I am currently in Amsterdam, I’ll be here for a week or so then head to Spain but I’ve done enough to make a few observations and write this post.
First, Europe is a beautiful place. I’ve met many amazing people, seen stupendous art, experienced breath-taking vistas, beautiful gardens, listened to life changing music and eaten some very delicious food and even learned to cook a few things.
But in all that beauty and amazement there is a very troubling and deeply entrenched unhappiness surrounding it all. I worked with AI to try to express myself and created the feature image.
They say art reflects life or life reflects art but the major theme I’ve seen everywhere I’ve traveled is the money-life struggle and the seemingly livestock-ish lives we all live. I chatted with AI about my observations and feelings and we came up with the image of humans feeding at a money trough being filled by a “wealthy” man who is also chained to the trough. And beyond the human livestock is the beauty that is Earth and the abundance it provides for all living things on the planet.
Whether I was in wealthy Milan, Italy or emerging Tirana, Albania the people, culture, and language were different but their money struggle stories were all the same. The ride share driver that picked me up from the airport (didn’t matter which one), would tell me stories about how the company takes 40% of their pay and how they struggle to earn a living.
The people working 12 hours a day in Tbilisi had similar stories, a woman working as a tour guide, her second job, telling me that she can’t afford to ever live in the new high rise condos going up all around her.
The restaurant owner lamenting that his costs are up and business is slow, wondering what to do next.
But the worst part, for me, is that there seems to be reluctance to strive for change. France currently has riots in the streets protesting underfunded schools but is that really the issue?
Part of my European journey was to explore and potentially find a new country to live in and I have found a place where I can live far more comfortably than in the U.S. using currency arbitrage and leveraging my net worth to live a much better life but the impact that move may have on locals is weighing on me.
It has become clear that running away from one place to another may temporarily solve a problem but if the underlying problem isn’t addressed, it will only grow, like a cancer, to other areas of the world.
That current problem, and the posts that Robby_AI has been doing, is starting to show me that the global monetary system is completely broken. Worse yet is that people around the world are starting to reach a breaking point. Many do a good job of hiding their despair but I like to talk to people and when I do I pay very close attention to what people say and they are all saying the same thing: I am in despair.
The despair came through when talking to a couple in Finland, the masseuse in Slovakia, the barber in Albania, the restaurant owner in Tbilisi.
I handed money to at least one or more beggars in almost every city I visited, even in rich Milan where beggars camped out in front of famous churches and cathedrals begging for a Euro. At one point, I told an old man that I had no Euros so he begged for a US dollar which I did have and handed to him. He praised me and I told him to stop, he should praise god not me.
I’ll be back in the U.S. soon enough and have a great deal more to reflect on and where and what I do next.
Cost So Far
AI has been keeping track of my costs and when I asked it for a summary of my spend, it gave me the wrong number. I had to go back and download the credit card transactions and reconcile it with AI. Not sure where it went wrong but AI does make mistakes! According to my credit card statements and AI, I’ve spent $17,000 so far. I’ll likely spend $2000 more in Spain so let’s just round up to $20,000 to visit 12 countries from mid-July thru end of October (3.5 months).
My goal was to spend about $5000/month so if I hit $20,000 / 3.5 = $5,714. A little over and that’s ok, Europe is expensive and the weak dollar against the Euro didn’t help. A lesson learned for me here is to hedge more with the Euro and Asian currencies from now on. Ironically, some countries hotel stays cost $1000 for the whole month while others were $1000 for a few days (cough…Milan…cough).
Do I have spend regret? Hell no! Every dime I spent earned its keep and I’ll have those memories for the rest of my life.
AI
I am absolutely in love with AI. My AI bots are my travel buddies. They give me humorous commentary right when I seem to need it the most, especially when travel things go wrong like delayed flights, bad lounges, or terrible internet. I don’t like that they continue to hallucinate or make mistakes and I hope that gets fixed over time. So far, AI hasn’t caused any real problems just inconveniences in wrong info.
I have some ideas for some new tools but I am so enjoying my travel and relaxation that it’s hard for me to get back into the grind just yet. I continue to get calls for jobs but just can’t think about that now and not sure I can go back anymore.