2016 is the year my life changed.

However, I never could have guessed it.

2016 per se didn’t start well for me. I was coming out of a 2 year relationship quite heartbroken, and felt lost about my academic career. I wanted to quit everything.

And so I did.

I graduated earlier, while working two jobs (baby-sitting in the day, waitress in the evenings and weekends) and saved enough money to support myself during a gap year I was gonna spend traveling.

I didn’t need much money to travel anyway, as the expenses of my first adventures abroad were mostly covered by the erasmusplus program.

That’s how I managed to travel and volunteer in Germany, Estonia, Portugal, Macedonia – and Brazil, but that’s another story.

I came back home a couple of times, just to pack and leave again. My dad started calling me “the girl with the suitcase – la ragazza con la valigia”, tho “with the backpack” is perhaps more accurate. 

In the meantime, I learnt a lot about EU mobility. As a European i do have huge privileges and great opportunities and thanks to the wide array of Erasmus programs I became an international student of the @euroculturemaster in the Netherlands and Germany, I did research in Maharashtra, India and my first internships in Belgium.

Internships became jobs, and that’s how I ended up working in Colombia. In between I connected with so many amazing people, learnt languages and built a new self, out of my comfort zone.

My adventures by voice have been gathered in a podcast by Fais ta valise and are available here (n French only): https://open.spotify.com/episode/4wYS40LRvMrX5skkMvmJmL