Life Update
Hey everybody, welcome to my first blog post ever!
Finding Matan
The title is a work in progress, so I am very open to your suggestions. Also very excited to hear all your best insults cuz this title is really asking for it.
Other titles I’m considering are The Stupid American, Hebrew Hitchhiker, American Abroad, Directionless, etc. If you have any ideas for better blog names to help with SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION, let me know. Not totally sure I want my future employer finding this but we will see where it goes.
Alright, so just for some background, I’ve just arrived in Australia on my working holiday visa. I am here indefinitely. No return ticket.
Quick update on what’s been going on with me:
I finished up my Master’s in Technology Management from UCSB back in June. A combination of not being sure what my passion is and not actually being able to get a job lead me to spontaneously buy a plane ticket to Hawaii.
I was very fortunate to secure a work-in-exchange-for-accommodation gig on a dragon fruit farm in the remote town of Ocean View, Hawaii. If you ever wanna save a bunch of money traveling, I highly recommend using a website like WWOOF or Workaway to find places to stay. More on that another time.
Basically, you work for a few hours a day and in return, you get a free place to stay and other perks. In Hawaii, I met amazing wandering souls, friendly neighborhood meth heads, and some of the most down-to-earth people in the United States. I was extremely lucky to get a bunch of delicious free meals, experience the privilege and joy of living with 4 DOGS, and have access to a car in exchange for only 5 hours of character-building work a day!
I spent two and a half months on the Big Island, living out various personal dreams like surfing in the unbelievably clear Hawaiian ocean, completing a solo ascent of the desolate 13,675 ft Mauna Loa, and eating fresh coconuts on an empty beach.
I probably learned more about myself in those 2+ months than I did in 5 years of college. Oh well.
Due to unforeseen circumstances and an amazing deal on plane tickets, I said “Fuck it” and bought a one-way ticket from Honolulu to Sydney. The downside of that was that I had to spend 2 days in Waikiki, which is literally a capitalist’s wet dream. Think Vegas and LA but with a tropical flavor.
I don’t know when I’m coming back yet, partly because I feel this is gonna be a shit year in America due to the *cough cough* 2020 presidential election.
So in the meantime, thanks to a kind suggestion from my mom, I’ve decided to start a blog to give my life some sort of purpose beyond exploration and finding myself or whatever. I’ll mostly write about the traveling life, but I might also put that Political Science degree to use sometimes and write about sociopolitical shit too.
We definitely need another straight, white male voice in the conversation! (Joking)
The point of this is to stay connected with people back home, reflect on what I’ve been learning about myself and the world, and maybe even inspire some people to do some traveling of their own.
This sort of “finding yourself” journey seems to be really missing from American culture, especially because I literally haven’t met a single other American here.
Please let me know if this blog gets a little too self-congratulatory or self-centered because nothing’s more annoying than someone sharing all their accomplishments on social media. But that’s for another blog post.
Each post will have a link to a song I’m enjoying right now and a book I’ve been reading. Reading books is fun! I really forgot that for a few years there. Here’s what I’ve been listening to and reading this week:
The Beach by Alex Garland
The next blog post is going to be all about my hitchhiking experiences so far. Hitchhiking is very new to me and I’ve already met some fuckin inspiring, scary, crazy, and hilarious people. Really good mix. I’ll try to get that up ASAP.
Feel free to reach out and let me know your thoughts! I’ve never done this before and I would also love to hear from you. Traveling alone leaves you a little starved for the familiar AND I NEED HUMAN CONNECTION.
Alright, here we go!
