One tea to apt. 102

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Life as I know it...

The last post on this blog has been a while back. After Tatiana and I finished our one year travels I did not consider posting anymore here, as this was for our common journey. Soon it will be 4 years ago that we returned from this amazing trip, and enough time has passed to tell you (or my future self for that matter) about the difficulties of returning.

As amazing as everything about travelling is, the last months of a one year long journey get difficult. You fancy leaving the backpack in a corner and not pick it up again for months, you fancy conditioner, putting on lotion all over your mosquito bite-covered body without getting all sticky within minutes because of the heat, you fancy a comfortable bed, good coffee, your mums face, your sisters company, you fancy your own space, you want a quiet corner and a nice long bath. A clear sign of missing home. And then the trip finishes and suddenly, faster than you could ever anticipate, you are home again. You sit in the metro, look into the same faces that have been in that metro at the same time of the day a year ago, you walk into shops that are filled with more products than anyone would ever really need, you get squeezed in between the masses of people that are always in a rush and you are back to the jungle of consumerism. And as nice as the conditioner feels when you put it on, and as amazing as the fresh cotton towel feels on your body after being used to the microfaber quick drying towels of your trip, you are back. And lost.

It takes a while before you adjust fully, you put your comfy coloured pants into the back of your closet and put on the jeans again. You do your eyebrows, put on some makeup and use the hairstraightener again. And you look at yourself in the mirror and wonder where this person was over the past year. And then you realise that this person hasn't just vanished for a year, but for good. You meet friends and all you can talk about is the freedom you carry in your heart, they smile and then ask "what are you going to do now?" and after you hear that very question, that you are not able to answer, for the 11th time from every single person, you start having doubts "what am I going to do now?". Pack the bags and keep moving is the only answer that feels good. But everyone tells you what you should be worrying about instead: a job, pension insurance, husband, children. Are they crazy? There is so much that I need to see in the world, so many people I have yet to meet, so many moments I need to collect. And what happened to me is that I packed my bags 3 months later and left to Spain. I was filled with doubts and the lacking ability of fitting back in, so I chose to do an internship there. The biggest problem of coming back however is the routine one falls back into. I felt as if I didn't learn anything new, as if my life was on hold. There is so much that happens when travelling, that you get bored when you don't have to overcome challenges.

Long story short. I went to Spain in September 2013, did a 3 month internship, I returned to Berlin in December and started looking for jobs in January 2014. I found an internship that I really wanted in Event Management, one that I thought would be for me, for one of the best known companies of Berlin, butI didn't get it. The frustration led me to pack my bags again and move to Dominican Republic. At this point however I already felt that I had to stay in one place, so I was only gone for a month, when I returned once again to Berlin and started putting all of my strength into getting a job in events. And I succeeded. I started to work there in Mai 2014 and worked for 6 months as and intern and was contracted after as a project assistant. Things were going well, but i remember exactly the first day when I entered the office in my pencil skirt, looking around at people wearing suits, I remember exactly how I smiled to myself and thought "what a crazy world they live in". And finally I became part of it. The only small issue was, that I felt as if my life has stopped and I just existed. I ended up staying for 1 year and 3 months. And only when I was offered a further promotion, I realised how much I didn't want to do what I did. So I left and moved to Tenerife (July 2015) for a few weeks and then again to London, where I lived from September 2015 to December 2016.

It was beautiful to spend christmas with the family again, and the next step was the christmas gift I made to myself: another one way ticket.

So where am I now? About 6 weeks ago I arrived in Brazil. It has been a surprisingly difficult beginning, which I will talk about another time. But what I learned and realised for myself is that I like this life. And I tried what others told me was the right way and it made me feel stuck and misplaced. My advice to everyone: if its a dream, make it reality. Its never as difficult than it seems - although new beginnings usually are. But after being here for a month and a half I can assure you, it always gets better.

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