Professional work and travel

Waterfall - humans for scale

First stop, First learnings

I know you out there are waiting for some news, so I’ll write an update.

The Trip from Hamburg/Berlin to Sofia was pretty smooth. Right plane, right taxi, all good. I didn’t had real expectations before I came here, but where I ended up, shocked me, for the first days.

My hostel was located in a back-house in an „ok“-area like my friendly taxi-driver said. It is operating for 14 years now. A lot of the things Inside also looked and felt like that. Coming from a well equipped and mostly modern flat I needed some days to get used to it.
The staff-members where nice, but a group of 6 people arriving at 1:30 at night, showering and yelling next door were killing my night.

On Sunday I met some other people from the WordPress-Community. We spend some time and I was happy to meet some people I know and some people i knew from the Internet. So we spend some nice hours in bars and restaurants.

And so it got Monday and that day was national holiday. But I needed to get some work done. I tried to find a coffehouse to work from, but I’m not good in Working in a Café. So the frustration-level was at its maximum.

Go coworking and get happy

The next day should bring the turning-point.
In heavy rain I conquered the the metro and got to the betahaus Sofia. Kindly received and introduce to the premises I feel at home immediately. Thanks to the familiar furniture and coffee.
So I was finally able to get work done, what gave me a good feeling. Because I’m not on a vacation trip and work is still a big part of my daily life.
Later that day a dozen other WP-People showed up. Getting the mood of WordCamp Europe started. This day ended in a great party with the already arrived attendees. I also started to make friends inside the hostel, what changed my feeling about that place. I seam to be back on top with myself.

Most of the weekdays I spent working at the local betahaus for the same reasons I like to work at the one in Hamburg. A couple of days I also spend the Mario and Stanko cowering in there office or in coffices. What is a coffice? It the mix of coffee shop and office, that place where more and more people do some work. Beside a few attempts I still prefer a real desk in a office or coworking space.

The main reason

Traveling to Sofia is not a usual thing. I would probably also not done it but a WordCamp Europe is the very best reason to travel to any place (Local WordCamps are also recommended).
Beside the official events I also decides to attend all in-official side-events. Starting with Bar-Hopping on Thursday night. We missed half of it, because we spent some time in a nice restaurant, having a great dinner.
Next up was the Sofia-City-Walking-Tour on Friday morning. Despite a lot of rain we walked around the central area of Sofia and took a look at the historical buildings of this city. Our young tour guide made a great job, not just telling fact about old times but also some modern things we got to know.
After being soaked with water the time was set for some paintball. In a tournament of various international team of the WordPress Community, our team (Germany plus some guest-warrior from Italy and the Netherlands) got fifth.

Then it got time for the main-event. Two days of talks and chats all about our favorite CMS. The conference was very well organized and took place in the biggest building I’ve seen so far. The old „palace of cutler“ was build in the sovertischen time and is still an impressive venue.
I enjoyed the talks I saw and all the chats with people from all over. As in last years edition, there was the opportunity to get in touch with the leading figures of our community and to talk about more then just work.

The third day of the #wceu was held as a contributor day. Seeing the packed crowd working together on one of the biggest projects ever is amazing to see and to be a part of. I thing a chance like this should be part of every WordCamp.

As from ever WordCamp I get very energized from it, so got strait back to work after it.

Lost myself in the change

Now two to three weeks into this new life(style) I had arranged myself with my accommodation and had found a place to work. But still something was breaking my concentration and kept me from feeling really good. From the site-events in the rain and cold I also got some health issues.
I needed to find my head again, therefore I got to the local public swimming-pool. For me is swimming the way to get my head clean and reorder my mind. I noticed, that I haven’t done it for a couple of weeks and haven’t spend some time in an not-urban environment for longer time. So this must change.

Therefore the next weekend I attended the Green-Tour or Sofia-Free-Hiking-Tour. With two guys I knew from the hostel and other tourist we did a very nice tour uphill along some waterfalls to a viewpoint over Sofia. After the tour we spent the rest of the day inside one of the parks.

Back on the bridge

After the relaxing/recharging weekend the last week in Sofia went quite fast. I had realized most of the things gone wrong in the first weeks of my whole nomadic journey and was able to improve them or take care to not let it happen again. So the first stop already teached me some lessons about myself and how to handle my life while being on location independent.
All this things doesn’t mean I didnt’ liked Sofia. I’ll come back! Maybe in the sommer, with some “Beach” involved?

I promise to write more often in the future, but as you can read above I needed to get myself arranged to the mostly new world I now live in.

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1 Comment

  1. Marwin Priewe

    I’m chasing your comments, Ralle!

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