There's actually a big world out there...

Some years ago I was walking in the streets of Dublin with another little guy when someone noticed the cameras on our shoulders and asked us if we were photographers. We said we were, although not professionals. "That's not important, what matters is that you're taking photos". The guy was Geo, an american photographer who was working on his project of photographing the atmosphere of hostels and the world of backpacking. We talked for about half an hour, and in the end he gave us some leaflets about his project and invited us to go and watch his exhibition in a nearby hostel, which we did.

A month ago I was sorting through all the papers I keep in my laptop case and I found the leaflets Geo gave me in Dublin. I went to his website and browsed through his "The point of traveling" photographs. Suddenly I realized that he's right, his photos somehow feel right. The points of traveling, or at least some of them, are to enjoy ourselves, to discover new worlds, and to share those discoveries with the people that are important to us. I remembered my journeys, and the stories that took place in them, and noticed that most of those stories I kept to myself. So I decided to find a place where I could share those stories.

I can't imagine if someone will find the stories I will be posting here interesting or not. The only thing that matters to me is that they happened as I was discovering the big world out there. And of course, these are just the beginning because there is still a lot to discover. Thinking about this I remembered the lyrics of a song by The Kings of Convenience called "Summer in the Westhill". At some point it goes

"Now I know there is a world beyond the small place I was coming from.
I feel at home here, in the middle of nowhere."

Those lines pretty much sum up what I feel about the world. It's a big place, and I feel at home, precisely when I'm somewhere (or nowhere), letting it all in, exploring it and trying to discover what it has to offer. And of course sharing what I can with my friends and the people I care about.

One last thing about the language of the posts. Being portuguese, I don't mean to write in english to sound pretentious or to reach most people. I love my language and the only reason I don't write in it is because some of the stories I'll be posting have characters in them. And these characters are actually real people I met while travelling and most of them don't speak portuguese. So it seems logical to me that, if some of these people actually read these stories, they can at least understand what are my thoughts about the experiences I went through with them.