One thing I didn’t expect about long-term travel was having so much time each day. I knew that I would have free time, but I figured there would still be little things to do, even if it was just lots of sightseeing.

photo credit: CarbonNYC

Now that I’ve had a few weeks to de-stress (it took about 3 weeks before I could finally relax) I can do whatever I want. Besides sightseeing, writing, and reading (things I expected to spend a lot of time on) I devote my time to other activities I didn’t consider before. Here are some things I do with my time and my reflections on them:

Sleep

I used to sleep 8 hours a night and feel pretty well-rested on most days. Now my body wants to sleep 10 hours. When I think about it, 10 hours of sleep each night seems too much (isn’t this what society tells us?). I’m trying to cut my sleep back to 9 hours a night — who would have ever thought I’d say that?

Dream

Because of all the sleep and lack of stress (I assume) I dream a lot and wake up remembering most of my dreams. These vivid dreams are rarely about our travels. Rather they incorporate people from my past — some people I haven’t thought about in ages.

I know I should probably keep a dream journal and figure out what all these dreams mean, but part of me would rather not overanalyze them. Although a few weeks ago I had a series of crazy dreams about being pregnant, and I did analyze (aka Google) that. Apparently it has to do with major changes in my life.

Think

Because I don’t have a job or any real responsibilities I have time to think. A huge amount of time to think. And not that much to think about. So my thoughts (like my dreams seem to do) go to my past, memories that I didn’t even realize I had. I think about the future and what it will look like. I try to take in every moment and “live in the present.” But still, I have more time to think than ever before and I’m not sure I like it.

Eat

In Defense of Food (a great book) argues that we should take our time when eating and cooking. Here in Argentina we definitely do that. The Argentinean culture is naturally slow. If dining out, it’s easy to take an hour at breakfast drinking a cup of coffee and eating medialunas (pastries). Lunch can take 1.5-2 hours; afternoon coffee and snack 1.5 hours; late dinner 2 hours. This is if we ate every meal out and took our time Argentinean style. Obviously we don’t spend 7 hours of our day eating, but it’s probably close to 4-6. Most of the time is spent sitting in the cafe or restaurant and talking or thinking. When we cook it’s probably the same amount of time, only most of the time is spent preparing food, cooking it, and cleaning up.

I’ll be honest, I’m not sure this lifestyle is totally for me. I love being able to cook and read and hike and sight-see and stay up late watching the Obama speech (it ended at 2:30am our time) without worrying about sleep deprivation. But I can’t get over the feeling that I’m not really contributing anything back to society. This week we’ll be volunteering in nearby El Bolson (more on that later) so maybe then I’ll feel like I’m giving back. But right now I can’t help but wondering if all the time I spending sleeping and dreaming and thinking and eating is excessive.