Not quite, really. These are exciting times for me -apart from not going out on Friday nights as often. If anyone minds an update on my life, I'm going into an adventure. The current me thinks of himself too young to settle, so for a while I had been thinking of saving a whole year, ask a 3 month break from work and fly to Japan through Europe to fulfill what I liked to call in my head "the big leap." Japan has always been on my mind, and I would hate to die before having seen temples and sakura trees live, explore the Hip Hop scene of Tokyo, and consume as much anime and videogame culture as I can. I am very fond of my European friends and miss people in many countries over there that a stop only seemed mandatory. However "The Big Leap" was never meant to be. Life had other plans.
In my short professional life, the most exciting program I've come to encounter is the European Volunteer Service. I think it is fantastic that part of the wealth that is concentrated in Europe gets invested on sponsoring youth to travel and learn a new language and new skills to improve their chances of finding jobs. That's why we, the humanitarians in the NGO world, write the applications to get funding. The focus is economic on paper. The truth is that each project sends young people into quests and adventures of learning and self-discovery around the globe. Many of these people only dreamed of traveling to an exciting new place and live among the locals for a long period of time. The program makes that possible, and I most of the volunteers who have benefited from it feel affection for the different organizations behind the logistics of their experience. No one ever returns the same after doing their EVS. It is a truly life changing experience, and after joining many projects that enabled multiple people to participate, I get to see it from inside.
I am leaving a stable job to check living in Europe for a second time off my bucket list, but I get to continue doing what I do, sort off. Starting on November and for ten months, I will live in Cagliari, Italy and engage in different office tasks at the organization in there. I am also planning to learn all that I can about Erasmus + (the new EVS) to promote further inclusion of Costa Rican youth in the rest of Europe and European youth in Costa Rica. I am also learning more theory of youth work and acquiring a foreign language. Most of people think of Rome or Venice when they hear "living in Italy" but Cagliari is all I know and I liked the people there far better than the romans at the airport of Rome, so I am completely content with living there. More than just liking the location, I got to know an organization and if I may be bold, I liked the way they work and I fell in love with their passion. I am being offered a challenge that is a reward in experience on itself. That's the equivalent of being pimped for the races if I were a car.
But I'd lied terribly if I said I'm doing it all for professional purposes. The advantage of having lived in Europe already is that I more or less know how to travel on a budget -I am lucky that people continue to advise me on how to improve it. That allows me to organize many trips and being able to afford them. I'm almost fixed to celebrate New Year's Eve in Austria and come back to the coziness of Vienna and the warmest company in the world I have outside San José. London's on my mind for Pride next year, and the north of England calls me. I am excited to return to Edinburgh and visit Glasgow for the first time. Someone told me the cheapest way to fly to Iceland is from Glasgow, and I am going to find out. I still have not climbed to the top of the Tibidabo and I missed the singing fountain in Barcelona, plus there are rumours that I am expected by a gorgeous lady there so flying there only makes sense. In ten months I should at least see a couple of other Italian cities.
And Cagliari, I am already in a relationship with that city. From the taste of the cappuccino by the old auditorium to the panini of the cantina in Marina to the feeling of salt in your skin and the sound of seagulls. I am in love with the color of the Thyrrenian Sea, that turquoise that evaporates my fear of not seeing the bottom and allows me to swim freely. I feel like Sardinia is underrated and overlooked, and I would feel like home in a city that fights off the underdog status, just like myself. Sardinia is Phoenician and Viking, Italian and broken. Sardinia is full of youth honestly making an effort to be something in life: in such places you come across an immense amount of talent. I already think of the city with names and faces. I want to absorb all that and to be able to make memories of that one summer by the sea. I intend to become fluent in Italian and thus check one more thing off the bucket list.
At the moment, it is also annoying how much I am doing in Costa Rica. Work consumes an awful lot of time, but the countdown already started, and that makes the wait exciting and full of plans. I am gathering as many memories from my people to keep me warm in winter and I am taking the sun and the rain and the green and the life and all that is good in the tropics. I am in love with my family because I've also fallen in love with their struggle. I am going to miss my mom and my sister, the women of my life. I can't take enough mental pictures of my baby niece, to whom I am devoted. I am terribly going to miss my apartment. This place holds the happiest memories of my life in San Pedro and gave birth to a true brotherhood with my roommate. While taking to a friend yesterday and finally opening up about what was going on for me, he told me the chance of acquiring a brand new life was huge regardless and that people that cared about me would like to hear it and feel happy for me. I ended up writing this entry.
Love life is not a topic right now. If I manage to stay smart, it will remain that way.
Where does all this traveling leave my writing plans? Hemingway taught me traveling and writing were highly compatible, and I know in my heart that I should not rush something that will happen for me in the most exiting way eventually. I do not doubt my words now. Where does this leave Japan? Some time in the future. I have roots in Costa Rica now, and I will always want to come back, Nevertheless, I have a new adventure ahead of me, and I have come to accept that I'll seek to go beyond my current frontiers until the day I die.
Thanks for getting excited for and with me. I am fully aware that I stand here in life for the effort I've put into things and for the people that insist in making my stay on this planet truly awesome.
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