Raw Food, Traveling in Europe and Cycling
In August of 2009, I quit my job as a bartender at a wonderful bar in Northern Michigan. I had great weekend shifts, made amazing money, met influential CEO’s & CFO’s, became friends with the founders of Hands On Disaster Response, and chatted with a few billionaires.Why would I want to leave such a great job?
The drive to leave the life of a bartender and move on to something else took a full year to surface. One year after working as a bartender, I gave my 2-week notice — much to everyone’s surprise!
Spending 40 hours a week with a group of people starts to feel more like an extended family than co-workers. But, I knew in my heart I needed to leave.
When I left the bar on my last shift, it was bitter sweet. A few farewells, and that was it — I was driving home to plan the next phase in my life. My girlfriend, Kristen, and I talked on end about wanting to travel Europe and we decided that now was the time. Kristen had just finished her undergrad studies and was looking for work. I suggested we take our bikes over to Europe and bike around for awhile. As the conversation evolved, we ended up planning to leave Michigan in mid-September and fly into Madrid. Our return flight was from Rome to Los Angeles, 4 months later.
We were given the opportunity to do whatever we wanted for 4 full months. With the help of HelpX.net, a low-priced website that matches you up with homes/farms that need workers, Kristen and I roughly mapped out a few of the places we wanted to stop. Valencia, Barcelona, Avignon, Rome, Florence. We brought our bicycles along and took a chance. We had NO idea what we were getting ourselves into, but I’m so happy to say that it was the best experience of my life.
Traveling abroad does more for you than just show you different sights. By traveling by bicycle, we were able to meet with locals, talk to complete strangers every single day, disappear into hideaways to camp for the night … we were really alive!
The two of us blogged the majority of the trip over at http://www.rawandfit.com/biketour Due to my computer breaking in France, we don’t have much after that. We do, however, have a TON of great memories!
In regards to eating raw while traveling … it’s difficult. It’s hard to haul around all the raw foods you need. It’s even more difficult to find organic produce. But – it’s possible. We maintained a high-raw vegetarian diet. It wasn’t perfect, but it was what we could do. Please read about our travels, and comment on the posts here:
http://www.rawandfit.com/biketour
Here’s a video of where we stayed one night, while stuck in France:
Watch Sleeping in a Train Station Posted in Fitness, Lifestyle.