I recently realised that the Australian government only permits me to spend 17 weeks per year outside the country. That’s if I want to stay on my pension, which I do.
I had been planning to spend a year living like a local someplace like Granada, Spain, but I can see that 3-4 months will have to do. The condensed time period may mean that I can live like a local in higher income countries, like Finland.
In the past decade that I have been exploring Europe, I took many inter-continental flights. In 2018 alone I flew seven times once there. In 2021, with the increasing awareness of how much our carbon emissions are contributing to Earth’s suffering, I am disinterested in repeating that pattern.
I will think back to 2016, when I spent all my time in Germany: 2 weeks in Berlin, with a short train journey onwards to a smaller town in East Germany to visit a close one, day trips to two other East German towns by train, and then finally a longer train ride to Frankfurt, my departure point.
I felt a strong connection to Germany because I was seeing off-the-beaten-path destinations with the help of someone I cared about. I had more time to walk the streets, connect one block and suburb to the next, come up with theories about why Germans thrusted themselves forwards under the name of walking, muse on multiculturalism, speculate about GLBTIQ inclusion, and so on. More time meant more connection.
With this in mind I’m eager to immerse myself in a new place (or even an old place ;) ), and learn something new.
