Traveling alone

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Traveling is wonderful and a great part of the fun is in your companies. Friends, lover, family, being with who you love makes this experience even more remarkable. But what about traveling alone? It can sound a bit sad and lonely, but I can ensure that traveling alone can surprise you.

I love to travel with my friends. They are great. The best moments in my trips were not about the beautiful landmarks, or the delicious local food. All these things are great, but when you are talk to your friends about those trips, you normally don't say: "Remember that fabulous Cathedral in Milan? that was one the most beautiful cathedral I've ever seen". You can talk about that too, but the most memorable moments will be those funny, or when everything went wrong. Like "Hey, remember that time we took a bus in Croatia late night and the driver left us in the wrong stop in the middle of nowhere, in the dark, 10 km from our hostel, in a road without coasting and with signs of 'careful with the bears'?". 

The night with the bears

 
My friends are the biggest responsible for making my trips unforgettable. BUUUT, to be honest, there were moments in which I wish to be alone. The fact you are traveling in group forces you to giving up somethings you would like to do and also makes you do somethings you don't wanna do. After all, you all came as a group and should remain as a group. In this aspect, traveling alone gives you much more freedom. You define your schedule, what to do, what not to do. You don't need to go to a soccer game just because that city is famous in football. Or you can decide to do something the most people don't care, but it's interesting to you. 

The Uprising Museum, Warsaw

Yes, sometimes you feel lonely and you wish your friends were there, but a great thing about traveling alone is to encourage you to meet new people, make new friends. Especially for me, this is a very tough task. I'm a quiet and introspective person, it's not easy to me go there and socialise with people. Traveling alone is your chance to cut loose a bit more, take the first step. Sometimes the first step comes from the others, what makes the things easier. The fact is it doesn't matter if you are alone or not, traveling is always a great opportunity to meet new people. When you travel you are like a blank book ready to be fill out. Fill it the way you want.

Being with your friends is great, meeting new people is also great, but sometimes all you want is being alone. Just you and yourself. It's good to be with other people, but I need these moments of solitude. A moment to think, put my thoughts in order, with no one to interrupt. Sometimes I don't want to talk and I don't want to listen, I just wanna be quiet, in silence. Traveling alone is perfect for these moments. You can enjoy everything around you, the street, the people, the landscapes, while you are having this moment of peace and reflection. 

Well, all those good aspects aside, there is a part that completely sucks. Your photos. There is no one to take your pictures, which gives you 3 options. Number 1, no pictures at all. Which is not good, because you probably want some pictures to record the moment. Number 2, asking for someone to take the picture for you. That is probably the best option, but I particularly hate. I feel uncomfortable to ask others people to take my pictures. I think they don't do it very willingly. The pictures just confirm this. It doesn't matter if you explain how you want your photos, most of them will ignore what you said and take it the way they want. Sometimes they do the exactly opposite of what you ask. A misunderstanding, maybe. Of course, some people are very kind and try to make the best, but I was not very lucky with that. What brings to the last option, taking selfies. You can take wherever and how many photos you want, but if your camera doesn't have a wide field of view, it can difficult to capture you and scenery together, also the angle can let your face a bit distorted. The fact is selfies doesn't give the best photos, but after a few days failing in ask people to take my pictures, that was the option I chose for the rest of the trip. This is a point you have to live with. 

Alone or in company, there is no a best way of traveling. All depends of your mood, or what you are looking for in your trip. I would say I prefer traveling with friends, but I always felt I should have that experience and it totally worth it. I think everyone should try this at least once in life. You can get to know sides of you that you didn't know before. You wanna travel but don't have company? don't let this stops you. Go ahead and come back as book full of stories.   

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Why I love Photography

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I'm not even remotely a professional, but photography is already my passion. It's an art where you can express yourself through the camera. The photograph doesn't barely express the reality, but also the eyes of the photographer with respect to the world.

When you enjoy the art of photography, you understand there is nothing ugly or beautiful. Everything deserves your attention. Everything can be special, you just need to look in another perspective. 

It's impressive how many feelings a photograph can bring. Happiness, nostalgia, sadness, each photograph carries with it a story. A picture of the past can bring all that day to your mind again.

I don't know exactly why I like so much of this pic. I think I like the composition, the colour of the sky, but it's more than that. I took this photo in my first day in Oslo, where I was doing my exchange. One year passed so fast, but when I look to this pic, all that day comes to my mind. Everything was new and exciting. A feeling of nostalgia that makes me want to go back in time and start all over again. 

You know those incredible moments in your life you will never forget? Well, only the photography can capture and freeze those moments so that they get stuck in a world where they never end.

Some photographs bring no so good feelings. This pic is from the concentration camp of Auschwitz, Poland. It's a gloomy feeling to walk through that hall where so many people were mutilated by the insanity of others. A hall, that now is empty, was once full of people walking to death.

The fact is, it doesn't matter if you don't have experience or if you don't have an expensive equipment. Photography is a way to express our feelings, interests and vision about the world around us. So get your camera and start shooting.

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Living Abroad

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"Minds are like parachute, only work when opened". Nothing better to open your mind than experiencing the world. Living abroad is, without doubts, one of the most transformative experiences in the life of anyone. At least that's what happened to me. When you are young this experience becomes even more intense, I believe. It's a weird period where you feel old enough to think in the serious issues of life, but too young, to think in the serious issues of life. It's a moment of transition where you go out of the cocoon and start to fly with your own wings. It's a moment of insecurities, uncertainties with respect to who you really are, what you think, your vision about the world, and which place in the world you wanna take. Nothing better than an experience abroad to give you a little push. Not that you will go back with all these questions solved, but you will go back different. In my opinion, for better.

My experience was an exchange of 1 year in Oslo, Norway. Yes. The third place ( well deserved) in the rank of the most expensive cities in the world. And no, I am not Bill gates' daughter. I got there through an exchange program called Science Without Borders (#kissesDilma).

 

Paying a bill in Norway

By the way, it was by the University of Oslo that the author of the phrase above, James Dewar, physicist and chemist, received a PhD, in 1911. History aside, spending 1 year in Norway was light years from my monetary capacity and make an exchange was always a distant dream. That's why I didn't think twice as soon as the opportunity arose. A whole year far from your family and friends? yes. One year of delay in your graduation that you dream desperately with the day will end up? yes. But nothing compared with the return that an experience like that can give.

 Medieval Festival

The living abroad experience makes you shock with different cultures. Not exactly a shock in my case, since I didn't move out to Zimbabwe or Pakistan, but still you can observe particularities of each culture and start to respect them, what makes you, for sure, a more tolerant person.

 

In the beginning it's a bit difficult because you still interpret the attitude of others according with your own culture, as if that was the universal law of behaviour and good sense. As soon as I stepped my feet in Oslo, with 2 huge bags, one backpack weighing 10 kg plus a handbag (yes, because making a little research about Norway, of course I thought I would live on bread and water and wouldn't have money to buy anything, hence I'd have to take all I need from Brazil), having to go up and down with all of that, having to stop from time to time to rest, nobody, not a single soul, offered to help.

Me at the airport

Of course my first impression was not the best. Indeed, people tend to be much more helpful in Brazil, some times so helpful that someone can appear to carry your bags and never come back, just so you don't have to carry that weight anymore. I love the Brazilian hospitality. Anyway, with time I realised that the fact that Norwegians are not readily willing to help strangers on the street ( they are very kind when you ask for help, but don't expect an initiative) doesn't mean a character deficiency, or something like that. It's just a kind of posture that within their culture it's not common to take. Norway has a sense of equality that is taken to the extreme. Nobody has the right to feel more capable, smarter than the others. So an attitude like offering to carry the bags of an old lady can be faced by her as if you saw her as incapable. It doesn't matter how the other culture can seem weird in the beginning, with time you start to understand it and realise how much your own culture can be no sense to the others as well.

Another aspect about living abroad is the friends you make. Friends not, family. Yes, because the fact you are far from your family and friends makes you much more opened to build new friendships. When you find other people in the same situation that you, it's inevitable that these bonds of friendship are created. It's funny how in one day those people are complete strangers and soon you are like childhood friends. You make friends for a lifetime. People so different from you that in other circumstances would never become your friends, which would be a pity, because you realise how much you learned from them. But then months pass and that same painful phase comes again. Now you have to say good bye to that new family you got. People that were with you in that unsuccessful battle of going to the gym, that were with you in the metro while you talk about the person beside you, just because he/she can not understand a word ( sometimes they can), that helped you when you were sick and you mom wasn't there to take care of you, that were with you in the most amazing moments of your life. These people will now follow their own paths, back to their lives. But one thing is certain, nothing will be like before...

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