A couple of weeks ago, this guy told me "You know, I can't stand the portuguese conservatism... The people are so narrow-minded that after a month being there, I have to leave the place."

This guy is a portuguese IT consultant in my area of expertise, and he's been working all over the world for the past 5 years.

I've been realizing this exact same thing. Although my feelings haven't reached this level, I'm starting to feel that most of the people back home are living in their tiny little lives, making the wrong assumptions about everything else.

Imagine you've never lived abroad (and lived is the key word here) and all you do is sit somewhere watching the news. All you know about what's going on in the world comes to you from portuguese TV and the so-called experts. You then talk about the war in Iraq like you know a lot, and mention the Israel/Palestine conflict like you have the morality to judge every fucking thing.

Even inside our loved Portugal, you judge the africans, the eastern-european, the chinese, the brazilian when you have no fucking clue of what these people think and believe.

If you're a portuguese, you think you know it all from day one...

Well, newsflash buddy, you don't know shit!

Each week, I have the luck and pleasure of meeting and talking to people  from literally all over the World. It opens your eyes, your mind and refreshes you in a way you could never imagine. First of all, you get to talk about your own country like you've never done before, which is a lot of fun. Then you get to know how different cultures think, what they do, how they feel about certain things.

These experiences are the single most important thing I get out of living abroad these past 7 months. It's one of the best things I've ever experienced my whole life.

Next time you think about buying that status-building car that everybody will like, put the money in something far greater. Put on a fucking backpack and travel the world.