Tag: experience

New Zealand, New Mike: A Journey’s End

“I saw my life branching out before me like the green fig tree in the story. From the tip of every branch, like a fat purple fig, a wonderful future beckoned and winked. One fig was a husband and a happy home and children, and another fig was a famous poet and another fig was a brilliant professor, and another fig was Ee Gee, the amazing editor, and another fig was Europe and Africa and South America, and another fig was Constantin and Socrates and Attila and a pack of other lovers with queer names and offbeat professions, and another fig was an Olympic lady crew champion, and beyond and above these figs were many more figs I couldn’t quite make out. I saw myself sitting in the crotch of this fig tree, starving to death, just because I couldn’t make up my mind which of the figs I would choose. I wanted each and every one of them, but choosing one meant losing all the rest, and, as I sat there, unable to decide, the figs began to wrinkle and go black, and, one by one, they plopped to the ground at my feet.”
― Sylvia Plath, The Bell Jar

I grabbed a branch and held on for dear life.

Hi, yes, so I’m not dead. It has been many months since I last wrote. Why? I’ve been busy living and working. Originally, the plan was to write extensively like I did when I was in Germany almost a decade ago. However, study abroad and a working holiday visa are two very different experiences. Germany was a journey to share while I figured it out. New Zealand, on the other hand, is a journey best left to be shared at the end. So I’ll start the article with a snippet I took from an unfinished article. Then, we’ll move into the end of my journey. I’ll talk about my travels and key takeaways. I’ll add I few questions for engagement, so keep an eye out! Then, we’ll finish!

“If you could travel, where would you go?”

A Little Blast from the past: The Beginning

The hike that turned into climbing a mountain…

So I did try writing earlier in the trip! Some articles were published others were not, I took a few excerpts from the unpublished ones to put in here as a fun way to highlight some of my earlier thoughts as I was going through my travels:

“

So here we are, a few months into my visa and the trip has been working as intended. The goal wasn’t so much a grand adventure as it was a chance to give myself a nice reset. There has been a learning curve, for sure, but each day I learn something new about myself. This trip will define my next decade, so it’s something that had to be done. It was difficult to leave everything behind in the U.S. I’m learning to be more assertive in my approach to life and be more comfortable with imperfection. I’m a people pleaser at my core so advocating for what I want has been a puzzle for me.

Blame, Less

So this year, I’m putting the past behind me. To do so, I’m making an effort to blame no one for the past. Rather than dwell, I’m putting an emphasis on things simply being the way they are. As part of that effort, I’m trying to write less about the past. By doing this, I gain more focus on the future. My conversations about the past have run their course and the journey I was on is no longer relevant. I am attending Adult Children of Alcoholics meetings (ACA). I am also gaining more confidence with relationships. The pendulum is slowly swinging in the right direction.

Who Am I?

That is the question I am asking myself on this trip. What is my purpose and where do I want to go? My work is casual. I work once every couple of weeks or when shifts are available. This schedule gives me a lot of time on my hands. And a lot of that time has been spent doing a whole lot of nothing. I do not have the drive I once did and my boundless energy has become more bounded.

Focusing on Writing a Book

So I have a renewed focus on writing a book while I’m here. I have a few ideas for a horror story, a potential self-help book, and a poetry book. Earlier, I read a friend’s book and have felt inspired to take the leap myself. I have 6 months at my Airbnb. I hope to have a good start by the time June rolls around.

Setting A schedule

At the moment, I don’t really need to set a schedule. Falling into the habit of waking up late is easy. I often spend the day chatting with my 27 other flat mates. Okay, maybe not all at once. As a talker, this is great. For productivity, not so much. If someone is talking to me, I try to put everything away. I find it challenging to prioritize getting work done. There is a shed in the back where I can get some peace. I ultimately choose to sit where people will be coming through often.

A different trip

The greatest shock of this trip is in fact, that it is not study abroad in Germany. In fact, it is not even close. It is survive, thrive, and take a break. There is no go, go, go. No next purpose, no next adventure. It is managing my limited resources to make for an enjoyable trip. I honestly have no idea what to do with myself and that is perfect. It means my soul is still malleable and that I am still open.

“

“Would you take the initial risk to travel, even if it meant leaving the known behind?”

And every journey has a beginning, a middle, and an end, each stage weaving together to create the tapestry of our experiences.

The Middle

One of the many waterfalls I saw on my journey…

So I wrote during the middle of the trip and a lot of it was regarding traveling. A day trip here, a day trip there. A cold winter spent inside watching ‘Friends’ and a winter of making friends. It’s crazy to think that I simply lived. Looking back, there is beauty in that. The slower New Zealand days are now some of my favorite. Playing Catan till three am every morning. Drinking more than I should. Bowling, going to play board games twice a week. Reading a few books, going to boutique cinemas. Not to mention volunteering at a community garden, free restaurant, and bike repair shop.

A Few Stories:

My favorite story to tell is that when I first arrived, I was afraid to cook. Someone in the house had made fries and I thought it was impossible. I made cheese cubes, ate plain rice, and had pasta. It was a sad diet. And then I started going to Sunday markets and I decided to start cooking with potatoes. Then I tried making fries and it become my go to snack. I made them well and they were easy. I realized in that moment that sometimes you just have to try.

Or when I started going to Saturday writers meetups to get started on my book. I have one paragraph written. Regardless, it was a cool experience to try. I’ve never joined a writing group before but I’ll definitely look for the opportunity back home.

And another, where I got so drunk one night that we wandered the town. What did we find? A trolley (shopping cart), which I was promptly wheeled back home in.

“Where do you find meaning in a journey?”

Endings can be daunting, yet they remind us that nothing lasts forever.

Journey’s End

So here we are, at the end. When I arrived to New Zealand, I was but a child. As I leave, I leave with more independence and confidence in myself, which was the ultimate goal. I wasn’t satisfied back home and needed to escape. I’ve found how much I truly enjoy traveling. New Zealand is a beautiful country and to be able to live in it was a true blessing.

The Last Month

I lived and worked 11 months in Wellington, my city and one of the best cities to live out there. I started as a corporate box host. I worked for the national museum of New Zealand. I finished as a chef at a board game cafe. It was huge for someone who never really cooked in their life. So, last month I decided to travel. I explored the South Island’s West Coast. Then I visited Mount Cook, Lake Tekapo, and Milford Sound. Then from Wellington all the way to the tip of the North Island. It was crazy, messy, and all together beautiful.

What I achieved

  1. A successful relationship –
    I had a relationship overseas, and it was absolutely wonderful, even if it was super brief. I used to think I’d be single for the rest of my life. Now, I have hope that past failures in love will not dictate future results.
  2. Living less of the high life and a more practical life –
    When I arrived in New Zealand, I wanted the best. I aimed for the best experiences. I ate out quite a bit, I drank, and I chose an expensive hostel. In Wellington, I started to OP shop (buy secondhand) and even picked up sewing as a skill! I bought flour and learned to bake and as I chef, I learned to cook. I saved a lot of money after I figured out how to be a proper backpacker.
  3. Found a part of my soul –
    As I’ve gotten older, I’ve felt very stagnant in life. Spinning wheels and going nowhere. New Zealand has been the opposite. The effort I put in, I got back ten fold. I stopped worrying about climbing the corporate ladder and let life slow down. I went on walks and just took joy in the simply pleasures, with things such as baking.
  4. Realized giving up isn’t an option –
    I’d been a quitter back home in the US. I was resigned to shitty jobs and just playing video games or watching TV. Part of living for the full year was to take jumper cables to my soul and reach deep within to restore what I had thought to be lost. So I’m back to doubling down like a used to and going all in even though it’s terrifying. I live in less fear and more in hope than I did a year ago.
  5. Adversity should be embraced –
    So nothing really went quite to plan, and I had to learn to be okay with that fact. I never put my foot and set boundaries back home, so here I got a nice reality check. To get what I wanted, I needed to stand up for myself and ask for what I wanted. My whole life, I thought I had done this, but I hadn’t. Now, I’m better at dealing with authority and treating myself as an equal. It feels relatively nice.
A Summary of what I learned:

I love a good adventure. My accomplishments this trip were no small feat. I had no idea what I was doing when I set out on this journey. I was leaving my known world behind for the unknown, praying it would be better. My key takeaway is that nothing is impossible and what is broken can be fixed.

And it was not a perfect journey! I had to fight my internal demons and I wasn’t sure who would win. I wanted to quit after three months but the goal was always a year. Persevere and then persevere more.

Australia

So I will mention now, that come 2025, I’ll be moving to Australia to repeat this experience all over again! I’ve been granted a visa and plan to stay three years. My time in the US will strictly be to make enough money to fund the initial move. Originally I was thinking Ireland and then Canada. Enough people were able to convince me Australia would be better and I’m glad they did!

There will be more on Australia but for now the plan to start in Melbourne. The dream is to become a barista with farm work mixed in. I’ll stay as long as I can and then see where life takes me.

The End

I wish there was more to say. The truth is a lot of the journey is hard for me to fully articulate into words. These journeys are truly best experienced firsthand. I left my hobbit hole what feels like ages ago and now I return home ready for a good rest. Will the Shire be as I left it? I have a couple days left in New Zealand and everything to be done, has been done. I have no regrets. Until the next tale.

The Actual End

So, my year is at an end. I will be back home for the holidays and I’m looking for time to relax. I’m better than I was before I left but I am tired. I’m ready for a break to settle and then unsettle myself once more. Traveling in my thirties is scary but so good for me. My writing is rusty. With any luck, it will return once I get back to the states. I’ll have time to unwind. As always thanks for reading and joining me on these journeys!

When my journey began in shire…
When my journey ended in the Shire…

“Is a journey sad when it’s over or can it be enjoyed for what it was?”

So go out and travel! Embrace the experiences that come your way! You don’t have to know everything; just take that first step! I encourage you to respond to any questions in the comments or ask me anything about travel! And please share your travel stories—I’d love to hear them and connect with your adventures!

If I can become a chef with no cooking experience, then truly anything is possible. Remember, the only limits you have are the ones you place on yourself. Step out of your comfort zone, and let the world surprise you!

New Zealand, New Mike: Expect the Unexpected

So when I left the United States, I was in a fantastic spot. I had a job that paid ok, I was in a relationship, paid off my student loans, ran a half marathon, and was spending most of my time with friends. Now that I’ve had a month in New Zealand, how am I doing? Well…

Things unplanned

So for this trip, I had spent a year planning. I asked myself if it was feasible and figured I could make it work. It is a growth opportunity. My biggest oversight was that it is the holiday season. I wanted a year of two summers and a year where I could celebrate Christmas in the Summer and New Year’s Eve in a foreign country. And… It was fine. It was nothing crazy and honestly it would have been better to have spent that time back home. I could’ve had an extra couple months to nurture my relationship and I think the holidays are always better spent with friends and family. That is the difficult part about this trip, being completely on my own. It does not matter how much charm you have in this world, it is hard to completely uproot everything and take a risk. Good decision? Bad decision? Impossible to say. Everything has a trade off, last year I did not expect to be such a good year for me but it was. So to leave that behind was difficult but New Zealand is a once in a lifetime opportunity. So we’re here now. My biggest obstacle has been everything is closed for the holidays, which has made finding work extremely difficult. So you take an already big change and add sitting around in a foreign country for a couple weeks while eating into your savings and it can add a bit of stress; I’ve been mostly holiday on this holiday working visa and my hope is in a month I’m a bit more settled. Hence, if I could do it over, I would have left mid January; a chapter turning in a foreign country sounds great on paper but it’s a lot messier than you’d expect.

Looking Forward

So this year is going to be a year of looking forward. If the last few weeks have taught me anything, it’s that I have a lot of insecurity. What better place to work through my insecurities than abroad? I’ve had to adapt and life seems to be moving forward, slowly. And hindsight is 20-20. A “proper” relationship was new to me before I left, so I shouldn’t be too hard on myself if it ended so that I could pursue this dream of mine. My birth defect hasn’t bothered me too much since I’ve been here but if I take photos I tend to get really self-conscious. This will also be a year of not being too hard and just going with the flow so we shall see how that goes. I just need to have faith in the decisions I make and not so worried about making the “wrong” choices.

Dumb Things I’ve done while I’ve been here

Speaking of not being too hard on myself, I thought it’d be fun to go over some really stupid things I did.

  1. The first would be taking my phone out in the middle of a rainstorm! Guess what happened. The charging port got water damaged! And thus I got to watch my phone’s battery drain as I got ready to hop on a 12 hour bus ride from Auckland to Wellington. The good news is I was able to barely make it to my address. I bought a wireless charger to keep my phone going for a bit longer and then I officially retired my phone after purchasing a new one. The bad news is I had to buy a new phone. And it was the Fan Edition of the Samsung Galaxy S23, which basically means it is prone to scratching, which I learned the hard way. Albeit, the scratches aren’t horrible but I went a week without a screen protector and even being careful, scratches were unavoidable. If I could do it over, I’d buy the S22 and go with a lower data phone plan; I lose the special contract bonus but in the long run it would’ve been a better deal.
  2. I drank too much in Auckland. And by drank too much, I mean a lot. I spent with reckless abandon and that cut into my savings like there was no tomorrow. I also ate out quite a bit, which did not help my wallet. It was fun but I wish I had done a little more planning into doing more day trips and maybe only eating out once a day rather than twice a day.
  3. I kept my phone plan with an international add-on. Seemed smart at the time. Keep the phone plan and worry about cancelling overseas. Not so. It would have been better to have transferred my number to google voice and just relied solely on wifi to access the internet. A vacation, international plans could work just fine, but living abroad I should have done a bit more planning as it could have saved me a headache when I got here. I had to buy a vpn to access google voice and then port my US number from Verizon and even now I do not know if it’s fully cancelled as it is a lot more difficult to call overseas than at home.

Insights Gained

A few key takeaways from the trip so far:

  1. No plan is perfect, so don’t fret if the plan changes
  2. Don’t dwell and always ask for what you want, you won’t know if you don’t ask
  3. Be proud of the decisions you make and there are no wrong choices
  4. Believe it will all work out
  5. Be grateful of every moment you have, life is about doing, not thinking.

The Goal

The goal is to find myself. Even when I was doing well this last year, I felt like something was missing. And while my last couple weeks have been far from perfect, that is exactly the point. I have spent so much time trying to make my world perfect that I have forgotten how to simply live and experience life. So for better or worse, I am here now, on the road less traveled, and I can only hope that will make all the difference.

Expect more articles on the way. My writing has slowed down as I take an easier approach to life but I’m sure I’ll have plenty to talk about such as my visit to the shire and what it’s like living with a bunch of other people. Stay tuned and as always, thanks for reading!

Little moments: Shared Birthdays

So as my blog expands and grows, I’d like to start doing more organized series. For the last month I’ve currently been brainstorming interesting topics that can continue indefinitely. With that, I’m proud to present, “little moments”, my attempt at capturing those moments that are all too fleeting.

Today is my birthday and it got me thinking, what is it that makes birthdays so great? Personally, the older I get, the less the allure presents have on me. Gifts are just objects and the best gifts are the ones that create memories. This is part one of this post. The simple act of sharing your birthday with others. To make plans and spend your time with good company. A few years ago my roommates baked me a cake and I almost cried at the thought of it. It was the best birthday I ever had and it was the kick-off to one of the best years of my life. Come last year my birthday was spent in Switzerland and that was an absolute blast. Little did I know the girls I went on the trip with would become good friends and my travel buddies for my time abroad.

Now come this year. My birthday has snuck up on me. I’m back in Portland for the first time in 5 years. Corvallis, Oregon has been my home, then Mosbach, Germany. It has been a long time since I’ve called Portland home. Most of my friends are in college or 8000km (about 5000 miles) away and spread across the globe. It’s hard to keep connected. As much as I’d love to say I’ll keep in touch with everyone, it simply isn’t practical. Life is full of tough choices.

So as you can imagine, I was a little nervous come today. While I don’t mind being alone, life is better in good company. And I was shocked that last week, at simply the mention of my birthday, my friends without hesitation were willing to drop what they’re doing to help celebrate my birthday with me. And as I imagine, this will be my best birthday yet.

Now, part two. Part two is simply sharing the same birthday with another human being; it’s a weird sensation. It is something you never really think about. Most of the time we are so focused on our big day that we simply forget about other people.

When I was in Germany there was another student who had the same birthday as me. The class sang happy birthday not to one, but two people. That’s awesome! When you think about the odds of having the same birthday as someone and actually meeting that person and becoming friends with them, it’s rare. As such, it should be something special. Now I’m on a mission to find someone who was born in 1993 and on September 16th because why not? Regardless, the point is, there is an instant connection when someone has the same birthday as you! Some people suck at finding ice breakers. Well guess what? This is an instant icebreaker! It’s fun.

Birthdays are meant to be shared in the company of others. Everyone deserves to be wished a happy birthday. Birthdays are a time to catch up, reminisce, and plan for the future. Some people dredge getting older but I say bring it on! I am 24 years old today and the 5 year plan I set when I was 20 is almost in need of an update. Time flies, so on this special day, I’d like to thank everyone who’s made my life a little brighter. Especially you, my followers. Blogging has been my passion for years but it wouldn’t be possible without your support. Every like, every follow, every comment has put a smile on my face and made me realize we are never truly alone, we just need to know where to look.

The life of a Traveler

“The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes, but in having new eyes.” – Marcel Proust

As I currently plan out my future from now till my death bed, I thought it would be fun to talk a little about travel. A year ago come August, I left for my study abroad experience in Germany. I forced myself to go. College was a time for stepping outside of my comfort soon and becoming the person I always wanted to be.

As it currently stands and as I will say many times, I am making my way North. Portland is a fantastic city and I could live a happy life here but it would not be a fulfilling one. I would wake up one day and ask myself, “is this what childhood Mike would’ve wanted?” The answer would be no. The kid who would dress up in a suit with a clip-on tie for school photos, the kid who, when asked what he wanted to be when he grew up would reply, “successful.”  It would be a dis-service to every dream I’ve ever had and dreams yet dreamt.  Call it cabin fever, call it wanderlust but the world is meant to be explored.

Life is not measured in the things we own but rather the experiences we have. And as it would come to argue, it is much easier to create new experiences when you’re on the move.

I lived 5 years in Corvallis, Oregon for College so Portland is a nice change. Yet imagine Seattle. Then Vancouver, Canada, then Quebec. Spend a few years in France, then Germany, Austria? That’s the life people envy.

And perhaps we can broaden our definition of traveler. Why limit it to the scope of a geographic location? The reason I love travel is the immersion. I’ve always wondered what it’s like to see the world through someone else’s eyes and am sure many have felt the same, if only for a fleeting moment.

If you’re in Germany, you drink beer. France, you drink wine, smoke slim cigarettes and eat snail. Jokes aside, there is a reason I still practice German. There’s a reason I started learning French. It’s a connection through language.

There’s literally no point in staying put. Take a good friend of mine for example. He majored in chemistry and minored in dance. Guess which degree he uses the most? Dance. I envy him. That’s fulfilling. To go against the tide of others expectations and do what you love. Some spend a lifetime searching and even then…

I think we could all use a little more dance in our life. I’m not talking about black-out drunk, making questionable life choices dancing. I’m talking about something a little more elegant, a waltz. Or perhaps a tango, cha-cha, etc. A little spice, a little fire. Travel fulfills. No one became great from staying exactly who they were. They might become good enough, but does that really sound like a life worth living?

So go travel. Start with a country and then evolve. Through a dart at a map and buy a one way plane ticket. Terrified of a country? Pick a city, a town, a new friend. Start somewhere. Who knows, life might just surprise you.

Thanks for reading! If you like what I write, be sure to follow and tell your friends. Feel free to comment below. Talk about travel, bestow wisdom, anything.