacking travel question ever asked in our modern age!  Lonely Planet has published several guide books.  I suggest looking at them if only to see the stunning pictures and read the comprehensive country tips!  Seriously, take a look at Lonely Planet.  Their forum section is almost as informational as the site itself.

Using Lonely Planet I estimated my expenses to run at $40 a day in EE.

Not so cheap after all

I guess travelling to Eastern Europe isn't as cheap as the movies would have us believe.  Cheaper than Western Europe?  Definitely! Staying at an ok hostel alone will cost at least 25 euros a night and food is crazy expensive there!

Roughly having an estimate of my expenses is great!  I definitely feel my legs stretching out.  I know what I am looking at (cost wise) and can plan ahead for it!  

Stretching has just begun, but I can already feel my legs loosening up.