#12 Hitchhiking Baltic Tour: Before the beginning*
Hi there!
I'm so exited to tell you I made THE TRIP. I was dreaming about something like this even before coming to Latvia. One of the reasons why I finally choosed this country for my volunteering was to be able to travel around the Baltics, at the moment I though it could be easy and cheap. Living in Latvia is not as cheap as I thought, not at all. But the trip, yeah, the trip was.
You know, before coming to Latvia I was in a point in my life where I wasn't happy. I mean, I was okay, but I knew my path was somewhere else, and I knew I needed to travel and to meet new people and to live fresh and different situations. To challenge myself. Because I was doing that before, much before, 6 years ago at least, and It felt great. It felt I was being me, fully me, and It kept me active, positive, nonconformist, fighter and happy. But anxiety came and my path changed. You can never tell or predict this emotional issues, they just appear. Since 2017 I've been struggling against that. I stopped my whole life. I quit my role as coordinator in the Greenpeace volunteering local group of my city. I quit the crossfit. I quit the colab with the neuroscience laboratory of my university. I had to extend my psychology studies for another year. Fears came out. I felt empty. I felt I couldn't scape from that. But slowly (and with psychological support and therapy) I started to understand, so I could heal. I learned anxiety is something you cannot avoid, only deal with it in the best way as possible. But what you can do is try to look for the best life for you, the one makes you shine. Then, anxiety will appear less often, I can guarantee you.
For this year I wanted to study a master degree, but I wasn't admitted to any university. On that point, I felt everything in my life was too much as it was too less for my soul. So the month before coming here I knew it was exactly the moment to jump again into this adventurous and full of crazyness path. The path that really feeds my spirit. At the moment I was dreaming about travelling with the backpack, doing hitchhiking, sleeping somewhere for free... It seemed so difficult to reach. Because I was swimming very deep in a non confortable- confortable zone. But life always drives you exactly to the point you need, and you just have to be brave enough to take the opportunity. I was scared, of course I was, but I truly felt it was the right way. At the beggining I was looking for projects in France to improve my french language skills, however, I saw the announcement of this one Radi Vidi Pats organisation in Latvia (I didn't even know where it was Latvia), and something made me apply. Then I understood If I wanted to scape from everything and really get out of my confort zone, I should come to somewhere like Latvia, somewhere I've never been before, with a language I don't speak, with a totally different weather and culture. So I choosed this country. And nowadays I feel extremely lucky for being part of RVP, because it is exactly the place I needed to be, with exactly the people I needed to be surrounded by.
During all this time here I've grown and learned such a lot. I've met tons of different and amazing people and I've gained enough confidence for actually make my dreamy trip on that natural way as I did! It was so easy, funny and exciting to travel by hitchhiking and couchsourfing that It's hard to believe how far away it seemed to me one year ago. I have to say Madalin made it much more easier since he's already such and expert on hitchhiking and I'm glad I travelled with him (even so we wanted to kill each other most of the time haha).
Now you may be wondering: BUT HOW IT WAS THE TRIP?! Let me tell you the whole story in the next three posts, so I can slowly express how wonderful it was. <3
(*) Before the beginning is also the name of one John Frusciante's song. Is the one I was listening on loop while writing this post.