On my way again

Well, I guess most of you already know I'm leaving Europe again and those that didn't know should have guessed so from my previous posts. I don't write this stuff meaningless, you know!

Tomorrow I'll leave for Buenos Aires. This trip will include no working whatsoever. I'll travel Argentina, Chile, Peru, Bolivia and maybe a part of Brasil during 5-?? months. Well, that's the plan as it is, but knowing myself, I guess I might change the master plan on the road.

What do I take along on such a trip, bearing in mind I have to carry everything and that I hate carrying stuff!

Underwear for a week! Nothing absolutely bad can happen if you're wearing clean underwear, a wise man once said.
A full-proof, self-tested water resistant and wind stopping rain coat
A map of South-America and the rough guide to Argentina. I'll try to swith the book going from country to country.
I found this eeny-meeny light in Decathlon!
Lightweight sleeping bag that's supposed to keep me warm 'till 0-5 degrees. I'm a bit sceptical about their coception of warm and mine being the same , but I guess I'll survive
My foot wear for the following months.. probably the most depressing about the packing part. Damn, I love wearing leather boots!!
The greenies are my new walking shoes (I don't believe in 2kilo hiking boots). Water proof which also means hot and sweaty when it's warm hence the next item:
The black sneakers are loyal travel companions though. They've been with me in Guatemala, Honduras, Morocco, Italy, Spain, Estonia, Latvia, Cuba, Dominican Republic, Puerto Rico and I'm probably forgetting some. Let's see if they survive.
My Dominican flipflops. I did Cuba with them

I won't only be travelling exotic places... Patagonia, Andes, temperatures can be cold... Thermic underwear... also very fashion... And - thanks to my lovely friends- foot and hand warmers! Something I didn't know about but some female friends bought for me.
Same great friends.... These are very light and very warm!
Aaah! even more important than the underwear! My music! and a USB charger as I'll be traveling laptop-less.
2 pair of trousers, only 1 jeans.
2 skirts, 2 shorts
6 t-shirts of which i forgot to make a picture.
A tip for travelers! Take along a pareo. Very light, good to ly on the beach, you make skirt/t-shirts/scarfs out of it.
Next depressing thing... Girly stuff tends to weigh a lot si keep it to a minimum! Check out the doble set of lip balm which I got from 2 female friends. I guess something should become clear to me by now.
Ah, shampoo, body lotion and soap are missing on the picture and are pissing me off for being so heavy..

All resulting in a little more weight than I was hoping for, but I guess it's still quite ok... This excludes the clothes I'm wearing which is winter stuff. Well I'll see what I toss away first. My guess is the body lotion but all bets are open. Feel free to comment!

My friends on the subject...

Some contributions from friends:

she put a name to my thingie: The lovely Marie-Julie whose blog should be in all of your bookmarked ones by now anyway! (Especially you music lovers out there!)
http://marie-julie-einfach-leben.blogspot.com/ (the post that starts with tallinn-wien-barcelona-helsinki-paris

Dominican Francis sent me a FB note which touched the subject but that gives a positive twist to my previous post and at the same time to my day! Thank you Francis! tq! :) A copy below

Along the way you bump into people who make a dent on your life. Some people get struck by lightning. Some are born to sit by a river. Some have an ear for music. Some are artists. Some swim the English Channel. Some know buttons. Some know Shakespeare. Some are mothers. And some people can dance.

For what it's worth, it's never too late, or in my case too early - to be whoever you want to be. There's no time limit; stop whenever you want. You can change, or stay the same - there are no rules to this thing. We can make the best or the worst of it. I hope you make the best of it. I hope you see things that startle you. I hope you feel things you never felt before. I hope you meet people with a different point of view. I hope you live a life you're proud of. If you find that you're not, I hope you have the strength to start all over again.

Our lives are defined by opportunities, even the ones we miss.

You can be as mad as a mad dog at the way things went. You could wear, curse the fates, but when it comes to the end, you have to let go.

(life is good... with all the highs and lows... otherwise it would be too boring)

My Peter Pan syndrome

Ever since I've gotten back from the Carribean to Belgium, I've been feeling...restless...is the closest named feeling in the Enlgish language that can describe it.

According to popular songwriters, this must be something lots of twenty-somethings can relate to but sometimes I feel so many people around me seem to have all their things in place and are -more important and even more amazing- quite content about it and without hesitating are planning the next step. At the age of 26, are we all supposed to have a steady relationship, an appartment where we live with our fabulous partner and preferably a cat, as so it seems to be the trend? Should I as well be concerned about intrest rates and locations on where to buy or even build my even more fabulous house with a big cellar and room for a pony? In contrast to my fellow engineer-buddies, I don't have anything even closely resembling a career path defined and looking at all different possibilities on where to go/live/work I just wanna roll up in my bed and sleep for the rest of the week. Should I be able to answer the "where do you see yourself in 5 years?"

These are clearly all luxury problems, I do realize this. My country of birth, my great parents, my education, my university degree and my good health make I can go anywhere. But doesn't everyone in my situation feel like a little kid in a candy store, or even an ant in a world made out of candy? What to pick when your stomach is so small? Don't you all want to get the maximum out of life but doubt on what you'd actually like the most? Sure, your house is amazing and your job is fine, but maybe you could be happier in a house in Melbourne and maybe the perfect job for you isn't located in Brussels but in Barcelona? How can we fully choose something if we don't even have a remote idea of what we are missing out on when choosing option A?

Before you all start the spoilt-kid-name-calling; 2008 has been a great year for me, probably one of the most exciting ones so far. I liked living in Madrid and I loved living in the Dominican Republic even more. Why wouldn't I, the amount of great people I've met, places I've seen, friends I've made and life experience I gained, make me realize I can be happy in so many different places and situations. But I also remember I missed la petite belgique while living my dreams. I remember the exact same feeling of restlessness of my mind.

Probably, all my living abroad caused the situation I'm in. Kid in a candy world... also Alice in Wonderland- or Peter Pan-feelings pop up every now and then. But does this mean I'm sorry for anything I've done? I'm tempted to shout out a loud no, but honestly, I can not know what would have happened. If I had never left Belgium (starting in 2003 to Barcelona), I would have limited the amount of thunderstorms in my head and my life could have been flawless, spectacular house, hubbie, defined career path and -why the hell not- maybe even a cat included. Not only is it so difficult to make life choices, it is even impossible afterwards to fully evaluate your choices. Even if we were given a rewind-button on life, we wouldn't know if to use it or not.

I hope I'm not stepping on anyone's toes with this post. I honestly sometimes envy those who seem so much at ease in Belgium while my head keeps on turning over and over again instead of just enjoying my life. I merely want to point out that I believe it's wrong to ignore all the options we have.
Our generation is the first one that has all of these options. The world has become our (though lightly oversized) backyard, the only limit we really have are time and guts (and some cash every now and then). For myself, I can only try to enjoy the ride and hope the wind will calm down at some point in time.