Me and Flo in Courdes-Sur-Ciel near Toulouse, France
About 2 weeks ago I left Europe to travel “home” to San Diego, California for a visit. And I haven’t been able to blog since I arrived. It’s not because I don’t have the time or because I have nothing to say, it’s simply that I don’t know how to describe what being “back” feels like. It’s not at all what I expected.
Let me back up a bit. The last time I wrote I described how leaving Grünau, Austria was surprisingly painful and how after only a few days I missed it tremendously. From Grünau I traveled to France and spent a wonderful week with my friend Flo in Toulouse. All week she happily translated every menu, every sign, and every single thing I needed to say to someone (a very difficult and tiring task.) I quickly noticed that in France the people are friendly and understand English, but prefer to speak in French (of course.) Flo was a terrific hostess and translator.
We spent time with her sisters, went out with her friends, took a day trip to Courdes-Sur-Ciel, a beautiful medieval town in the countryside, and toured Toulouse. It was a fantastic week and I had a great time with my good friend. But I couldn’t stop thinking about Grünau. I tried. I told myself that I should continue traveling and seeing the world, that I’ve already experienced Grünau and I should see more places, that I had planned to go to South America and I should do that.
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Marco and me at Marco's birthday party - I think the flash permanently blinded him
People frequently ask me why I’ve chosen to travel. I have many answers for the question, most of which I’ve written time and again here, so you must be familiar with them. I don’t believe that working long days behind a desk suits me. I don’t fit into the American culture where money is the center of life and we live to work, instead of work to live. We only live once and this is my chance to see the world. Adventure. I want to live a life that I choose, not one that merely happens.
And surprisingly, I discovered another answer to this question when I left Grünau, Austria. I may have discovered it while I was there but I didn’t realize it at the time. You hear people say that you don’t know what you have until you leave it behind. So when I got to Vienna, it hit me hard.
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The bar at the Treehouse where I make drinks for travelers and locals every night
Having worked in a hostel in the Austrian Alps for over two weeks, whereby I’m continuously surrounded by a rotating group of like-minded travelers, I’ve spent endless hours reflecting about why I so thoroughly enjoy this lifestyle. Just the other morning as I was pulling sheets off of bunk beds, I couldn’t help but laugh at this total change in my life. I went from working in a comfortable office at a large US software company to making beds and serving beer in a mountain hostel in Austria. And I’m utterly and completely in love with this change of events.
Unfortunately, I’ve been taught that I shouldn’t find happiness in these mundane tasks. I’m not being very American.
All my life I followed the typical American definition of the “right” path. I studied and got good grades in high school, I went to a good university, I got high-paying jobs in respectable companies, and I made great money. I was trained to believe that these things would make me happy. But they didn’t. And now I’m cleaning hostel toilets, washing dishes and doing laundry for travelers, and I’m very happy.
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Lake Almsee in Grunau, Austria
After saying goodbye to my new friends in Warsaw, I took a bus to the airport and flew to Munich. I arrived late in the afternoon and checked into my hostel, which was right next to the train station. I didn’t plan to spend much time in Munich and was really only there as a stopover before I headed into the Austrian Alps.
I got up early the next morning and took a train from Munich to Salzburg, changed trains to Wels, and then took a regional train to a small village in the Austrian Alps (population 2,500) called Grunau. Years ago a friend of mine stayed at the Treehouse Hostel here and when I was trying to find a relaxing place in the mountains to rest, I thought of him. I arrived at the train station and called the hostel and asked for a ride. Gerhard picked me up 20 minutes later.
He drove me to a beautiful log cabin in the mountains situated right on the river. I got out of the car and immediately met a group of travelers that had arrived that day. Most were from Australia and all of them were sitting in the sun, reading books, swimming in the river, or out hiking. It was the perfect place to rest and I took a nap in the sunshine on the patio.
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