Hi everybody! It’s time for a little adventure. But before we get to that, I think I should introduce myself first. Feel free to skip to the last paragraph if you don’t give a fuck about me.
When I got unhappy
There was a time, not too long ago, around the beginning of 2010 to be precise, when I dreamed of being a self-employed web developer and go and travel the world and meet loads of super awesome people and do crazy things and become filthy rich while creating a totally earthshaking website now and then, preferably while riding a surf board somewhere between two Fiji islands. This dream popped into my head almost instantaneously after I started as an employee in a nice little company that created websites. I had a steady nine to five job, a decent pay (for someone who just graduated), a company car and a couple of really cool colleagues. The kind of job that everyone would like to stick to for a lifetime…
Getting bored already? Last chance to skip to the interesting part.
When I got scared
But for some reason, I am, and probably always will be the retard that likes to turn his life around completely once a road starts looking a little bit too long and safe. I have this constant fear of being stuck to something. As a child I was afraid of getting stuck in an elevator. Later I was scared of being stuck to a partner and even to life itself. ANYWAY! I guess you could just say I’m a pretty normal guy, trying to practice the freedom he has acquired by quitting his job.
When I thought things would get better
The first years after I quit my job I had a pretty hard time forcing myself to work. Luckily my girlfriend back then “encouraged” me to take my work more seriously. Long story short: I became a workaholic and my girlfriend dumped me because I neglected her.
Present day
And now we are at the beginning of april 2014. I’m without a girlfriend and I’m addicted to work. I spend most of my days inside (or in the garden if it’s a nice day), creating websites or learning useless skills like playing chess and guitar and meanwhile ignoring my social life. But hey, at least I’m “free” and I don’t have to get up at 6 in the morning anymore and go to work! But sadly, that only sounds cool on paper and flat-screens, or when I say it. Or maybe not, if you caught my tone. I’m not a good writer, so you probably didn’t. Well, you probably do now, because I used the word “sadly”. There is also a slight chance you have absolutely no idea what I’m talking about anymore. I already used the all-caps version of the word anyway, so I’m not going to do that again, because it probably wasn’t funny the first time. I’m also the kind of writer that will use the words I, my and me a lot! I have always admired writers that don’t write in the first person all the time to tell something about themselves. I should probably get rid of most of the text in this paragraph, but I will leave it like it is. Just as a reminder to myself how to not write the rest of this blog. Did I tell you this is my first blog, already? I should probably add an option to post a comment too, if I’m going to make a habit of asking non-rhetorical questions. We’ll see.
The future (what’s all this about?)
This blog will be about my travels as a web company. You could compare my company to a traveling circus, or a family of gipsies. But I think there are better comparisons because the only things I have in common with these fellowships is that I try to make a little money while traveling, and that I know a card trick or two.
The first adventure that will be transcribed is a trip I am going to take with an old friend of mine, Brecht Roeblen, who wishes to stay anonymous because he is pretty paranoid about Google tracking his every move. That’s why I didn’t use his real name here and I will censor all photo’s in which he appears. Like so:
Brecht and me will be hitchhiking around eastern Europe and Russia for the next six weeks. We will start in Belgium (Antwerp) and go trough Germany (Berlin), Poland (Poznan, Warshaw), Lithuania (Kaunas, Vilnius), Latvia (Riga), Estonia (Tallinn), Cross the Gulf to Finland (Helsinki), Russia (Saint-Petersburg, Moscow), Belarus (Minsk), Ukraine (Kiev, Odesa), Moldova, Romania (Bucharest, Deva), Hungary (Budapest), Slovakia (Bratislava), Czech Republic (Prague), back to Berlin and then home to Belgium.
I’m not sure why I’m doing all this. Brecht asked me if I wanted to join him on this trip and I said yes. That’s basically what I do: Answer yes when people ask me a question. Unless if it’s about fixing computers.
Well that’s it for now! The coming weeks I will try and post at least one message every day to let my mother know I’m still alive. If you are wondering why I’m writing in English, that’s because my Russian isn’t very good yet and I figure some people we meet on the way (other than Dutch and Flemish people) might be interested in our journey. Feel free to subscribe to the RSS feed as well.