A series of surprises

Okay. As of a short while ago, it’s no longer a secret. I’m back on European soil after the trip of a lifetime – I can’t put into words how much I gained from that adventure. Maybe I’ll try sometime.

Firstly, I have to share something. During my travels, I had conversations with probably around 1,000 different people. Let’s say around 250 of those were more than just “Hi, where are you from?”. Out of these 250, around half of them had already backpacked and were able to tell me about how they felt returning from their first trip, how they settled back into “normality”, how much (or not) they wanted to travel again etc. A handful of those circa 125 people gave me a great idea. They told me stories about how they had returned home without telling some or all of those people close to them. And instead, just turning up on their doorstep and taking in the jaw-dropping looks from loved ones. This of course gave me a similar idea. Could I pull off a series of surprises upon my return to the UK?
Challenge accepted.

Now, this wasn’t an easy feat. I never booked a return flight to the UK because I didn’t know a. Where the hell I would be flying from, and b. When I would be flying. That gave me total flexibility and I would do the same on a future trip. Around five weeks before I returned to England, I finally booked my flight and told only a few people. For the following five weeks, I had to be careful of my words when chatting with my mum, dad, brother, grandparents and friends. The biggest challenge came when I was in the airport at Uruguay and my mum rang. During the call, an airport announcement was made “calling all passengers on flight xyz123…”. I had to tell her I was in a huge bus station somewhere in Argentina. Believable, right?

But first. Let’s skip back to the first surprise I attempted. This one was different. I was still on my trip. After Alex, my brother, joined me in Ecuador for two crazy[1] weeks [2], he went home and reflected. He decided he also wanted to experiment with the travel lifestyle and wanted to explore Latin America. When he left his UK life behind and flew out to Ecuador some months later, I thought it would be a good time to see him again. As, he was the one person I had no idea when I may see again. I was in south Peru at the time, in a beautiful city called Arequipa. I caught a flight to Ecuador, and arranged for a mutual friend to organise a dinner between her and Alex. Of course, she was never going to attend said dinner. But instead, set Alex up for a little surprise. Here’s how it unfolded:

Okay. Back to the UK. Surprise number 1. My amazing mother.

This was super fun. After my conversation with her at the airport. I told her I would ring her the next day. So, after three flights, a train from Manchester and a taxi from Worksop, I’m stood outside the house I was raised in. It was 10:30pm. The lights were off. With roses in one hand and a friend’s GoPro camera strapped to my bag, I rung her as I promised.

Surprise number 2. Ashwin, a close friend from university.

One of my closest friends, Josh, recently asked me to be his best man. As I was making some notes for the speech, I made a few realisations. Not only was Josh indirectly responsible for my most recent relationship. Which, despite it being over as of last year, was an incredible three years and a big part of my life. He was also responsible for a close friendship, Ashwin. The day Josh dragged me along to a salsa lesson at university led to me meeting these two amazing people. I’m still very close with Ashwin, and I have to say, he was arguably the friend who was most upset when I told him my long travel plans. So, I had to surprise him on my return. The dates were perfect. My flight got back to the UK a day before his birthday. So, I had a few words with his wonderful wife, Nithya. This was the result:

Surprise number 3. Adam – A close friend.

This was a little unique. Adam, a friend from secondary school, was getting married to the girl of his dreams. So, naturally, the best man organised a very British stag do in Magaluf. Of course at this point I was still in South America. So, I asked the best man, Anton, how possible it would be for me to secretly come along. As it turned out, Anton did a great job of  quietly arranging an extra person to join the flights, hotel etc. And so, a few days after I returned to the UK, I headed off to Manchester airport to meet Adam and the rest of the lads:

3. My incredible dad.

I should mention. I had a pretty bad near miss with this one. I hadn’t spoken to my dad for a few weeks, so I rung him when I was in Spain. I rung at about 11am UK time. At some point in the conversation, he caught me totally off guard, asking “It must be early there Ash, what time is it?”. I panicked. I totally forgot about the five-hour time difference between England and Buenos Aires (where everybody thought I was). I had no idea what the time was, so I Googled it and added an hour to make it sound slightly more convincing, “It’s 7am dad, my couch surfing host kicked me out early so a technician could replace the air con machine”. Now, this was partially true. I was couch surfing in Madrid at the time and my host actually had a guy arrive to replace the air con machine, because Madrid is bloody hot in the summer! Argentina, however, was not hot. In fact, it was around 10 degrees in the day time. So in summary, I panicked. My dad must have been slightly suspicious by this for two reasons: a. what technician arrives before 7am to replace an air con unit. And b. Why does any Argentine need air con during their winter?

For this reason, and the fact that when I did return to the UK for a week, my dad was on holiday. Plus the fact that I ended up travelling Europe for the next few months (perhaps a blog post one day…), I never did surprise my dad. I told him on the phone that I had returned to Europe, and would be home soon – I felt pretty guilty to keep on lying to him all of this time. Plus, I wasn’t sure how long my mum could keep the secret – this never was her best skill.

Surprise number 4. My youngest brother, Charles.
Charles, found out I was in Europe long before I actually returned to the UK to see them, along with my dad. This was a shame, I knew I would get an amazing reaction from him, had I been able to surprise him out of the blue. Even so, I got a huge brotherly hug. The hug was much more physical than I first expected, at the tender age of 13 he’s now growing into a man. I did manage to get a short video of our reunion.

Surprise number 5. The grandparents.

This was a spontaneous surprise. My dad invited them over for a rather routine Sunday lunch (and boy was I looking forward to a good British cooked dinner). I took a nap whilst they settled into the house and chatted with my dad, his partner Ana and Charles. After a while, I emerged from the pit.

Hope you enjoyed those as much as I did. Now, I should mention. My last blog post of my travels describes my time in south Ecuador & north Peru. I still have photos/journal entries etc. from the remainder of the trip and I will get around to posting the rest of the blogs. The feeling of incompleteness is too much – I want this blog to be a place I can forever return to relive what will be one of the best trips of my life.

So, what now? Well. Great question. I have a few burning desires I’d like to attend to.

• Firstly, I want to experience living in a different country. And when I say living, I don’t mean the four months I spent in Colombia looking after dogs and attending Spanish school. I mean getting a real job, renting a place to live, having a routine again and hopefully meeting new people in a totally new community. I still have the desire to keep pushing out of my comfort zone.
  
• Secondly, I want to keep learning Spanish. I’m happy with what I’ve learnt in the last nine months, but I’m far from fluent. I see learning a second language as one of those rare, long-term investments in yourself which can be forever rewarding.
• Thirdly, I want to experiment with contracting in my field of information security. That is, three or six month contracts rather than full-time employment. This gives me extra flexibility and better pay so I can replenish the funds I’ve been living on for the last year. Yes, it’s now been over a year since I last earned a pay check.

So, what options does that give me?

1. Return to South America.
   Now, I love South America. For so, so many reasons. Buenos Aires and Medellin were perhaps my favourite places in terms of “liveable” cities. They both offered a lot of diversity, great weather, amazing cultures and some of the friendliest locals I’ve met on the trip. Medellin has the benefit of extremely cheap living standards, but the chances of me getting a job in information security are smaller.
2. Return to the UK.
   If I’m honest, this is my least favourite option at the moment. If I returned to Leeds/Sheffield I would feel as though I’d be picking up my life where I left it. And instead, I want a clean slate. Besides, without going to some Spanish school or classes, how would I continue to learn? If I were to return, I’d likely look for jobs in London as I’ve never lived there and as a “city boy”, it would probably suit me the most. The main advantage to moving back home is being able to see my close friends and family.
3. Live in mainland Spain.
   So here we have it. The option which could tick all boxes with ease. As I write the first draft of this blog post, I’m sat on a nine-hour train between Barcelona and Madrid. I wanted to explore both firsthand and see where I see either as “liveable”, and if so, which I prefer. And, unlike South America, living in Spain gives me the option of cheap, quick flights to see the people I love back home. And it gives them the opportunity to visit me too. So, here it goes. I’m actively looking for jobs here in Spain whilst I test the water, so to speak.
   

Latest news
I wrote the first draft of this blog some months ago. A LOT has happened since. Skipping to now – in the last few weeks I’ve received three job offers. Only in the last days did I finally make a decision. I turned down a tempting offer in London and the hardest decision by far was to turn down a very good position in Leeds. A position which paid 30-40% more and could have given me more progression opportunities than the one I accepted. Am I crazy? Perhaps.

I tried to be rational. I thought about the pros and cons of each and even scored them against one another in a spreadsheet. But ultimately, I followed my heart instead of my head. The idea of being on that plane and knowing everything was about to change extremely excited me. I sat down and did a “fear-setting” exercise. What are the absolute worst case scenarios and how would I recover from them? I soon realised even the worst case scenarios were a. pretty unlikely and b. easily reversible.

• If I don’t make any new friends – I could fly home more regularly and see my current friends and family. I could fly to the rest of Europe and see friends there. I could have regular calls to speak to people on the phone. And of course I could force myself to be more social and attend more events etc.
• If the job doesn’t work out – Because I’m already living in Spain, a whole new market would open up. Also, I now know that if I can get in front of the right people at interview stage, I can bag myself a job fairly confidently.
• If I run out of money – I could ask my family or friends for help. I have reserves that could be used. I could even take up bar work for a short while. If things were desperate, I could sell my shares and investments.

The more probable outcomes were exciting. A chance to come out of my comfort zone. To make new friends. To learn more Spanish.  Career wise, to learn in practice exactly how identify a potential cyber attack. Ultimately, to prove to myself that I really am a big, grown up boy.

So, I accepted a job in Barcelona and if all goes smoothly, I will move in the next few weeks. To all friends and family – come visit!

Peace.
Hablamos pronto.