sabato 26 gennaio 2013

Steh auf wenn du am Boden bist!

"Steh auf wenn du am Boden bist" is a German say. It means "get up if you're on the floor". And me... yes I have spent way too much time on the floor...
I have always been the one who told to people not to worry, if they really wanted something they could get it if they were ready to fight for it... And now I say it to myself again. I finished my erasmus, I finished my studies, I finished my work contract and I finished my amazing winter holidays in Spain. I sat on the plane to fly back home, and in that moment I realised that my future is empty.
I had exams, I had to work, I had to travel... Now there's nothing I have to. Yes I could look for a job, but why should I? I cannot think of myself here, in my hometown, bored as shit, working 8 hours per day and spending all of the money travelling away from here.
I will just get out of here.
I want to take back the happiness that I left Vienna.
I want, I want, we all want so many things, but most of the time we want it while we lye on our bed, or while we're having a chat with a friend. Gandhi said that "the difference between what we do and what we are capable of doing would suffice to solve most of the world's problems", and I've never read a quote that was so right.

After 15 days made of 15 hours sleep 2 hours eat 6 hours chat with my friends and browse all airline websites I decided that I really had to do something, I must get myself out of here, I want to live my life! I want to wake up near the person I love, stand up and see that out of my window there is an amazing city to discover, a city full of chances: new people, new work, new language, new friends, new activities..well, a new life!

So, I stood up from the floor and wrote down what I wanted to do. I was a bit scared, because the plan ended up like "I'm gonna collect as many job interview as possible and I am going to Munich for them. They will hire me: perfect. They will not hire me: I'll keep searching. I am ready to 'throw' myself, and I'd do anyhing in order to achieve the goals I set".

But it took time to click on the botton "buy". Then I thought about something! I actually spent a lot of time in my life tring to become more German, more Scandinavian, but actually the very lucky events of my life have made me more Andalucian... Therefore I questioned myself "ey, ¿no hay huevos?" and I bought the ticket straight away...
I explain: asking "¿no hay huevos?" is truely challenging, it literally means "got no balls?" and when someone says it to you, you're practically bound to do what has been said to do.

Now, I am pretty proud of myself. Hay huevos, and I am moving to make a change in my life. I think it is something normal to do, but many of us are scared, they're scared of the unknown, they should just let go and think that most of the time in the unknown there are the most precious things we can meet. We should never afraid of the adventure, our own life should be a masterpiece (yes, Oscar Wilde) and if it's not us working on it, who should? God? Bha, he has never been seen, as far as I know.

I have seen my grandmothers telling me that life should go like study->get married->have kids->take care of them->teach them how to live their life according to the standads->wait to die, and I've see those women very unhappy at age 50 when their kids were gone, I've seen them realising that they lived their life wrong because they haven't thought about their own happiness, they just adapted to the standards and did what they were told to.

We must be different.

Being happy is so easy, you just have to try all, until you understand what is it that you like, and then you just have to chase the things you like.
I've heard of a book called "Into the wild", its writer says:
"So many people live within unhappy circumstances and yet will not take the initiative to change their situation because they are conditioned to a life of security, conformity, and conservatism, all of which may appear to give one peace of mind, but in reality nothing is more dangerous to the adventurous spirit within a man than a secure future. The very basic core of a man's living spirit is his passion for adventure. The joy of life comes from our encounters with new experiences, and hence there is no greater joy than to have an endlessly changing horizon, for each day to have a new and different sun."
and I agree with him.

I could be a living proof that this lifestyle is pretty good.
We never know, unless we try.
I'm leaving in 2 days.

And my latest post was one year ago...

By chance I ran into my blog which I totally forgot of. My first and last post is dated 15 january 2012. I started a blog because I wanted to write about my travels, and spread to other people the marks that those travels left on me. But then it all suddenly changed.
I was that king of girl who doesn't go out at weekends because she has nothing interesting to do out there, the girl that no one really called, someone considered me a ghost, who appears once in a while, tells everything about her crazy plans and then disappears again for months.

My life was boring but quite ok until in September 2011, when I was emailed by Ludwig Maximilians University of Munich. One week before erasmus they wrote me that my learning agreement was not accepted and I could not take any course. All my dreams crashed. Life's a shit because I am so close to such an important thing which could have been the point where I could start a new life. I can never have a joy. I'm such a failure. Yes, ok, I faced it, I felt bad about it and I didn't even tell anyone I was not departing anymore. I spent 5 months in my hometown when most of people believed I was in Munich. Nobody seemed to be bothered.

But when we're desperate, we discover that we're strong: I applied for another erasmus, one day before the deadline, inventing a new learning agreement and collecting all required documents in one day. I was told it was not possible, but I got the scholarship in the end anyway.
Because I never stop saying to myself that if I want something, I am definitely going to get it.

29 february 2012. Beginning of a new life.
I took most of my exams in january/february, packed 60 kg of luggage and took a train straight to Vienna, it was a hell of journey, 14 hours, snow, cold, loud people on the train, my mp3 out of battery, but as I stepped off the train I felt so good as I never did before, the air was fresh, and it smelled like new life.

I thought I had time for blogging, I didn't know anyone in Vienna. I was so wrong, I made more friends in 2 weeks in Vienna than 20 years in my hometown. When you are alone and enthusiastic about life, you make friends a lot easily.

In Vienna I had no time to blog, no time to study, no time to read, I was always outside, meeting people and experiencing new things. The life that I had in 5 months is way more interesting than the other 20 years of life I had before.
I met people from all over the world, I was in the metro at 3 in the morning, I slept in my clothes (+shoes + bag), slept in front of my house door, sang songs I hated, danced disgusting music with a smile on my face, woke up with someone I couldn't remember of, spoke 6 different languages in one night, cooked what I want, lost kilos, gained happiness, fell in love, cried looking at the person I loved fading away as the train left to the airport, opened my fridge in order to study inside of it when the weather was 40°. I did so many things I can't remember of. Some where shameful, some were epic, and after all I had the time of my life.

When we come back from erasmus, we become foreigners in our own countries. So many people forgot us, so many people hate us because we changed, and some are happy to see us again. But we look ourselves in mirros and cannot recognise our face in that environment. We miss our friends, we miss the life we got used to. We go back to our university, which looks like shit to us, we hang out in our hometowns, which look so empty. Some people can actually deal with it, and come back to the life they had before. But I have never met any. Most of us start searching new ways to leave the homecountry again, Erasmus placement, Leonardo, we travel all around Europe to meet our friends again, and we spend ours videocalling us via skype, or writing KMs containing all updates about our lives.
Erasmus scholarship can finish, but Erasmus spirit cannot.