Home is where the passport is..

A night in London

When I came to Lisbon for the first time, it marked my first time long-term stay outside my country. To keep track of my life in the foreign country, I wrote weekly blog posts. Before coming to Lisbon, home meant our home in Sri Lanka. It remained the same for a few weeks, even after moving to Portugal. Eventually, I got used to living abroad, and started calling my apartment in Lisbon, "home". I did miss Sri Lanka, specially when I am not well. Not everything works in the same way everywhere.

An interesting observation was, I could not order any other natural juice other than orange juice in Portugal in many of the restaurants and cafe, despite the fact that they had all the fruits to make fruit salad. Probably this is because they make orange juice using the specific juice maker for oranges, and they do not have a regular blender at all. Moreover, if you just order "sumo da laranja" or "sumo da ma maçã", you will be given artificial juice in cans. You will have to ask "sumo da laranja natural" specifically. There were many similar small differences.

I like to travel. Erasmus Mundus came with a mandatory mobility. That means, even if you are not really interested in moving around countries, you will have to. :D My mobility for my masters was Portugal for the first year, and Sweden and Portugal for the two semesters of the second year. Moving from Lisbon to Stockholm was pretty smooth. However, whenever I came to Lisbon from a short vacation from Stockholm, I had the feeling of home. My stay in Stockholm was limited to just 4.5 months compared to my 2+ years in Lisbon.

Then I came back to Lisbon. Now with my doctorate, which is also an Erasmus Mundus program with a mandatory mobility. Unlike the early days, I do not write the weekly posts anymore. One reason was lack of time. The other is, the life abroad has become a norm, than something different to document. Even this post is a summary of many thoughts of the recent past, that does not include any specific event to highlight. 

I always enjoyed travelling with conferences or some work-related travels. They come right in the middle of the heavy work load. I get to travel and enjoy the new city for a very short period, while doing something productive actually. Unlike the summer vacations, these trips come with duties. Presenting the paper, networking, and attending the conference talks and social activities. There were many occasions where I was in the middle of lovely cities, with very little time to go out and enjoy it.

Whenever I go to a new place for travels, starting from the second day of my stay, I feel more and more comfortable to that location. Travelling to a new country or city gives a new perspective of the things. The short stay gives a complete new experience compared to the regular days. The days pass pretty quickly, while leaving pleasant memories. It is like a life inside the life.

I don't travel much due to my studies and/or work. However, I like to travel, whenever possible. I have enjoyed random walks alone in the forests, roads, and beaches. Winter gives lesser opportunity to travel than the summer, specially in the southern Europe. I would prefer a winter vacation in the northern Europe though. :D

 

It is interesting to note how the Internet and digital media documents and records our life. I started my blog, Facebook account, and Twitter in 2008. I had email accounts since 2006 when I owned my first computer, and started taking digital photos since 2008. So basically my digital / social media life started in 2008. 7 complete years have passed since then. Many things have changed within these years. Improved storage, better media with larger size, more processing power, memory, and resolution, more usable Linux (still remember that Mandrake Linux!), and more bandwidth.

I like the flights. The small cities, green patches, and blue oceans from above let me see how we are small in a relatively huge world. The empty blue sky lets me have a free mind for some serious life questions. :P Only one thing I like least about the travels is the visa applications. I dream of a day when all the countries will be freely accessible for everyone without requiring a visa.