best university in the world I

It was already November 2024, and December was approaching. Time to renew my flat contract. The moment I felt I wasn’t just renewing a flat or my “home” (which I’d later discover I’ve still got a long way to go before I can call any place “home”; I need to see more places to work out which spaces I’m comfortable in and which I’m not). I felt like I was renewing routine, work, lifestyle, basically everything. I’d been living in Argentina for 25 years. It was about time I lived somewhere else for a few. Though the idea was still in its early days.

So I didn’t renew the contract, and with a friend that I call master of all masters, I started planning a 6-month trip. What a boludo, thinking I’d be back to normal that quickly. Unthinkable. 6 months that felt like just 6 weeks. Incomparable to balance 25 years lived in Argentina with what’s still left to live abroad. And I say “left” because there’s still loads left. At that point I said, I want to stay longer, and that’s what I did. You find a way to stay. How? Well, there are ways. I’ll share those later.

Planning the trip was essential. Even more so for someone who’d never crossed the Atlantic. Thousands of questions and things to sort out. Obviously the bureaucratic stuff: passport, Schengen, guita, accommodation, work, etc. Things that someone who eats the coconut simply can’t think about. Thinking about leaving behind my beloved Oliver, my mates, my family, the penguins, projects I’d been building, putting them all on a 6-month pause. A pause I missed more and more as time went on, because once those 6 months were up, my return flight would also expire, and there’d be no going back. I’d have to wait for another chance. A chance which, on more than one occasion, I ended up calling money (I still call it that today, sometimes). Because I also had to keep deciding what to do, use what I’d saved as a safety net for emergencies, or use it as a personal investment in the best university in the world, which is travelling.

The planning took a couple of months, from November when I made the decision to travel, until January when I bought the first tickets. the 14th, right after we’d had a month-end close from the end-of-year sales. Once the tickets to London were bought as the first destination, it was official. I was leaving Argentina. Though nothing made it feel like my adventure had actually begun until I crossed that sign, UK Border Control, which I saw for the first time at Heathrow. There’d be many more after that. Going back to London, during the trip, was a pleasure that still is one. A city that reminds me of that feeling, that sense of achievement and of a new beginning, a place I thoroughly enjoy, more the memory of the thrill than anything else these days.

You’d think that for a 15-day Europe trip you need at least 3.000 USD. Which was pretty much my entire starting capital for 6 months. So someone could rightly say it’s impossible. Well, with not much money for those 6 months, you find a way to keep the trip going. And remember, Impossible is nothing.

At first they didn’t believe me. Because changing everything stable, everything I’d been building, my mates, my brilliant job that I loved, my mates from the office, my dog Oliver, why leave all that behind for some trip idea that seemed to come out of nowhere. Not until I showed them the tickets. That’s when they said, “ah ok, so this is actually happening.”

And then the day came to leave to Ezeiza. I’ll continue that in another one article.