The Six Month Mark

Apologies in advance for a long post!  In my last post I mentioned that Remote Year - while wonderful - isn't all wine tastings and welcome parties.  Straight up: t's not easy being on the road for six months non-stop.  You miss weddings, the first of your friends having babies, birthdays and just normal family or friend get-togethers.  You go to South America and the rest of your world goes on.  I know it's hard to complain - I get to travel the world and do things most people don't do in a lifetime in one year.  But reflecting on six months (a mark I wasn't sure I'd make given how long I lasted in Boston) I thought I'd share some of the feelings that come with picking up your life, leaving it in multiple family members basements (thank you) and hitting the road.

There were times in New York where I felt like that line in the Dave Matthews song "All the little ants are marching".  It just felt routine, safe, and dare I say NYC of all places was boring me. And while it's true that there's comfort in routine, that's exactly why I joined Remote Year.  I needed out of my routine.  Best way to do that? Twelve countries, 8 languages, over 3 continents in one year.

Part of the appeal of this program is that they plan your travel for you. You're picked up at your apartment, handed a breakfast snack, driven to the airport, handed your ticket, handed a SIM card when you land and dropped off at the door of your new apartment with a welcome packet that tells you things like how to use local transport, avoid local scams, what standard tipping is, etc.  But that same exact ease of travel is what makes this program hard.  You hand over control of where you're living, working, how you're traveling and maybe even who you're living with.  Someone hand picked the people you'll hang out with for a year and they might not be who you'd pick for yourself.

You have 75 new friends but not one who just knows you.  Not one who knows the same people, same places or same things that you can just say something to them and they get it. For the most part, it's refreshing to be around all new people. But sometimes you feel like you live in a social experiment. There are days where I'll work from my room and not leave because it's just a LOT to work, live, travel, vacation, party, dine, etc.etc.etc. with the same people.

This being said, I wouldn't change the last six months for the world. I've challenged myself, gone SO far out of my comfort zone, and learned a lot about myself and the world around me.  So, in a quick summary, here's a round up by month of some of the ups and downs that were probably sugar coated by pretty pictures in earlier blogs.

Month One: Montevideo, Uruguay 
The Pros:  I met the crazy, ridiculous, diverse and insane group of people known as Batutta - my fellow nomads - for the first time.  We took side trips to hippie communes and lived without power, we tried surfing and tango, mostly we failed at learning Spanish but we did it together.

The Cons: Leaving home was hard. I've never gone somewhere permanent and been more than 3 hours away from my family.  The whole way leading up to leaving I kept thinking, I can always just stay.  Boarding the plane knowing I might not see home for a year was hard and the only reason I think I made it was because I had a fellow Batutta on board and couldn't bitch out. I missed my friends. A lot.  It was hard missing the jokes, weekends out and still trying to facetime everyone all the time.  It took me a little while to find the balance of both worlds.

The sand dune house we lived in in our hippie commune, Cabo Polonio. 

Some of the girls I met the first week of the program at the Goddess Festival!
















































Month Two: Buenos Aires, Argentina 
The Pros: We had beautiful apartments, in an amazing city filled with delicious food and incredible energy.  I met my "Botanico Family" which was the name of our apartment building.  They paired 10 people who had barely interacted month one into one small apartment building and it was magic.  We turned into a mini-family making pot-luck dinner once a week and drinking cheap wine (or cheaper fernets) until 2 or 3am laughing our asses off.  A tradition we still hold every month. I also had my first visitor with my brother coming to visit for a long weekend. I could finally have someone from home understand the people and places and things I was doing.

The Cons: I got pick pocketed at a concert and lost my cell phone.  And some cash. Knowing me there's a chance I spent it on beer but I'm pretty sure it went with the phone. The first member of our tribe left who was one of the most interesting people I'd ever met.

Botanico Family Dinner taking awkward family photos.
Cue a weird song just as the timer snaps, cracking us all up. 

My brother and I taking selfies in the Recoletta Cemetery.
Classy as always. 










































Month Three: La Paz, Bolivia
The Pros:  I jumped off a cliff, biked 40 miles down death road and finished thanks to the cheering of my fellow bikers (it was not easy, especially when you have a not so good hand to start), I hiked for 4 days in the Uyuni region of Bolivia which was one of the most if not the most beautiful places on earth.  I realized how supportive our group is when (see cons) I had someone stocking our floor with gatorade, someone else bringing toilet paper at 2am, and seeing messages on our group app at all hours of the night that someone needed a ride to the hospital and people jumped up to go.

The Cons: We had too many occasions where people needed to go to the hospital.  Bolivia life was rough.  Anyone who's lived at 13,000ft would get it - you can't breathe, you're constantly exhausted, dehydrated and cranky.  The food was always a risk and we had almost every single stomach bug there was including a few I think the doctors made up to mess with us and provide more butt-shots.  I caught it my last week and had I been anywhere in the world but Bolivia I probably would have gone to the doctor but I stuck it out and called in a TP run at 2am.  The times you're so sick and want to call your Mom and you can't. We were stuck in shit. Literally.  Did I mention you can't flush toilet paper here? #ThirdWorldProblems

Exploring the Salt Flats. That's me looking like I got some air at 13,000ft. 

Volunteering as traffic zebras for the day. And sweating profusely.

The start of death road, I can assure you we weren't this happy 40 miles later.





















































Month Four: Cusco, Peru 
The Pros:  I went to a wonder of the world by hiking 4 days across the Inca trail which kicked my ass but was incredible.  I flew to Lima and met members of Remote Year 1 and Remote Year 3 (I'm on 2) and learned from a bunch of skill-share workshops. My best friend from NYC came to visit and met all of my friends here.  Something about your home-life meeting your travel-life brings it all together. I now have friends here who get a little bit about the people I talk about from home, and I have a friend from home who can put faces to names here.

The Cons: Our living situation was ROUGH.  My first apartment was lucky to have hot water, we had spiders everywhere and we were basically living in a treefort.  I hated it so much I packed up my stuff (which is a lot) and lugged it to a someone's apartment who was traveling for the rest of the month.  This month morale of the group was really low - the honeymoon phase was officially over.  People who were struggling booking clients or realizing that travel wasn't for them left the program.  Our tribe started to shrink and after living on top of each other for four months, each loss was hard. I left the month questioning whether or not this program was for me.  When you have someone control every aspect of your life you expect them to treat it the way you would. At this point none of us felt Remote Year put the same faith in us that we put in them.

The  view from our campsite at 430am on the Inca Trail 

All of my favorite things in one picture: best friend, snacks and llamas. 






































Month Five: Lisbon, Portugal 
The Pros:  I passed up on Remote Year this month.  I spent 2 weeks living on the beach with my good friend, eating seafood and getting away from everything and LOVED it. Then I went home for the next two weeks and finally saw my family and friends.  I was lucky enough my cousin and two-friends decided to get married a week apart so I could be there for both.  I spent time on the beach, went to a concert (thanks Dunny), ate all the pizza NYC had, and just got to reconnect with my home life.

The Cons: It wasn't easy going back.  I missed home, I missed being able to pop 2.5 hours upstate and hang out with my family, eat real food that I recognize and the next weekend pop on the LIRR to Long Beach.  It also was a real hard realization that - a month on my own out of the program caused a lot less stress.  It made me further question if I wanted to continue. In fact, it wasn't until a call with my psychic that I decided to continue onward.  I returned to the group skeptical and anxious for what the next month would bring.

Ladies night booze cruise in Lisbon
My family at my cousins wedding in June 






































Month Six: Prague, Czech Republic 
The Pros: I was back with my group and it felt good.  Maybe a month away was the little refresher I needed. The city was beautiful, and it turned out I really had missed everyone.  Two of my girlfriends from NYC came to visit, and I somehow made it to Vienna, Paris, and Italy all in the same month. Literally hard to believe my life is real.

The Cons: I came back to a group of 50 people.  They've all left for multiple reasons both personal and program related but it's a much smaller group.  Everyone was a little on edge still and not trusting the program so while it was much better than Cusco it took awhile to get the group rolling again.  While in Prague, our community manager who makes sure our group has activities, immerses us in the community, and basically sets up everything we do was diagnosed with MS.  He has a huge personality and is the center of our social lives here so to say we all took it pretty hard is an understatement.  Spin this to a pro though: the way we all came together to make his going away gifts solidified my decision along with many others decision to stick it out til the end.  Seeing how everyone came together, including almost everyone who'd left the program to let Dave know we all love him, seeing us all get (very) emotional over a video we made for him made me realize this is a weird little family.  Sometimes it takes something really shitty happening to realize that it's not the housing, length of a bus ride, or who you room with that's why we're here. It's the people we're here with that are worth it.

My girlfriends and I visiting Vienna's Belvedere Castle.  Disclaimer:
Not related to the vodka brand :( 




















Really cool live art display at our last professional junction

























So to sum it up, the last six months have been a lot of ups and downs.  Mostly ups, but sometimes the downs are rough when you're on the road.  Our group of 75 is down to 50 and will most likely drop more in the coming months.  BUT for now I'm sticking out this weird journey with this weird tribe I now consider family.

Did I mention we're weird? We now travel with a cut out of Dave's head
to ensure he reaches his goal of 30 countries before age 30.  I can't imagine
this was the first or last time this has been done at the Louvre.



























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