100 Days of My New Normal

Today marks the 100th day of my Remote Year experience, and it’s amazing to think of everything those days have encompassed. Since July 31, I:

• Visited or lived in 7 countries (the UK, Portugal, Morocco, Bulgaria, Turkey, Romania, Croatia)
• Helped lead two local hackathons benefitting socially minded businesses
• Landed 6 new clients
• Rode a camel to a Saharan campsite where I climbed a giant sand dune barefoot to check out the Milky Way and watch shooting stars
• Was kicked out of a monastery for laughing inside the church
• Took cultural cooking classes to learn how to make tagine in Morocco and banitsa in Bulgaria
• Waved at the Asian shoreline from a boat on the Bosphorus River
• Invited myself into a home to eat Chinese food
• Invited myself into a home to taste wine
• Partied in Dracula’s castle and on a Moroccan pirate ship
• Wandered around countless ancient ruins, churches, mosques and markets
• Hiked and biked amongst some fabulous nature
• Rode a chairlift to the top of a mountain and decided to stay the night up there
• Drove rental cars in two different countries
• Worked (usually productively) from coworking spaces, cafes, airports, trains, hostels, a Berber tent, Airbnbs, buses, cars, a 4-star hotel pool deck, bars and each of my varied living accommodations

When listed out like that, it seems a little unreal to realize all of that has been squeezed into the past 100 days, and crazy to think what the next 100, 200, 265 days will bring, and even crazier to think that somehow all this has started to feel normal.

Take a spin through a typical week in RY by checking out this excellent blog post by my fellow Remote, Jason Susinski.

These adventures are pretty awesome, but the community I’m experiencing it with is even awesomer (apologies for the gratuitous use and bastardization of the a-word, CJ Hutchinson). As I type this, one group is preparing a little party to celebrate our 100 days together, while another sets up the A/V equipment to follow US election results as they stream in, and a third group makes plans for a sunrise yoga photo shoot. All this while the crew around me is solidly working away at deadlines and projects and client calls. This is normal, and I like it.