It’s hard to set roots when you fly 100+ times a year. But what defines a home – its location or the way you feel there? I think many people live in a single place but don’t really feel at home. For me, home can be anywhere as long as I’m surrounded by people I like and trust.
In episode 13 of my vlog experiment, I talk about where I stay while I travel, doing “housekeeping” and our visit to Facebook’s HQ. Hope you enjoy!
Video Transcript
It’s Wednesday night and it’s time for a bit of housekeeping. Once a week, I need to wash and do laundry – I have enough clothing for seven days. I often get asked where I do laundry. So all except for one time in the last few years I do it at friends’ places, family or whoever I’m staying with. And only one time I had to go to a laundromat or do it at a hotel. Very often it just works out. I just do it overnight like today.
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Here’s another benefit of traveling with your dad – I went to sleep yesterday, he took care of laundry. And now I’ve got everything ready here.
Last day in California
Today’s our last day, we’re flying out tonight at 8 p.m. I’m just about to finish my workout and then I’ll head to the office. Super excited for the last day at the office of the DFINITY team.
Trying to finalize next steps for me and the team. I have a little surprise plan for my dad this afternoon before we go to the airport. Gotta find my Uber and make my drive down to The Valley.
Where’s home? Everywhere.
Whenever I stay with friends or family, it gives me this hour in a very intimate setting where you can share experiences, talk about what really matters. They do make me feel at home wherever I am. That’s a very cool part of not having a home – is having so many different homes in so many different places.
Wrapping up the trip with a visit to Facebook’s HQ
It’s almost time to wrap up this trip. It’s been a long trip in my world. Been here for six days, or seven actually. Gotten pretty used to the timezone and it has been extremely productive. Catching up with the team, being able to sit in the same room, draw on a whiteboard… And I’m extremely excited about the next few months.
Before leaving, I’m just gonna go over to Facebook. My dad kept mentioning that he’s amazed by how many big companies are set up right around us and, like, he’s getting a much, much better idea of what Silicon Valley means by just seeing all these companies and different projects around us. So I figured I’ll reach out to a friend at Facebook and see if we can come by so he gets an idea of one of the really, really big scale companies look like in real life, and what sets them apart and how they’re set up here in Silicon Valley.
Things go back to normal
At about 8 p.m. tonight our flight to Zurich leaves. It’s, I think, 11 hours. We’ll get in at roughly 4:00 p.m. tomorrow local time. The next week is going to be a bit more typical for how my life has looked over the past year.
So tomorrow I’m gonna get back to Zurich. The day after I’m spending in Frankfurt. On Sunday I’m flying to Toronto for GLC which is an Entrepreneurs’ Organization conference. I’m gonna be there for three days, fly back Wednesday night. Arrive at Frankfurt on Thursday morning, get back to Zurich Thursday night. And then Friday, it’s tomorrow in a week, I’ll be in Zurich. And Friday night I fly out to Hong Kong, be there for a couple days and then fly to Bali on Tuesday after.
And Bali, there’s no real business connection to Bali, I’m organizing a get together for all the young members in EO. Other than that, it’s really just being in a beautiful place on Earth, getting some time to relax, sort my thoughts, re-energize, restructure parts of my work and personal life.
Then come back to work full force, get started on a lot of exciting projects, including DFINITY.
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In front of Facebook, just visited a friend there. Cool to see their campus. It’s a gorgeous afternoon here in Menlo Park. I think it was pretty cool to see this together with my dad and my friend. The time has come and we’re gonna jump in an Uber and head to the airport.
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And we’re back at the airport – quick rest in the lounge. In about 30 to 40 minutes the plane is gonna start boarding and we’re gonna be on our way back to Zurich.
You can listen to the audio version here:
