Welcome to Off the Continent
Around a year ago I made the vague goal to “get off the continent” and now I’m finally getting to do it.
So, yeah. American kid graduates from college, runs around Europe from hostel to hostel sporting a backpack and a Eurail pass. I know. I’m quite aware that for the next four weeks I’ll be a walking cliché, and I don’t really care. I’m pumped.
Motivations
It seemed like at graduation everyone was starting brand new jobs in brand new cities and I was working in the same metro area at the same place I’d already worked 6 quarters for my engineering co-op. Don’t get me wrong, I absolutely love Datascope and Chicago, but I was worried I would miss out on that exciting feeling of newness.
As it turns out, working full time somewhere is different than working there in 10-week chunks, and living in a city is different than living just outside a city, so I’ve been getting a healthy amount of newness, but this trip will inflate that even further for the next 28 days.
I think, from a personal perspective, the time after drastic change is really valuable. There are so many attributes of day to day life that we make routine, whether we intend to or not. And whenever we can put our brains on autopilot, it’s easy to fail to be mindful and just let them idle (or, when we’re anxious, constantly panic).
When there’s no routine to cling to, I feel like out of necessity I pay more attention to day to day life, and therefore appreciate it and remember it more. Plus, the planning part of my brain gets dozens of extra daily puzzles that keep the dopamine flowing — Where do I get food? How do I get around? What should I see? I distinctly remember this feeling from the beginning of college. I paid more attention to everything; the people I met, my emotions, my surroundings, all of it.
I think this combination of a more mindful state with new and exciting places is why some folks become “travel people”. I’m not one of them (yet) — this will be the first time I plan and go on a big trip like this on my own. Like I said, I’m pumped.
The Itinerary
I leave on September 10th to meet up with my friend Taiyo in Dublin, and then hop over to London for a few days (where I’ll hopefully see my friend Gwyn). Then I’m off to Bergen, Norway to crash with my friend Meredith, who moved there after graduating. After that, I have a train pass and a return plane ticket out of Brussels, but not many firm plans yet; I’ll probably stop through Denmark, Germany, and the Netherlands.
This Journal
My goal for this journal is to capture the best places, stories, and people from my trip — enough that you can live vicariously through me, but not so much you’ll get bored. I’ll probably also use it as a place to write other things that are on my mind. Who knows, maybe I’ll even throw some poetry on here. Right now I’m still hanging onto the romantic ideal that I’ll be whipping open my laptop to write something profound while glancing out the train window at beautiful Scandinavian scenery. Realistically I know I‘m more likely to lean my forehead against the window and pass out instead.
And let’s be honest, the web nerd in me also wanted to give Medium a spin. We’ll see if it’s any good for this sort of thing.
Follow me on Facebook or Twitter (@bjlange) or here on Medium to hear from me when I have new things to say. Talk to you on the other side of the pond.
