Please, help me: I'm stuck in a hostel in London with a lot of loud teenagers
Sometimes in life we need to go backward to move forward
Please, help me. I'm in trouble at a hostel in London. In the past 72 hours, I have:
Been interrupted by loud Argentinian teenagers while writing this text. To make matters worse, they turned on the TV loudly.
Been forced to listen to the tongue sounds of a young couple passionately kissing next to me (smack, smack, smack).
Slept in a shared room with five other people I don't know, but I could recognize every tone of the prolonged snoring of two of them. I also know that the person above me moves every five minutes, generating a loud creaking noise in the bunk bed.
Taken a shower in a communal men's bathroom. There are few things messier than a collective men's bathroom.
I caught them
To pay for a hostel was what I could afford. At the very last minute, taking advantage of being in Budapest, I decided to cover the Remote Working Expo 2023 in the city for this newsletter (I'll talk about the event in future editions). It was a unique opportunity for networking and ideas for No Direction Home.
Unfortunately, charming London is an expensive city, especially for someone who earns in BRL like me. A junk food snack with a small bottle of juice costs almost the same as a good lunch at a restaurant in São Paulo.
$$$$
I paid £70 (equivalent to R$450) for three nights at the hostel in Russel Square —an excellent localization. As a comparison, the cheapest hotel or Airbnb (and much further from a central area) was £270 (or R$1,800).
If I really really wanted, I might even pay for something better. But the life of a digital nomad is uncertain. Every penny saved matters, especially in a point of turbulent economies worldwide and layoffs in startups and the tech industry.
I plan to explore this aspect in more detail in a future text, but sometimes in life we need to take a few steps back to be able to take more steps forward.
I had a comfortable life with monthly earnings and could afford some extras. Spending nights in hostels at 32 years old may have been outside the initial plan. Sometimes, I think to myself: wouldn't it be easier to watch Netflix on the couch with a girlfriend and a cat?
Sometimes, I think to myself: wouldn't it be easier to watch Netflix on the couch with a girlfriend and a cat?
It certainly would be. But what has been driving me nowadays is the desire to live as a digital nomad and work remotely for a while. And for that, I am willing to endure more difficulties if necessary.
I swear that as I finish this text, a group of friends from a country I didn't recognize hit my power outlet, turning off my computer. It's a sign that I should stop here before the next test.
