Spent 5 minutes to figure out cheesy title for this blog post and came up with this. As usuall blog is late again. Have been in chch for 2 weeks. At first this post was supposed to be about my first week back in chch but time flies if you are busy. I should really put more focus on my blog. Before starting this post I browsed trough some of my previous posts and these posts made me feel warm and fuzzy inside. It is nice to have a list of things in front of your eyes that you are proud of. Most of the posts I have just posted and not looked them ever again, but because I met a quite ambitious girl from the states who is determined to create blog which can make money, she even has a editor for that. So I started to think about my own blog. Not that I want to make money but kind of reevaluate if it serving its purpose. For now, as a personal public not listed diary I am really satisfied that I have managed to keep my blog. Thou I could use a editor myself as well, some things are pain to read even for myself because of the typos. And reading things that I have written in English don't really look that good as in my head...
Anyway, I have found out that as a traveler it always quite interesting feeling to go back to place you have been before. Because when you travel there is not really a place you can call home but when you return to some place it kind of feels plain and not that interesting as it was first time but it feels kind of cozy and homish (word I made up). Even if it is 8 person dorm with random people.
I got picked up from airport by one of the mates from uk who was still staying in chch. Lot of people from hostel had moved on, as it is appropriate for travelers, some had stayed and there was lot of new people as well.
When I got back to hostel I experienced same kind of deja vu as when I went back to my first hostel in Auckland. Lot of people said hi and greeted me by my name whose names I even didn't know. This made me think for a second am I too self centered and subconsciously refuse to notice people around me who know me or am just friends with lot more people than I thought. Dunno actually which one, but if it is later then apparently I was friends with people who were new in the hostel and who I had never met before, because more than one person said "aah, you are that Janno, I have heard about you". For now I just like to think that I am cool enough.
Back in chch it was time to get back on track, start working to earn money and see what I can do with start up. But to be honest motivation has gone way down with the startup after working on it alone for 2 months and startupweekend was kinnd of peak point of motivation perhaps. Also I have come to conclusion that I can't travel and do business at the same time. I have to pick one and because I really don't want to settle down here in NZ I think I have already made my decision. But on the road I have truly realized that sometimes it's not the destination sometimes it's something on the way.
I have set myself a personal deadline to work on the startup for certain amount time before I move on, just for the fun of it. Traveling is fun and simple life but I kind of feel that I need more challenges in my life and for now this can provide it to me.
If you think about it, this sort of mindset that you have to find always challenges is kind of version of non sexual sadomaso, you are never satisfied and always keep pushing the limits. Instead of sitting put and eating cupcakes you go out and find something that is hard to do and needs lot of effort to achieve. But this is only things that makes you evolve, so there is that.
But finding work as a laborer here doesn't really require any effort chch. Sign up with agencies and just work. Luckily I ended up in couple of construction sites where people I worked with were really cool. One of the jobs I had was to be sort of tradesman helper at construction for 60 year old kiwi who was at first quite skeptical about me when he first saw me because he had shitty experiences with people from agencies and had "we will see if you are any good for anything" attitude. But after he realized that I can speak english we connected pretty well. Because weather was shit and we couldn't work we ended up chatting about life and everything instead (not just small talk how is weather). Travelling between different construction sites, we grabbed coffee and he showed around chch, talked it's history and how was life after earthquake here. For me it is still hard to understand that most of the places were broken, under military control no water and electricity just some time ago. And apparently there is piece of twin towers from 9/11 for the memory of firefighters who lost their lives during the earthquake events. These couple of days kind of made me realize that when it is easier to connect with 60 year old dude than some (pre) 20 year olds in hostel you really have crossed certain age limit. But still if someone asks my age in hostel and I say 22 they don't tend to question it too much and are ok with it. So there is that. On the other hand, in one night there was older dude in the hostel who claimed to be millionaire businessman, football star, married to model and whatnot (but stayed in the hostel 0_o ?) looked in my eyes and said, you look younger but I can see in your eyes that you are actually far older. So there is that as well, can't fool everyone.
As for hostel life, I am back in room "coolio" 127 where fun seems never end. Friday we went to rugby match which is really popular sport around here and apparently other countries as well. Went to the game just because it is part of kiwi experience. Tho crowd was so dull that if someone would read a book there it would have same atmosphere as in library. Peeps from hostel tried to get mexican wave going on but no one eveen blinked.
After the game everyone was free to go game field with rugby players, to take selfies and get autographs. Apparently this is a thing here. For just fun of it we had bunch of selfies with the players, not really knowing who they were, it was hilarious. After we ended up going to some student bar where we hoped to grab couple of beers before going back hostel. But it ended up being really big club/bar thing with massive amount of students. We had to literally wait for 40 minutes or so in line. Waiting in 50 m long and 3 m wide line, you ended meeting lot of new people and having so much fun. And whole evening was so much fun, keywords for the evening: selfies with rugby players, slefie with horse, selfie with policeman and massive student party.
Next day wasn't worse. We had barbecue and continued evening in pub. Apparently I had few drinks more than I thought and my friend tried to train me act sober before going pub (here they are apparently pretty strict about letting drunk people in bar) which was too much fun but really pointless because I had no problem getting in the pub (but my friend got kicked out there later apparently). Massive fun evening, as much I can tell from the pictures afterwards, despite me forgetting to change my clothes before going to bar and ended up looking like really messy hobo who smelled like barbecue.
After recovering from hangover we headed nearby small town called Akaroa. We wanted to do some paddle boarding but ended up just chilling around city and climbing massive nearby mountain with spectacular view. Climbing distance was not that much but it was steep enough that for 1 km it took 45 minutes. Was totally worth it.
Other general things worth to mentioning. Took up again capoeria and jiujitsu classes after recovering from some bug I got before startupweekend. Went first time in life to a barber to get beard trimmed, to look less hobo and decided that to keep contact with friends back home is better to have a skype call because random 3 sentence chats really don't do it anymore.
Second week back in chch is ending soon and seems that evening might escalate again. I am ok with being backpacker and taking more relaxed approach with startup and use it more as learning opportunity and keeping myself entertained and challenged before moving on.
Travelling reborn:return of the backpack, yep I should have gone with this one.
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