Sex, Travel and The Pandemic

Catalonia, Home Time, And the Quest for Freedom

After Germany, I found my way over in the Catalonia capital city of Barcelona. Remember when I mentioned that Prague was my second favorite city in Europe, well, let me introduce you to my favorite of all time: Barcelona. My reason for loving Barcelona had nothing to do with partying or sex or any form of hedonist lifestyle. It was the energy, vibrance, color, and the sheer architecture of the Spanish city.

Walking about Barcelona was a dream come true and every second I spent exploring made me yearn for the nomad lifestyle even more. But here's the thing about intention, it's useless without action. If I ever wanted to return to Barcelona, I needed to concoct a plan to make more money digitally and become the elusive digital nomad. I technically already made money online but not very much after the online blog I had worked for went under.

Getting laid off from my job as a political blogger had quite a toll on me and my mental health. There was no warning, no sign or anything. My boss just messaged in the middle of the day saying that the blog isn't making enough money and we are closing its operations, effective immediately.

The blog followed the Donald Trump election and when he got elected it followed every single thing he did, both "good" and "bad". Business was booming at first as Donald Trump was among the most trending names online. But as time went by, the blog just

couldn't maintain a profitable readership and it bit the dust, taking all its workers with it. That included me. My major income stream was gone, and I had to find a new one. At the moment it was a crushing blow, but looking back, it was actually a blessing in disguise.

My girlfriend did a good job at keeping me sane during that time. In the midst of that failure, I still had a beautiful girlfriend who loved me and that kept me afloat, until the summer of 2018 when that lifeboat sprung a leak and was now sinking into the Atlantic Ocean.

I spent a week in Barcelona, enjoying the tapas, touring the city, and drinking at bars. My "girlfriend" made some Turkish friends and was out and about in Istanbul enjoying the finer things in life. We were both over the relationship but still open to the idea of trying to make it work. It was a weird and crazy limbo that had my mind in disarray. I never told her about what happened in Prague, even to this day, but I reckon she suspected some sort of foul play or cheating while I was alone.

I did everything I could to forget about my girlfriend. I drank, partied, and continued living the hedonist backpacking lifestyle throughout Europe.

Then, it was time to go home

I pondered about my next moves as I sat on a British Airways flight back to Trinidad, my "girlfriend" sitting right next to me. We were both dazed, and tired, our minds flooded with our separate European adventures, yearning for more. But this was it. This was the end of my last-ditched attempt to save this failing relationship. Maybe it just wasn't meant to be saved and our relationship was simply past its expiration date. Our relationship was spoilt milk and the more we drank of it the sicker we became. This was only my first ever relationship and kudos it was a valiant attempt. I still had a lot to learn about not only on the dynamics of a relationship but also about myself.

My focus was shifting from saving my relationship to saving my career. Women, they come and go but having a striving career that could fuel my lust for travel was rare. My mission to save my failing relationship didn't go very well but I was now determined to save my career. I had to turn my blog into something special; a money-making machine. I had to cut all the bullshit and get to work. One foot in front of the other on this uphill journey. I had to become a digital nomad!

Mission "Save my relationship": FAILED!

Mission "Become a digital nomad": IN PROGRESS!

Here we go again!