Me as an explorer

I don’t like labels but one thing that has characterized me since childhood is my insatiable curiosity and my need for personal experience, as a means of accepting as my truth. In order to satisfy this need, I consciously seek to subject myself constantly to new conditions, outside of the box and my usual experiences, so that on the one hand I can grow and on the other hand I can get to know my reactions and limits on different courses…

When you come into contact with the unknown, you initially fear the new and that can easily block you from taking action. But, as with all fears, once you recognize that this is exactly the mechanism, you can very easily operate despite it and transform it into enthusiasm and drive. And when you do that often, the process is almost automated! The key attitude to this, is that I allow myself to make as many mistakes as needed to learn. Exculpation, ladies and gentlemen! Put that word in your life! It’s a great liberator! I personally have accepted my mistakes as an essential element in the learning process and feel free to enjoy the process.

I have jokingly named this piece of me Jack (by Jack Sparrow from the film Pirates of the Caribbean), because I imagine myself as a pirate who raises his banner and laughs loudly, as he only feels alive when preparing to travel to the unknown! I love this guy! He makes me feel alive! He’s lighting my flame! My favorite way to connect with Jack and keep him happy is to travel as much as I can! Maybe, all of a sudden, at 11 o’clock at night, I’ll take my bag and my camera, spend my last money on gasoline, and go to Olympus, my favorite mountain, because Jack wishes to see the stars and dawn from a vantage point! and he’s always so right…

Previously, I worked as a tour operator. In those years I had the opportunity to dream of many new places and organize adventures for other people. When this ended with my decision that office life does not suit me and that it was time to devote myself to art, this part of adventure left the dreamworld and began to become a reality!

One of the many things that excites me about my relationship with Jack is that I keep learning how little you really need to survive and be happy! I experienced this in my own skin especially at the Camino de Santiago-French Route, where for forty days I lived with all my belongings in an 8-liter backpack that lacked nothing. The other thing that has helped me evolve is the mindset that everything I need exists around me and can be used on occasion e.g., a piece of cloth (a sarong) can be used as a garment, as a towel, as a sheet, as a hat, as a divider, as sunshade, as a transfer vessel, as a connecting rope and as a bandage. Imagine what you can do with a stick, with a rock etc. so I enter into the process of thinking as a minimalist and alternatively.

When I’m not traveling, I always spend hours organizing another trip. It’s important you don’t just dream about it but also plan. I search for routes, study maps and guides maybe a little bit the language of the country, culture etc. Put the well-known website “Rome to Rio” on your homepage, it will change your life ha ha ha! And it’s a myth that in order to travel you need a lot of money. You don’t. What you need is organization and quitting your wasteful consumeristic habits. Get used to putting the money you would give, for example. in takeaway coffee or in another garment that will be stacked in your closet, in moneybox that symbolizes your dream. Put your energy in the right place (my mantra). For me every trip is a form of higher education, and I consider it the wisest investment in myself and my time.

Jack is surely there on daily life…every morning we have at least half an hour in our routine to learn something new, it is our symbiotic rule. That can be about the new hobby we are experimenting with at the moment, a new technique or a new material for the project I will work with afterwards. Together, we are looking for new music for the playlist for the road that will have traffic or the afternoon walk, we order new books,  we see videos for tool and machine operation. Yes, we try gimmicks, we learn how to plant and grow flowers, we learn video editing online (yes, we are about to conquer YouTube! lol!), we try new  recipes, whatever our curiosity asked for us (sky is not the limit). Lately, he has even suggested roller skating at forty-four! Whatever Jack says! This website was Jack’s idea too, because I have no knowledge of how to maintain a website, nor have I ever been involved in digitizing and organizing my material, but we’ll learn together by moving on and we’ll travel online as it seems!  This way we can share with you the material of our adventures, the old and the new ones that we are planning and we will reveal along the way. And you never know; maybe sometime we might see your own wavy pirate flag on top of the opposite mountain 🙂

Well, safe travels and enjoy the journey!