This Port in a Storm

 So the title may be a bit misleading.  Kind of sounds like I've been through this terrible circumstance and was desperate for anything that would shelter me, as the "Any port in a storm" saying describes.

This hasn't been that.  As I've likely described, I chose South Africa as a kind of respite from being as complete a foreigner as I am in many places, with neither the language skills nor the social skills to form and sustain interactions with the people around me.  But that doesn't mean South Africa felt like my only choice, or that I felt that if I didn't find an English-speaking country or region quickly I'd be in some dangerous dark place or something.  South Africa has been a point of interest to me since learning about apartheid in middle school, and climbed the list after meeting a remarkably diverse set of people while teaching in China.  One country contained multitudes, and I've been curious to explore that further, particularly as someone from a country that used to proudly title itself "the melting pot."

Used to.  *ahem*

 In my typical somewhat lackadaisical approach to choosing new places, though, I'd done little advance research on the actual culture of this country, the history beyond just the '80s, and so on.  What I didn't know or expect was that I'd find what has been by far the friendliest people I've encountered.

Now, I should define that further.  Many people in America are friendly.  I often felt at least tentatively accepted and appreciated by the local teachers in China.  I wouldn't even go so far as to characterize Bulgaria or even Georgia as unfriendly, just...more selective.  But from almost the moment I landed, I felt the difference here, and the more I've gotten out and talked to people, the more that's been confirmed.  Basically all the South Africans I've met, which has admittedly and unfortunately been almost exclusively the white South Africans, have been genuinely interested, open, welcoming, and helpful, often proactively so.  Offering rides, suggesting things to see and do, asking more probing questions and interacting meaningfully with the answers.  For a country as beset by crime as this one is, it hasn't seemed to jade the people that much, and that's just remarkable to me.

As an example of this, my AirBnB hosts volunteered (almost pushed, honestly) to take me out to the shoreline nearby, specifically the area near the Sacramento trail.  As I've done before, I've lumped all this into a single photo album for free perusal (or not).  I would like to highlight how crazy dense the coastline/"beach" was with shells, including some that got fairly large.  This section of the coast is very rocky, but with formations and erosion patterns that made me wish I'd studied more geology so I could understand how they formed.  I mean, look at this.  It's so vastly different to anything I've seen in the US, even along the coasts.  Parts of South Africa are also popular surfing destinations, and with these waves I could see why, though the Sacramento trail area is far too dangerous (obviously).

Beyond that, I've been making a pretty dedicated effort to find D&D players and games.  It's something that was a primary hobby back in the US, and for a slew of reasons that aren't important, playing online just isn't something I can get into and enjoy.  So while I'm back where English is dominant, it seemed like a good idea to enjoy that some more.  I've returned to pole classes after over a month off for the cyst removal, and found that I lost some strength and conditioning over the gap that's coming back pretty quickly.   I'm likely to be taking four classes a week by the time I'm ready to leave here.  
Well, rephrase: by the time I have to leave because my visa has run out.  I'm getting a sense that I won't be *ready to leave* at that point.

At the moment, I don't know that I have much more to say.  Got another picture of the cursed Ibises that are loud and obnoxious, a picture of a couple little lizard friends, and a mediocre picture of the red moon that resulted from the lunar eclipse that occurred here.  There's also this very bold store claim.

Now for a sight on what's coming next.
I'd initially leaned towards Nairobi, Kenya as my next destination.  Relatively close, a place of interest for some time, and with fairly common English, it seemed like a good transition of sorts.  However, in looking at Kenyan visa processes, I found that like many countries, I need to have onward travel booked in order to apply for the visa.  This meant figuring out before I left where I'd be going afterwards.  Given I'm still sort of stumbling around out here, this level of planning was somewhat new.  Sure, I'd had my whole path laid out and planned, but that was all in service of a particular goal or process; this is just living.

So off I set to figure out where I'd go next.  It was in that process that I realized that of the southeast Asian countries, Vietnam is among the only ones where there's any time of the year I'd actually enjoy it, and even that's only northern Vietnam and only during the winter.  If I stayed in Kenya for a month or two, I'd be leaving in December or January.  Having been to Vietnam before, I'm fairly confident I'd be content there for a longer stay (tourist visa caps at 90 days there); I also need to work on more stable, consistent travel because each relocation costs nearly a week of productivity and that is crippling if you move once a month or so.  
That put me in Vietnam from January to March, maybe early April...by which time it's already getting back towards the high 70s, 80s.  However, I realized that if I went to Vietnam *first*, I'd be there during the thick of winter when the temperatures would be most amenable to me.  So that's next.

Vietnam also has an onward travel requirement, though, so I had to look at what came after that.  Nairobi is entering one of their hotter times of the year in March/April, but cools down a bit by June/July; so I needed to find something more winter/spring until then.  I was first drawn to Eastern Europe, then specifically to Riga, Latvia.  So that'll follow Vietnam, then Nairobi, and honestly after that I expect to return here to Gqeberha, South Africa.  It's early yet, of course, having only been three weeks, but a large part of me could see making this a regular part of my rotation even as far away from everything as it is.

So that's the next year sketched out.  At the very least, Vietnam > Latvia is semi-solid (though not booked yet, waiting on a couple of larger jobs to pay out).  I wouldn't want to return to South Africa until May or so to avoid their summer, but Nairobi fits nicely in there both climate-wise and geographically.

 It's all quite the adventure.

The overdue travel post

 Oh hey it's me.

It's been a while, partly because I've been traveling and partly because settling into Gqeberha has been a bit more of a process than other places.  There are a few possible reasons for this, but they all pretty much boil down to me not wanting to make two or three shopping trips in a single day, and how inadequate one trip is for actually setting up a new home space.

But I'm getting ahead of myself.

As with some other trips, I took a handful of pictures that have no specific context, so I'm going to link the whole album.  The pictures with some commentary will have it through this post, and the rest will just be free to leaf through or not, as you will.

On Wednesday, 20 August, I boarded a bus out of Batumi heading for Tbilisi.  Near the bus station in Batumi, they were building some new land in the Black Sea for a big luxury hotel.  I'm not sure what part of the process this is, but it amused me.
The cost of a flight from Batumi to Tbilisi was low, but the cost of a bus and hotel was lower.  So that made the decision pretty easy.  I'm glad I did, too - the scenery was pretty gorgeous.  I didn't realize how mountainous Georgia really is, nor did I expect to be going through as many tunnels as there were on the highway between the two cities.  I also didn't expect cows on the highway to be a regular thing.  I took relatively few pictures on the bus, because as you can see, the windows were pretty bad.

The hotel where I stayed had some pretty stunning views on the rooftop terrace where the included breakfast was served.  Speaks more to just how mountainous the region is.

The next morning, after seeing in the Tbilisi airport one of my top three favorite Barry's (alongside Bonds and Manilow), I boarded a plane to Hoda Airport in Qatar.  Qatar Airways, like many airlines outside the US, sort of puts our airlines to shame with the service.  This was a standard flight, 3-4 hours, but it was still a full meal service.  I also didn't expect it to be foggy in Qatar.

I assume that Qatar is much like a lot of the Middle East, especially the Arabian Peninsula, in that it sort of has more money than it knows what to do with so it approves rather large, overdesigned projects intended to flaunt that wealth and draw in more tourism and such.  The airport certainly fits that description with this large central faux forest area.  Beautiful and pleasant to walk through as a change from the standard sterile airports you see everywhere else, but feels out of place somehow. 
The airport also has these self-promo videos playing throughout the terminal, celebrating, I think, the 20th or 25th anniversary of the airport, or maybe celebrating making "Best Airport 2025" or something.  I wasn't entirely clear on it.  But when I say "throughout the terminal," I mean everywhere.  The red circles indicate three screens playing these videos that could be seen from one place. 

I spent about 6 hours in this airport before my flight to Cape Town, which was nearly 10 hours.  I spent another 4-6 hours laid over in Cape Town, which was also more mountainous than I expected, before my little flight to Gqeberha.  The airport had a display case of animal products that were confiscated, which I found interesting...and hard to take pictures of due to the glare.  Wasn't just me, either; as I was standing nearby, I watched four or five more people come up and struggle with it.
I got in to Gqeberha fairly late evening, maybe 7pm, but being that it's coming out of winter down here, it was getting dark already.
A note about Gqeberha: the name is actually from Xhosa, which is one of the 'click languages' of Africa.  Which means that the pronunciation is actually impossible to write out in a way that is clear to readers unfamiliar with the language and how it's written.  So just be aware that whenever you see it here, it probably doesn't sound like you think it does.  You can look up pronunciation videos if you're curious. 

 My stay here is an adorable little tiny home-esque place, what I believe is often called a "mother-in-law suite" because it's a fully contained, separate home on the property of another house.  I later learned this is one of two stays on the same property, along with the home itself.  This is the first time in my nomad travels that I've stayed in an AirBnB where the host lives on the same property.  I imagine it's pretty rare, of course, since most places I look for are fully-contained apartments so I'm not sharing a kitchen or bathroom with anyone.  These hosts also set themselves apart immediately by being the most welcoming, personable, and supportive people I think I've met.  I've known hotel staff to make less effort than these lovely folks.  They helped me get my luggage in, asked if I needed anything, took me around to multiple stores to find a new chair, and more that I can't think of right now.  Spoiling me rotten, quite frankly.

My explorations of Gqeberha have been minimal so far, mostly limited to shopping trips and very very nearby things.  But the little things still intrigue me, like how some familiar companies make different products here, or how some products exist here that I've never seen.

Finally being in an English-dominated area, though, has also lead me to seek out D&D again, and I've found a few people with whom I can play.  It'll be interesting to see if there are any cultural differences in how people perceive the game, how they run it, and so on.  Either way, I'm looking forward to it as one of the things I miss most from the US. 

 South Africa does, however, have these bastards.  These are the Hadada Ibis, and they're really annoying.  They have a tendency to fly over the house at 6am making their ridiculous, ear-splitting scream.  It's not just 6am, of course - they can be heard throughout the day, alongside some very persistent doves.  I think I heard an owl late last night as well.  One of my friends once commented that for those who have an ear to it, one of the culture shock elements of traveling can be how the birdcalls just...don't sound quite right from one place to another due to different species and such.  This is the first time I've noticed it, and it's mostly because these ibises are so obnoxious.

In closing for this post: an amusing sign inside an eatery. 

Wrapping up Georgia

 Been quite a while since my last post.  Which I think I sort of warned about.  Truth is, as I may have said before, being a nomad is just having a different backdrop every so often - you're still living your life day to day.  Still working, still cooking, still chores, and so on.  And among all that isn't necessarily interesting, exciting, or noteworthy stuff happening.

I will say about Batumi that I've warmed to it over the weeks.  I'll probably come back someday, if only to give the city and the culture a fair shake.  Maybe I'll go elsewhere in Georgia, I don't know yet.  But I've definitely come to recognize just how much a bad first impression soured the whole experience.  Maybe it's finding myself in candy bar form.

Probably not that one.

In part, I'm sure it's the walk I took one overcast morning a couple weeks ago.  I hadn't gotten down to the waterfront for more than a brief glance, and I wanted to see more of it further north.  Batumi continues to have Vegas vibes even in its footbridges.  This statue or sculpture or whatever the word is was nifty, kinda making the roundabout more thematic or something.  One thing I've noticed about Batumi is that where Plovdiv had stray cats, Batumi has dogs.  They're a larger animal so maybe fewer of them overall, but still notable.  I don't have a picture of this, but sometimes they sleep just splayed out across a sidewalk and do not care about how much they're disrupting foot traffic.  Almost charming, really.

The waterfront is decorated with some parks, ponds, and such.  I took this picture, one of two at least, to kinda show how the rapid touristy development kinda clashes at times with the older, dilapidated buildings around them, not just in recency of construction but in style and purpose.  These new buildings are meant to show off, to be glaring and obvious.  The older ones were meant to be lived in, even if they're dense.

Then of course there's the beach in Batumi, with bigger waves than I expected (my lack of education showing perhaps), some neat geological diversity, and this dock or whatever that's under construction.

Seriously though.  I did not expect these waves.

 On my walk back, I went around the pond on the other side, finding a bridge to a cocktail bar on a pond island.  A nearby restaurant had some interesting little historical miniatures ("It's only a model").

And home I went.  It was nice to get out, to see more, and not be melting along the way.

During the past week or so, the temperature has been dropping a bit, and the humidity *really* reducing.  I went on another walk that was mostly just getting out in the less awful weather, though I still got some pictures of the diverse attractions dotting the waterfront, this neat archway, and a ramp to the center of the earth.  Good to know that Hades is ADA compliant at least.

 I've gotten out to eat a couple times.  In my last post, I noted how Wendy's here has a pizza side.  I had to try it, naturally.  They call this the "Baconator" pizza.  It's...odd.  I mean, the pepperoni is on point, Plovdiv pizza didn't have that.  But the bacon seems like they just kind of held it up to a heatlamp for a second before baking the pizza, resulting in a very soft, almost worryingly undercooked texture.  And apparently bacon wasn't enough so they have ham on there too.  It's a strange creation.
But it's still pizza and I still ate it.

The other dining experience of note was this tikka masala.  And this comes with what I think is a funny story.

Keen-eyed observers might notice that there's no rice on that table.  Anyone familiar with Indian food knows that typically, at least in American and China, these dishes are served with rice.  This one?  Just bread.  Wasn't really naan, one of the two main kinds of Indian bread, but wasn't quite the normal local bread style either.

But the things get set down, and I just stare at it for a moment.  I know how to eat this with rice.  I don't know how I'm supposed to eat it with just bread.  Obviously I could simply fork up the chicken chunks and then sop the bread in the sauce, but if that's somehow rude or transgressive, I didn't want to be "that guy."  I really spend a not-insignificant amount of worry on whether I'm being "that guy."
So I went up to the waitress, who had proven to have at least a small smattering of English, and said "Excuse me.  I have a very stupid question.  How am I supposed to eat this?"

The question, unfortunately, was a language barrier all its own.  "How" turned out to not be a word she was particularly familiar with.  So we kind of went back and forth a bit, her explaining what I'd ordered and then asking if it wasn't good, and me trying to explain what I'm used to and understand the difference.  Finally, she just said something to the effect of "You can use the bread, and a spoon is okay."

These would be much more amusing, pleasant moments and memories if I weren't a deeply socially anxious person.  Instead, I often leave them feeling like I could've should've would've handled it better, even though I did my best and that's all I can expect of myself.  There's a reason I very purposefully chose an English-speaking country as my next destination.  I really do need a break from the barriers.

I leave Batumi on the 20th, Wednesday.  Bus to Tblisi with an overnight stay there, flight to Port Elizabeth/Gqeberha from there (two transfers, I think).  I'm not "done" with this country, but I'm looking forward to the next.

 

Batu-not for -mi

 It's been...a bad week.  Not going to sugar coat that.

My experience thus far with Batumi's 'pedestrian' culture (the vibe walking around) is that people just generally want you to go away.  There's this attitude exhibited by many peoples' actions that can best be described as "You're in my way."  It manifests in domineering sidewalk control, lack of considerate space-making, and the occasional near-miss of actually running into someone who refuses to squeeze even a little bit on a narrow path.  It's not everyone, I hasten to say, but it's enough that someone accustomed to American sidewalks where you almost make too much space for each other feels rather aggressed against.

But hey, at least this store believes in me.  And this packet of M&Ms really understands.

A day or two after I finally got settled in my apartment, I found an open balcony on the other side of the building, part of the staircase.  It provided an amazing view of Batumi away from the beach, informing just how large this city is.  I got some general pictures while wandering around as well, really just showcasing the high-rises that contribute to my impression of a town that grew up too fast and now has a lot of excess housing available that has been bought up by foreign investors.  And that's not just tin-foil stuff - my current landlord is from China, and as far as I can tell may even live there.

Still, there's beauty here that isn't lost on me.  And I was absolutely right about the amazing sunsets.  The beach is mostly rocky with lovely neutral tones.  It's a bit less comfortable to walk up and down than a more typical sandy beach due to the uneven, hard terrain, though deeper sands can be just as obnoxious.

I had my first pole class on Wednesday, a class lead by and primarily populated with Russians.  In an unfamiliar twist, there were two boys there, best guess 9 and 15, who had clearly been training for some time.  The teacher had some English skill and I was able to work well enough, though my constant sweatmonsterhood means that I struggle with grip.  Unlike Plovdiv, this studio doesn't have chalk handy, so I may want to invest in some myself if I can figure out how.

And really, that's the main issue I'm facing - I don't know how to do things right now.  I struggle with the idea of making local acquaintances because I know that I'm doing so primarily to have them as a resource, and that seems impersonal and unfair.  So I don't try, even knowing there are people out there who would be quite fine with the social exchange of a new, interesting person's perspective in "trade" for help navigating, and even those who just love sharing the things they enjoy with people who would otherwise not find them.  It's enough, though, for my social anxiety to keep me from trying.  So I don't try many new places, I don't go out much, I don't find the different resources I may know about with more local support...and I feel bad.  Miserable, at times, particularly when I get sick yet again like I did Thursday night (another cold, I'm very susceptible to them for some reason).

As such, I've decided after Batumi to do something of a reset.  I've booked in Gqeberha, South Africa (formerly Port Elizabeth) starting in late August and running through early October (with option to extend, if I can find the housing, as I have 90 days visa-free in South Africa).  It'll be back in an English-speaking area, late winter into spring (forecast for the next ten days is 60s and 70s with ~50% humidity and fairly frequent precipitation, all things I'm quite comfortable with).

I'll probably come back to Batumi at some point, just as I'll probably go back to Plovdiv.  I just need to get myself a bit more rounded and grounded, develop some functional skills (particularly cooking and shopping) to ease new area transitions, and just generally rest up from being in linguistically isolating areas for a minute.  Hopefully I'm right that it'll all be good for me.  If not...well, everything always works out.

In closing, apparently Wendy's has some different offerings in Batumi, and sometimes your Uber is inexplicably a mini party bus.

  

Plovd-Istan-Batumi

 The day finally arrived.

I took a taxi to Автогара Юг (Avtogara Yug), the bus terminal in Plovdiv, where I boarded a bus headed for Istanbul.  I got to see some of the surrounding area that I'd had no way to see before (since my train arrived pretty late and I didn't have a car to get outside the city).  The bus also provided snacks, kinda like a plane, with these meme-worthy muffins and a way of packaging water I'd definitely never seen before.

We went through the Bulgarian border with a passport control stop just before entering Turkey, for which there was another border stop.  I found it only a little strange that there'd be two separate stops, since there was no way in or out between them - all traffic going through one also went through the other except maybe for staff of the border crossings.

The Turkish countryside looked not unlike the area near Plovdiv, which of course makes sense given it was a couple hours' drive at most.  The Sea of Marmara on the southern edge of Turkey, which I didn't know was a thing specifically, provided a rather lovely backdrop to this town, and I was struck by how common mosques are in Turkey.  Vaguely reminiscent of churches in the US, though slightly more distinctive.  I also had no idea sunflowers were such a major crop near Istanbul.  Seriously.

 The bus arrived in Esenler Otogar, a pretty large and busy bus terminal on the northwestern side of Istanbul.  The walk to the hotel was short but rather challenging with my giant suitcase, carry-on, and laptop bag, so I didn't get any pictures until actually reaching my room.  It was an uneventful, unremarkable night, other than the calls to prayer happening over giant PA system throughout the city (there are speakers on those mosque towers, replacing the human criers who traditionally would do the call to prayer).  In the morning, I went to the hotel's somewhat unfamiliar breakfast spread and set out.

Now, here's where everything kinda started falling apart.

For background, I'm on a quest to see how far around the world I can get without flying, starting in the US and heading east.  While in Plovdiv, I'd tried to book my bus ticket between Istanbul and Batumi, Georgia.  The booking went through, the charge was finalized...and my ticket never came.  I tried to call them, but their phone number bounced.  I emailed them to ask about it, and the charge was reversed with no further explanation or contact of any kind.  So I thought, fine, I'll just go in on the day and arrange it in person.

Evidently that was the wrong choice.  Whether it's due to being a weekend, or because I just underestimated how busy a route this is, the buses operated by two separate bus lines, both Saturday and Sunday, were totally full.  Rather than pushing until I found a day with an available seat, I decided to just dump the money into a flight.  It'd be expensive (in the realm of $550 including a checked bag) but it'd get me to Batumi and let me start on the process of getting back to work earlier, as well as not spending two days in Istanbul where I'd have to put in money for hotels and food all day.  Being in a somewhat low financial state, I didn't have much to draw from for exploring the city, seeing the sights, etc.

So I've broken the no flying 'rule' (more like guideline), and I still haven't decided if this means the whole quest is over or if I'll take it as a circumstantial disruption and know that the route still exists, I just wasn't able to get it due to time and money constraints. 

 I got a taxi to the airport.  I was a little surprised to see evergreens in Turkey, just because I tend to think of it as arid and warm enough to not really have a winter that'd require coniferous vegetation.  Maybe that just speaks to me as a Coloradoan not "respecting" other climates and their snow.  I failed to get a picture of the large mosque just outside the airport, but did get a picture of an amusing cafe inside.  For those who aren't perpetually online, that pose and outfit are part of a meme of a guy sprinkling...something.  Sometimes it's fairy dust, sometimes it's words; standard of the Internet, it's been adopted for a lot of different purposes.  I didn't learn until finding the link for the meme explanation that the person in question is actually a Turkish chef.

The airport, like many I've seen, is part transportation terminal and part shopping mall, with Unifree, the shop on the left there, being apparently profitable enough to have numerous locations within the airport.  I didn't shop around due to a strong desire to not be lugging even more crap everywhere with me, but I did have dinner at Pasa Doner (seen on the right).  Some kind of kebab meat rolled into a wrap.  Pretty tasty.  I'm not sure where these packages got their name, but I saw something similar on a Doordash-esque menu in Plovdiv so I assume it's a more widespread brand that inexplicably doesn't exist in the state that bears its name.  Would guess that it's not referring to the US state at all, really, but I'm too lazy to find answers.

Turkish Airways, like many airlines outside the US, shames US airlines with their included offerings, even on a little one-hour flight without generally being any more expensive.  Obviously there are a lot of factors that go into that, but it's still somewhat noteworthy to me.  All our race-to-the-bottom airlines offering five peanuts and a ginger ale, and in other countries (including China, Japan, Vietnam, and Turkey at least) there's basically a full meal available.  Oh well.

After the passport stop in Batumi (the agent skipping page 10 for some reason despite it being empty), I made the classic Georgian tourist mistake of getting a taxi right outside the airport.  Honestly I am embarrassed as hell because every site I've gone to has warned about this.  And with good reason.  They speak quickly with limited English, they sort pass you around a bit from driver to driver, and they only take cash so you don't necessarily know how much the value is yet.  Every site I've visited since last night looking for any kind of traveler advice for Georgia says not to take airport taxis.  Now I have 130 reasons to agree, since that was the cost (in Georgian Lari) of the 15-ish minute taxi ride...the equivalent of about $45.

The mess didn't end there, however.  My AirBnB host's check-in process for this place was basically "sneak in the apartment building door when someone else comes out, wait for someone to use the elevator to get up to the right floor, and my friend will give you the key."  The actual check-in instructions, however, only say "my friend will give you the key," so the rest is...yeah.  For several reasons, this didn't work out at 10pm when I got there, so I wound up getting a hotel for the night.  Had a nice view at least.  The beach also has a whole fairgrounds thing going on, and last night even fireworks (as well as loud music pretty late into the night, like 2-3am late).  So, not a great restful night.  

I finally got in contact with the host at 1am or so, got better instructions and the friend's phone number, and today around 12:15 pm, got into the actual apartment.  It's not a bad place, honestly, and like many places in high-rise-riddled Batumi, has a pretty great view of the Black Sea.  Best part is, the apartment faces west (as it'd need to to overlook the Black Sea, of course) so I'll have some great sunsets right from my patio.

My research into Batumi showed that it occasionally hits the low 80s, but hovers in the mid-high 70s most of the time, and I thought this would mean I'd be freer to explore and wander than I was in Plovdiv's 83-95 degree weather.  What I didn't take into account was how 87 degrees with 25% humidity can actually be just as unpleasant as 77 degrees with 92% humidity.  It's another day that I'm wishing I'd waited until fall to start this journey, rather than going through summer.  Someday in the near-ish future, I'll be free to make my destination choices based more on climate; this quest rather locked me into a route, so I've just been kind of enduring the climate wherever it is.

I got back from my first little shopping trip, more of an exploratory expedition than an actual stock-up, a little while ago and had PB&J, chips, coke, and a candy bar for whatever meal it qualifies as.  Another perk of this apartment in particular is that there's a small-mid grocery store on the ground floor, meaning I barely have to go outside at all to access at least the basics.  I'm probably going out again later to a larger shop for more actual food, or at least to round out the remaining needs of the apartment (Kleenex, a couple cooking utensils, a trash bin for the bathroom).  But I'm spending a fair bit of time today just kind of crashed out, recovering from the last couple days' stress and frustrations.

It ain't all sunshine and rainbows out here.  But I have yet to truly regret this lifestyle I've chosen for a single minute. 

Winding down

2/3 loaf of bread.
4 pouches ramen.
2 sausages.

I have one week left in Plovdiv, and I find myself realizing that I'll need to have most of my food gone by the time I leave - anything left over will probably be thrown out, either by me or by the hosts when they clean up and prep for the next guest.

1/2 block of garlic butter.
2 snack croissants.

I talked to my pole teacher briefly before class on Monday.  "I'll be leaving Plovdiv in about a week, and I haven't really gone anywhere or done anything yet.  What would you suggest?"  She laughed.  "You sound like my ex-boyfriend.  He was here through the Air Force for three months when we met, and he hadn't gone anywhere yet either."  She had some suggestions, none of which I've done yet for the same reason I hadn't up until this point - I'm a marshmallow in a human skinsuit, and I start melting into misery at circa 26C / 78F.  And it's been pretty consistently in the 30s/80s for the whole time I've been here.

1 jar of honey, mostly full.
1 jar of peanut butter, nearly empty. 

I keep telling myself I'll go on x day.  Wednesday.  Friday.  Sunday.  Each one passes by without me going anywhere or doing anything.  The heat remains my chief excuse, but at some point I have to wonder if it's more.

3 Monster energy drinks.
2-2L bottles of Coke.

There's a thing in...I'll call it social psychology, though please know that's not an official term (or really even a defined thing I don't think) called "body doubling."  It's the idea, prominent in neurodivergent individuals (those with autism and ADHD, as well as other non-typical traits), that just having another person nearby, even without interacting or sharing a particular activity, helps boost productivity, focus, and executive function.

8 pouches of microwave popcorn.
1/2 pouch of "American potato" seasoning.

I think this is a major reason I saw more in Harbin than I have here, despite being softly interested in seeing some things.  In Harbin, I had the other international teachers, and while I didn't form active friendships or outside-of-work interactions with all of them, they were still about as foreign to their environment as me, and exploring it together was easier.  

2 jars of jelly, each less than half full.

It's just hard to do things alone sometimes.  It's hard to leave the house alone, walk somewhere alone, and wander around an archaeological or historical site or older part of town more pedestrian-oriented and culturally maintained when there's no one to actively share it with.  Someone to point out things you don't see, to bounce ideas or theories or just observations off of, to joke with, to pool knowledge and share support even in something as simple as "I'll keep us from walking into the street while you look up what конски шницел means." 

I finish taking stock of my current foodstuffs and realize I don't really have that much, and that most of what I have is the same stuff I ate in my first and second week.  I've come up with a few new things, but since my next home doesn't have an oven, I've challenged myself not to use one for the last week here in order to start adjusting to the limitation.  I'll have another one, maybe two trips to the store this coming week to make sure I'm still eating well enough until I leave.  My life will return to my two suitcases, I'll take a taxi to the bus station, and in two days I'll be starting to unpack my life in a new town. 

As I navigate, quite honestly, one of the deeper and yet least intense depressive periods of my life, I am often having to remind myself just how little time I've spent out here, just how much my life has changed in three months.  And remind myself that struggling to establish my sense of self, my stability, my mood and work ethic, my hobby activity at home...is all normal and reasonable and valid.  I didn't predict quite how difficult this would be, but that doesn't mean I was entirely unprepared for it, nor does it mean this is how my life will be forever.  The experience of living in Plovdiv taught me a lot about my life and future, broadly speaking: the importance of putting myself out there to make local friends, even short-term ones; the shortcomings in cooking skills and familiarity that I have, especially with more limited kitchens; the danger of letting myself fall into passive patterns, as well as just how few active things I have in my life.

On the bright side, though, each new town is a new start.  Every few months I have the opportunity to eject myself from a comfort zone or trap, discover a new place, redefine my habits, and work towards better balances of all the things I fell into last time, without needing to fight the inertia of still being in the same place.  I used to tell people that one way to look at my nomad life is "staying one step ahead of my depression."  It was only half a joke, if that.  The frequent changes keep me from getting too settled, too inert, too comfortable, because I'm not at my best when I'm comfortable...at least, not yet.

...oh, yeah.  And 1/3 tub of ice cream. 

How do you title

 Been about a tenday since my last update.  I'd say if you're following this, you can expect that kind of posting frequency, possibly even less.

Something that the digital nomad subreddit often says about this lifestyle is that it's really just having a daily life from different places.  Sure, you're in one country one day and a totally different country a couple days later, but for the month or three or eight between those relocations...you're just doing a job, having hobbies, going out or staying in or whatever.  The influencers that try to paint it as working from a beach or sightseeing every day or whatever, like most influencers, are painting a completely unrealistic, fantasy view of it.

 So it is with me.  I haven't posted because honestly there's nothing to post about.  I wake up, feed myself a bit, do some work, and play video games or watch something.  A couple times a week I have pole class.  There may come places where I feel more comfortable venturing out and exploring more, or finding other groups for other activities, or just generally figuring out how to be more social while still being true to myself - the club and bar scene is so not me, after all, since I don't drink and don't like loud places with chaotic conversational stuff and so on.  Part of all this might be connecting with other nomads through the various groups and such that exist, but even then, I feel like I'm weird enough compared to the typical person, even the typical nomad, that I'm never sure how to approach that without meeting people I have nothing else in common with.

Never know until I try.

And the other part of the issue is, I'm still learning how to live in this lifestyle.  I'm booking a month in any given place because I haven't yet settled into the idea of how much I should like somewhere, even as I find myself living pretty much the same as I did in the last place.  That can safely be projected forwards: when I'm in Kazakhstan, I'll likely live much as I did in Georgia, which will probably be much as I live today in Bulgaria.  The life of a homebody hermit doesn't really care where it takes place, and since all but two of my primary hobbies are done at home (and one, D&D, requires a group of nerds with strong enough English skills that we can muddle through together) it doesn't much matter.
Point is, I book short stays still and that means I don't bother really settling in and forming local links.  Nothing wrong with that, but I think my approach could be improved.  All part of the process of adapting to a completely new lifestyle.

At any rate.  Walking home from pole class the other day, I took a different route than normal so I could pop into IKEA and buy a new grocery bag since my old one, as you can see, finally gave out.  I came across a neat little park with walking trails and pavilions/grills/picnic/barbecue stuff.  There was also this display about Bulgarian embroidery which sort of hints at the history of the country that I've not, quite frankly, tried to learn.  Another thing that will come as I learn to better navigate this lifestyle - more investment in discovering the country on a deeper level.

As a final note for today, I've decided to move my pole videos over to Instagram.  This keeps them in their own place as well as allowing me to link them from a platform slightly better designed for them than Imgur.  Also allows you, dear reader, to decide if you want to see those by going there and following that, rather than links here or having them jumpscare you while scrolling through the posts/dumps on Imgur.

Just don't accuse me of being an influencer myself.  That's not the life for me.