I'm finally leaving Europe on Monday, and if I'm being honest, I can't wait. It's been 5 months that I've been here, and although I've had plenty of chances to travel and see and do things, the majority of my time here has been spent bored, whether at the office or just in Schrobenhausen in the evening.
In fact, I'm even getting a bit burnt out on the traveling. It's not the first time it's happened to me either. When I was in living in South Africa I was on a plane every week, pretty much. In my 15 months there, there were only 3 times when I was in South Africa for 2 or more weeks in a row. Otherwise, I was on a plane every week leaving the country. It worked out because it meant that I could get by without a visa, though I was sure I was going to get deported every time I entered the country. Luckily that never happened.
Anyway, while all that traveling sounds pretty exciting, I spent most of it going to Africa cities, which are not very exciting. Most African cities are more or less the same, and there isn't much to do in them. So I would spend a lot of time alone in my hotel. I'd be out and about for work during the day, and if I had a weekend free I'd go and do something, but for the most part I tried to be somewhere I had friends for the weekend, be it Johannesburg, Nairobi or Accra, which were my 3 bases in Africa. Which means that the majority of my travel time was spent alone in a hotel room. Not very exciting.
After a while of doing this, I got to the point where I lost any excitement about visiting new places. It even poured over into a personal trip to Madagascar that I took with 2 of my close friends who came to visit. I had a great trip, and I loved spending time with them, but that sense of excitement about visiting a new place and seeing a new country was totally gone, even when I was visiting one of my Top 5 countries to visit. It was pretty sad.
After I left Africa I spent a couple of months traveling around Europe, and luckily that's when my wanderlust came back. Once I started traveling and actually experiencing things again, rather than traveling to sit alone in a hotel room, I got that feeling back again.
Now, after 5 months of traveling around Europe every weekend, I seem to have lost it a little again. Not to the same degree as when I was in Africa, but I definitely have no sense of excitement about going on my own to some random town to spend the weekend exploring. I still get it when I travel to new countries, and when I'm going somewhere to visit friends or with friends, but traveling on my own at the weekend has begun to lose some of its charm. I was in Salzburg a couple of weeks ago, a beautiful city that I've been wanting to go to for like a year and a half, and I just wasn't that bothered with seeing anything. Same last Saturday when I went to Regensburg on Saturday. But then when I went to a castle with friends on Sunday, including my 4-year-old best friend Henry, it was a great day.
So the timing to go back to Asia couldn't be better. I'll be headed back to a place where I actually have friends in the place I'm living and don't have to go exploring on my own every weekend, in towns which, although I recognize their beauty, all begin to look the same after a while. I've still got plenty of travel coming up for work, but I'll be able to see friends regularly, and for the most part I'll be spending my weekends juts hanging out, which will be nice. This all comes together with the move to China, which I've been waiting for since I started this job a year ago, so I'm very much looking forward to it.
And something else I'm looking forward to is Bear's Den possibly releasing an album in the near future. I first heard these guys because they were the opening band for Daughter, one of my favorite bands, and one of my favorite albums of the year last year. It's not often that I hear a band live for the first time and really like them, normally it works the other way around for me. But I loved Bear's Den from the first time I saw them back in 2012. At the time they had one EP available to buy online, Agape, which I did, and they had a few other songs I found on Soundcloud. My favorite song after seeing them, and probably still today, is actually Pompeii, which at the time I could only find on Soundcloud.
Only later did I learn that song actually comes from their self titled debut EP that they only used to sell at live shows and I don't think is available anymore, not even digitally. Unless you look for it illegally. Then you can find it. But I would never suggest to you to do that.
After the frustration of not finding Pompeii for a while was finally overcome, Bear's Den managed to frustrate me again. They're British, and they had released another EP called Without/Within last year, but it was only available in the UK, and maybe Europe. I'm not sure, all I know is it wasn't available until early this year in the US. It's a great EP, so I was not very happy about having to wait and not even being able to stream a lot of the songs I found, but finally I was able to get it earlier this year. Overall it's their best EP, and my favorite song is definitely Sahara Pt. II. It's the second track on the album and flows seamlessly with Sahara Pt. I, the first track. Luckily on Soundcloud they've released it as a single track, which makes much more sense to me. So you get both parts simply as Sahara.
And now after a few months of nothing, they just put out a new single, Elysium, a couple of weeks ago. It's a good song, not as great as some of my favorite tracks by them, but still pretty solid. And hopefully it means they're going to be releasing more singles soon, followed by an album instead of another EP. No news on that yet, so we can just wait and see.
That's it from me for now. Next blog post will be from Asia!
In fact, I'm even getting a bit burnt out on the traveling. It's not the first time it's happened to me either. When I was in living in South Africa I was on a plane every week, pretty much. In my 15 months there, there were only 3 times when I was in South Africa for 2 or more weeks in a row. Otherwise, I was on a plane every week leaving the country. It worked out because it meant that I could get by without a visa, though I was sure I was going to get deported every time I entered the country. Luckily that never happened.
Anyway, while all that traveling sounds pretty exciting, I spent most of it going to Africa cities, which are not very exciting. Most African cities are more or less the same, and there isn't much to do in them. So I would spend a lot of time alone in my hotel. I'd be out and about for work during the day, and if I had a weekend free I'd go and do something, but for the most part I tried to be somewhere I had friends for the weekend, be it Johannesburg, Nairobi or Accra, which were my 3 bases in Africa. Which means that the majority of my travel time was spent alone in a hotel room. Not very exciting.
After a while of doing this, I got to the point where I lost any excitement about visiting new places. It even poured over into a personal trip to Madagascar that I took with 2 of my close friends who came to visit. I had a great trip, and I loved spending time with them, but that sense of excitement about visiting a new place and seeing a new country was totally gone, even when I was visiting one of my Top 5 countries to visit. It was pretty sad.
After I left Africa I spent a couple of months traveling around Europe, and luckily that's when my wanderlust came back. Once I started traveling and actually experiencing things again, rather than traveling to sit alone in a hotel room, I got that feeling back again.
Now, after 5 months of traveling around Europe every weekend, I seem to have lost it a little again. Not to the same degree as when I was in Africa, but I definitely have no sense of excitement about going on my own to some random town to spend the weekend exploring. I still get it when I travel to new countries, and when I'm going somewhere to visit friends or with friends, but traveling on my own at the weekend has begun to lose some of its charm. I was in Salzburg a couple of weeks ago, a beautiful city that I've been wanting to go to for like a year and a half, and I just wasn't that bothered with seeing anything. Same last Saturday when I went to Regensburg on Saturday. But then when I went to a castle with friends on Sunday, including my 4-year-old best friend Henry, it was a great day.
So the timing to go back to Asia couldn't be better. I'll be headed back to a place where I actually have friends in the place I'm living and don't have to go exploring on my own every weekend, in towns which, although I recognize their beauty, all begin to look the same after a while. I've still got plenty of travel coming up for work, but I'll be able to see friends regularly, and for the most part I'll be spending my weekends juts hanging out, which will be nice. This all comes together with the move to China, which I've been waiting for since I started this job a year ago, so I'm very much looking forward to it.
And something else I'm looking forward to is Bear's Den possibly releasing an album in the near future. I first heard these guys because they were the opening band for Daughter, one of my favorite bands, and one of my favorite albums of the year last year. It's not often that I hear a band live for the first time and really like them, normally it works the other way around for me. But I loved Bear's Den from the first time I saw them back in 2012. At the time they had one EP available to buy online, Agape, which I did, and they had a few other songs I found on Soundcloud. My favorite song after seeing them, and probably still today, is actually Pompeii, which at the time I could only find on Soundcloud.
Only later did I learn that song actually comes from their self titled debut EP that they only used to sell at live shows and I don't think is available anymore, not even digitally. Unless you look for it illegally. Then you can find it. But I would never suggest to you to do that.
After the frustration of not finding Pompeii for a while was finally overcome, Bear's Den managed to frustrate me again. They're British, and they had released another EP called Without/Within last year, but it was only available in the UK, and maybe Europe. I'm not sure, all I know is it wasn't available until early this year in the US. It's a great EP, so I was not very happy about having to wait and not even being able to stream a lot of the songs I found, but finally I was able to get it earlier this year. Overall it's their best EP, and my favorite song is definitely Sahara Pt. II. It's the second track on the album and flows seamlessly with Sahara Pt. I, the first track. Luckily on Soundcloud they've released it as a single track, which makes much more sense to me. So you get both parts simply as Sahara.
And now after a few months of nothing, they just put out a new single, Elysium, a couple of weeks ago. It's a good song, not as great as some of my favorite tracks by them, but still pretty solid. And hopefully it means they're going to be releasing more singles soon, followed by an album instead of another EP. No news on that yet, so we can just wait and see.
That's it from me for now. Next blog post will be from Asia!
No comments:
Post a Comment