Traveling for long spells can take its toll on you!

I have lost count on the times people come to me and say how lucky I must be to travel on assignments for days or weeks on foreign shores. But sometimes the grass is looking greener on the other side of the discussion.

Spending time in a country where you can speak enough of the language to say "Hi", "Thank You" and "No" - and no-one speaks a word of English isn't always a walk in the rose garden. Even something as simple as buying your next meal can become 'an experience' - and quite often you actually have no idea what you are eating.. but if it tastes edible, then why question what you are eating :-) 

For this Blog post I can use the example of my current two week assignment to Bulgaria - for FIBA Europe U20's Division B. There really should be nothing to complain about, the weather is absolutely brilliant, food is cheap, I am getting paid, the apartment is nice and the sport is basketball (which I love!). All good you say?? Yes, why not.. 

This trip is slightly different as I am staying in an apartment, so I get to do all my own cooking instead of looking for restaurants to eat in. Although going to the supermarket can be challenging - now Bulgarian isn't the easiest language to read.. so you rely on pictures/visual aids to figure out what you are buying for dinner. Also sometimes you end up buying too much of something and eating sausages for a week.. and despite staying here for couple of weeks.. I am yet to figure out which carton in the dairy section is cream!

Next illusion many have is that they believe that you have hours to soak in the new surrounding and explore places - in my case, this could not usually be further from truth. Normal day can start at a training session for one of the teams at 10.20am - and end (at the Arena) at 10.30pm when the last games is over.. on top of this you still have to count the editing time for the pictures from four games, two training sessions and few video interviews - and it would be nice to have something to eat as well.. so before you crawl to the bed at 2am.. it has been a long day of work (and no sightseeing). During the last two weeks I had exactly 4 hours to spend in Sofia city centre, otherwise it has been spent at the venues or editing pictures/videos.

One of the toughest things (for me) is that on the long travels - you are spending a lot of time on your own and naturally miss the people back home (which in my case would be my wife). And where as these feelings rarely surface in the first days, as things are exciting and you are getting used to surroundings/work - once that novelty of it wears out.. the days become long and you start to count the days before you get to fly back home and wondering whether a 9to5 job would be so bad after all ;-) But this also makes me appreciate the times I DO get to spend at home that much more.

On the work front - one of the biggest challenges on the foreign trips the reliability of Wi-Fi (or if there even is if Wi-Fi!!) at the venue - in the age when the clients like to have the images two minutes before you have actually taken the picture, you rely on the organisers to have a stable connection at the venue - and if not?? Well, most places have a McD's near-by, with free Wi-Fi you can use after the game, although this doesn't work in tournaments where you stay at the venue for the whole day.

By now you feel like it's all moan moan and moan - but like with so many things, maybe it is when you have too much of the good stuff.. it doesn't feel so special anymore?? And despite writing about the difficulties and so on - I do love my work and have had some great experiences, met some great people and seen things and visited places I never thought I would see. All this thanks to my job :-)

Now - here in Sofia it is time for the last day of the tournament.. and tomorrow I am flying home!! And better to remember to bring lots of presents to my wife as I am missing most of her birthday....