Hanging out on a rooftop bar, a pretty girl whose name I didn’t remember yells “Hey Brian, we’re going to Porto next weekend. $50/night. You in?”
Me: “What’s Porto?”
Her: “Here’s a picture. It’s me and 6 girls and we’re looking for a couple guys to join us.”
Me: “Why yes. That’s exactly what I want to do next weekend.”
We’re a week into Remote Year. The best way I can describe it is half college, half camp, except it’s for adults who actually have stuff to do.
With ~75 people on the trip (plus ~7 staff) the first week was spent getting to know everyone and hoping nobody asked if you remembered their name.
This month, we’re in Lisbon, Portugal. The land with a pastry shop on every corner yet nobody’s overweight. Where you stay at a club until you notice it’s 5am and think “Uhhh, isn’t it time to go home?” and only one person agrees while the rest are content to wait until the sun comes up.
Now it aint all sunshine and roses.
Turns out you should make sure your debit card didn’t expire before going abroad. And due to technology kicking my ass I had to rely on the kindness of others for all my transporation needs until yesterday. Plus, there’s personal stuff keeping me from enjoying this more fully. I don’t care to go into all that but wanted to mention it because if I sat here going “look how perfect everything is!” it would be B.S.
Okay, back to the happy fun stuff.
Here are a couple things about trip trip I found amusing.
1) The people aren’t what I expected
I thought the other Remote Year people would be all freelancers and internet marketers. Instead, it’s a bunch of people with full-time corporate jobs who are trying this remote thing out. Many people on this trip had to convince their employers to let them do this and are “guinea pigs” to see if this model can work.
2) There’s an absurd amount of stuff to do
The Remote Year team has optional stuff you can join throughout the week. Open mic nights, lunch roulette, soccer games, running tours, etc. Here’s a look at our calendar.
That doesn’t even count all the slack channels (got ones for bloggers, foodies, people who want to surf, workout, help local puppies, etc.) And the fact everyone is planning side trips for seemingly every damn weekend.
3) The housing and co-working spaces are pretty bitchin
This may change come Morrocco, but for now the rooms are looking good:
They gave me 2 beds. One for sleeping, the other, I assume, for jumping on
Our back yard. We got student housing all to ourselves (and handful of tiny lizards)
Pot-luck welcome dinner, aka, “everyone go find something to microwave and share”
Getting our orientation on at the coworking place
4) Wine is $2-$5 a bottle. Meaning:
Here’s an assortment of other events and things I found silly:
When you ask for a “medium coffee to go” in Lisbon they give you this
Beach day. Oh yeah, everyone on the trip is good looking. Guess I was brought in to balance things out.
Giant statues lording over cities are cool 100% of the time
I found these trees to be ridiculous
Could do some good sittin’ on the top of that there bridge I reckon
Dinner special: “Black pig secret”! I’d tell you how it was but, you know, it’s a secret…